A little local perspective
Worth knowing.
Worth going.
- Destination
- Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
- The selection
- 11 hotels
- Your kind of trip
- food · shows · groups · nightlife
$$ to $$$$ — roughly $180-800 a night plus resort fees, swinging hard with the convention calendar
The Las Vegas Strip is four and a quarter miles long and looks like a walkable street. It is not one. The casinos are set back behind their own frontages, the buildings are enormous, and the crossings are handled by pedestrian bridges that force you up an escalator, across, and down again. The distance from the entrance of one resort to the entrance of the one that appears to be next door is routinely twenty minutes, and about eight of those are spent inside a casino floor that has been designed to make leaving difficult.
Add 40-degree summer heat and the walk that looked like nothing on a map becomes the reason people take a cab three hundred metres.
What we have left off
The southern Strip properties are excluded, including the quietest luxury rooms in Nevada. They sit at the far end of a four-mile road, which means every dinner and every show involves a car.
What actually makes a Vegas hotel well positioned
Not the address. The clusters. There are three or four places on the Strip where several major properties sit close together with direct connections between them, and inside those clusters walking genuinely works.
The largest is the centre Strip around the Bellagio fountains: a group of resorts within a few minutes of each other, most connected by bridges or interior walkways, with the highest concentration of good restaurants in the city. The northern cluster around the Venetian and Wynn is the second. Everything else on the Strip involves committing to a proper walk or a car.
The eleven below are all inside a cluster. They are grouped by which one.
The centre Strip cluster
The densest and best-connected section, around the fountains and the Cosmopolitan corner.
Bellagio sits behind the fountains with the best restaurant collection in Las Vegas, a conservatory that changes seasonally and rooms that are consistently good rather than fashionable. It is the anchor of this cluster and the most central address in the city.
The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas occupies the corner opposite with terrace suites that hang over the Strip, a rooftop pool complex and the most interesting bars and restaurants in Vegas. The wrap-around terrace rooms are the best rooms on the Strip and worth the supplement.
ARIA Resort & Casino is the calmer, more contemporary resort set back from the road with a very good spa, the best standard rooms in the cluster and a walkway to the shopping. It is the pick if the casino is not the point.
Vdara Hotel & Spa is the non-gaming tower beside it, which means you can reach your room without crossing a casino floor. That single feature makes it the quietest stay in central Las Vegas.
Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas sits above the same complex as the most conventionally luxurious hotel in the city, with a separate entrance, a private pool and no slot machines. It is the newest of the group.
The Cromwell is the small boutique casino on the corner, with a rooftop club and the shortest walk to the fountains of anything on this list.
Paris Las Vegas sits across the road with the Eiffel replica, and its main virtue is position: it is inside the cluster, cheaper than its neighbours, and connected to the shopping and the concert venues.
Caesars Palace occupies the largest site in the cluster with a garden pool complex, a serious spa and the widest range of room categories in the city, from ordinary to very good indeed. Ask which tower.
Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino sits beside the theatre complex with rooms above a shopping centre, which sounds unpromising and produces the most convenient position in the cluster for shows.
The northern cluster
Around the Venetian and Wynn, twenty minutes' walk from the centre, with its own dense group of restaurants.
The Venetian Resort Las Vegas is all-suite, enormous, and connected to a convention centre and a shopping canal, with more good restaurants under one roof than anywhere else in Nevada. The suites are the largest standard rooms in the city.
Wynn Las Vegas sits at the northern end with the best service in Las Vegas, a golf course behind it, and the two connected towers between them holding the highest concentration of fine dining on the Strip. It is quieter than everything to its south.
What to do besides the tables
Eat. Las Vegas has become one of the strongest restaurant cities in America and the chef outposts here are frequently better than the originals. Book ahead for anything good.
See a show, and choose a resident production over a touring one. The Cirque shows are worth the ticket at least once.
Leave the Strip. Red Rock Canyon is 30 minutes west and the scenic loop takes two hours. Valley of Fire is an hour northeast and is better. The Hoover Dam is 45 minutes. The Grand Canyon's south rim is four and a half hours each way, which makes the helicopter tours a reasonable proposition.
Go downtown to Fremont Street for the old Vegas casinos, and to the Arts District nearby, which has the bars and restaurants locals use.
Practical notes
Harry Reid airport is 10 to 15 minutes from the Strip. The monorail runs behind the eastern resorts and is less useful than it looks. Ride shares have designated pickup points, often a long walk inside the resort.
March to May and September to November are the best months. June to August regularly exceeds 40 degrees. Rates swing enormously with the convention calendar; a room can be triple its normal price if a large trade show is in town, so check the dates.
Resort fees are universal and high, often 45 to 60 dollars a night. Parking is now usually charged.
Explore 4 & 5 Star Las Vegas Hotels
Prices shown are sample rates from upcoming dates — not quotes for specific dates. Open a hotel and choose your own dates and guests to see the exact price.
Questions people actually ask
Can you walk the Strip?
Between clusters, yes, in cool weather, allowing far more time than the map suggests. End to end, no.
Which cluster is best?
The centre, for restaurants, shows and connections. The north for suites and a quieter, more expensive feel.
Is a non-gaming hotel worth it?
If you do not gamble, considerably. Crossing a casino floor to reach your room several times a day is the main source of Vegas fatigue.
How many nights?
Three. Four if you are adding a day trip to Red Rock or Valley of Fire, which is what makes the trip more than a weekend.
