How to get into Las Vegas from Harry Reid International Airport

There’s only one international airport in Las Vegas. Harry Reid International was known as McCarran International up until 2021, when controversy over the questionable views of former Nevada senator Pat McCarran finally boiled over, prompting a 21st-century update. Senator Harry Reid lived just long enough to see the airport take his name in December 2021, just two weeks prior to his death. In spite of this, many still know the airport as McCarran. Or just plan Las Vegas Airport. The airport identification code – LAS – remains unaltered.

Depending on direction of travel (and which side of the plane you’re sitting on), you might well get to enjoy cracking views of the Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam and the Strip on your descent into fabulous Las Vegas. No matter how experienced your pilot, you’re also reasonably likely to experience a bumpy landing here. That’s due to unpredictable mountain air currents and hot dry desert air. The effect is particularly pronounced in summer. Still, the excitement will set you up rather nicely for all the thrills and spills that await in Sin City. But first, let us address the rather more prosaic matter of getting from LAS to town. 

The good news is that Harry Reid is a mere hop and a skip from the Strip: from a little over a mile if you’re staying at the southern end (MGM Grand and Mandalay Bay) to more like four miles if you’re bedding down at e.g. The STRAT, at the northern end. It’s eight miles to the Fremont Street Experience in downtown, technically the center of Vegas.

Proximity of landing strip to actual Strip means there’s no need for stacks of transit options. Buses are frequent, reliable and – if a little slow – certainly the cheapest way of getting from A to B, useful if you’ve just accidentally dropped 100 bucks on the airport’s 1,000+ slot machines. Viva Las Vegas, baby!

This is pretty straightforward. There are three public bus services out of Harry Reid, and all of them bypass the Strip and make straight for Downtown. One-way tickets cost just a few bucks and can be bought at airport ticket machines, via the RideRTC app and (with exact change only) on the bus. Routes 108 and 109 run most frequently and will get you to the Bonneville Transit Center (BTC) bus stop in around 35-45 minutes. Route 109 runs around the clock. 

Alternatively the Centennial Express CX out of terminals 1 and 3 takes around 45 minutes to reach the end of the line at Casino Center & Fremont. 

Top tips: you can pay a few dollars more for 24-hour passes on all of these services, which also includes travel aboard the Deuce on the Strip bus, of which more below. Once in Downtown Las Vegas, you can make use of the excellent Downtown Loop bus service for free. 

There are two main options for getting to your Strip hotel from the airport using public transport:

1. Take the Centennial Express CX, which departs from terminals 1 and 3, and disembark at the Tropicana after Koval Ln stop after around 20-25 minutes. From here you can transfer to the Las Vegas Monorail, which runs roughly parallel to the Strip along the eastern side and stops at several stations close to major hotels. A single one-way ride on the monorail costs $5.50. Day passes and multi-day passes are also available.
2. Take the 109 bus route from the airport and disembark at South Strip Transit Terminal Bay 18. From there it’s a short walk to the South Strip Transit Terminal Bay SSTT for transfers to the Deuce on the Strip, a 24/7 coach that services 28 stops along the length of the Strip. A single ride costs $4 or it’s $6 for a two-hour pass. Again, multi-day passes are also available.

You’ll have to spring more for a cab than for the bus, but there’s no doubting this is the quickest and easiest way to get to your Vegas digs from the airport. Flat rates apply for rides from the cab ranks at terminals 1 and 3 to the Strip, and these vary depending on where you want to go, as follows:

• Zone 1 (Sunset North to Tropicana): $21. This covers Excalibur, the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, Tropicana, the Luxor and other hotels towards the Strip’s southern end.
• Zone 2 (Tropicana North to Flamingo): $25. Mid-Strip hotels in zone 2 include Paris, the Bellagio, Planet Hollywood and the Cosmopolitan.
• Zone 3 (Flamingo North to Stratosphere): $29. Zone 3 covers the northern end of the Strip.

Note that flat-rate fares within these zones don’t include credit card fees, the $2 fuel surcharge or that all-important tip.

Cabs outside these zones, including Downtown, are metered at just under $3 per mile, plus a $5.25 drop fee. So a cab to Downtown should set you back somewhere around $35-40.

Operators including Lyft and Uber are a little less convenient but can cost up to 30% less than official airport cabs, so are always worth considering.

The Harry Reid Rent-a-Car Center is on Gilespie Street, around three miles south of the airport. You can catch a free shuttle there from the terminals; services depart every five minutes and take around 10 minutes to reach the rental center.

You’ll find all the usual suspects here, including Alamo, Budget Hertz and Thrifty, with vehicles available from as little as $20 a day, right up to the kind of soft-top pink Cadillac you might favor if you want to stand out on the Strip.

Got your Las Vegas pass from Go City? Excellent: you’ve just unlocked access to several fun ways to see Las Vegas via all manner of weird and wonderful transportations. Here’s a flavor…

• Big Bus hop-on hop-off tour. The classic open-top bus tour of Sin City’s greatest hits.
• Big Bus night tour. See the bright lights of Vegas on this two-hour after-dark cruise of the Strip and Downtown.
• GoCar self-drive tour. Pilot a cute lil’ two-seater on a sightseeing spree of the Strip’s iconic attractions.
• The Strip by helicopter. Enjoy a thrilling 15-minute night flight high above the sparkling Strip.