Las Vegas is the entertainment capital of the world, so believe us when we say you’ll have zero trouble filling four days with high-octane, dice-rolling, Strip-tastic fun. Your only difficulty will be deciding what to do first. And that's where we come in! Read on for our perfect 4-day Las Vegas itinerary, including:
- High Roller Observation Wheel
- Fremont Street Experience
- Grand Canyon
- Mandalay Bay Beach Club
- Bellagio fountains, gallery and gardens
- Colosseum theater
- Las Vegas Arts District
- Hoover Dam
- Red Rock Canyon
Day 1: Viva Las Vegas!
Kickstart your Sin City adventure by getting the lay of the land aboard the open-top hop-on hop-off bus. There’s really no better way to get an overview of this sizzling city’s must-see landmarks. Tick off the bucket-list classics, including that essential selfie stop at the ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’ sign, and marvel at how the Strip's flamboyant hotels vie for the tourist dollar with their increasingly outlandish gimmicks.
We’re talking Paris’s replica Eiffel Tower, the Bellagio’s legendary dancing fountains, and the exploding volcano at The Mirage, to name just a few. You’ll also get to whiz around the OG downtown area, home of the glitzy Fremont Street Experience (of which more later). There’s even a nighttime version of the bus tour that gives you an opportunity to experience the Strip in all its neon glory, all without having to lift a finger (or indeed a foot).
Having experienced Vegas’s uniquely surreal atmosphere at arm’s length, it’s now time to go full immersion mode in the city’s legendary casinos. So put on your best poker face, cram your pockets full of dollar bills and get lucky. Take your pick from dozens of casinos, from old-school giants like Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand and the Bellagio to beloved downtown faves including the famous Golden Nugget. Expect hundreds of classic table games like like roulette, blackjack and Texas hold ‘em poker plus thousands of slot machines in these cavernous, money-guzzling twilight zones of capitalism.
Day 2: Strip Highlights
Ok, day 2 of your awesome 4-day Vegas experience and it's time to get up close and personal with some of the Strip’s main attractions. And you really could fill a whole day or more exploring this vast thoroughfare, with its supersize hotels, monster malls and hundreds of bars and restaurants, from fast food to fine dining. Top tip: the Strip is much longer than it looks. Avoid aching calves and pesky blisters by taking full advantage of the Las Vegas Monorail, which connects a number of major hotels and casinos along the Strip’s eastern side, running for nearly four miles.
But what to see and do? Bit of an art fiend? Good news: Vegas does high culture every bit as well as it does low culture. Case in point: the ever-rotating exhibitions at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art have included works by household names including Warhol, Picasso and Lichtenstein; the horticultural marvel that is the resort’s botanical gardens is also something of a work of art in itself. Here during pool party season (March-October)? Hit up Mandalay Bay’s epic Daylight Beach Club, home to a ridiculously large pool (4,400 square feet, fact fans), a man-made beach and a seemingly endless lazy river.
You could sip bubbly aboard the knee-knocking High Roller Observation Wheel at the LINQ Hotel, which soars 550 feet over the Strip. Or catch a show at the legendary Colosseum theater at Caesars Palace – superstars from Sinatra to Madonna have graced the glittering stage here down the years. Ride the glass elevator up Paris’s replica Eiffel Tower or cruise the Venetian’s faithful replica of Venice’s Grand Canal in a gondola. The possibilities are almost literally endless.
Day 3: You can always go… Downtown!
It would be easy to overlook Las Vegas’s laidback downtown area for the considerable thrills and spills of the Strip, but that would be to miss out on Sin City most old-school enclave, home of the boho Arts District and terrific Neon Museum, a sort of retirement home for Vegas signage of yore. Best visited in early evening, this is the place to nab Insta-perfect selfies bathed in the neon glow of such iconic signs as the Stardust and Lucky Cuss Motel. Check out the nearby Arts District for the best of Vegas’s indie scene, including galleries, boutiques, vintage clothing emporia and hipper-than-thou craft breweries like Hop Nuts Brewing and the Nevada Brew Works.
There’s nothing old school about the Fremont Street Experience. Easily Vegas’s most popular attraction outside the Strip, this huge complex features a video-screen canopy the length of five football pitches, beneath which tourists and locals browse stores galore and sip colorful cocktails in the chi-chi bars. Eye-popping hourly light shows and live music across three stages every evening means there’s never a dull moment here in Glitter Gulch.
Day 4: The Great Outdoors
Sure, Las Vegas is terrific fun, but three sinful days of sensory saturnalia can be more than enough for most people. What better way then to round out your perfect 4-day Las Vegas itinerary than swapping the noise, neon lights and general chaos of the Strip for the wide open spaces of the Nevada and Arizona deserts? You can take a helicopter ride over the awe-inspiring Hoover Dam to the enchanting South Rim of the Grand Canyon, where a restorative stroll among rust-red rocks and vibrant wildflowers is pure manna for the soul. Opt for an afternoon trip that will time your return descent along the Strip around sundown, for some of the most spectacular skies and Sin City views you’re likely to find.
Helicopters not your bag? Rent a soft-top instead and strike out south along Interstate 15 to Red Rock Canyon deep in the Mojave Desert. This relatively diminutive sibling of the Grand Canyon promises equally otherworldly landscapes, characterized by soaring sandstone crags and towering cacti. Don’t miss sculptor Ugo Rondinone’s hallucinatory art installation on the way there. Seven Magic Mountains is a series of gravity-defying boulder stacks painted in a kaleidoscope of vivid colors – essential eye candy for any Insta addict worthy of the name.
Save on attractions in Las Vegas
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Stu caught the travel bug at an early age, thanks to childhood road trips to the south of France squeezed into the back of a Ford Cortina with two brothers and a Sony Walkman. Now a freelance writer living on the Norfolk coast, Stu has produced content for travel giants including Frommer’s, British Airways, Expedia, Mr & Mrs Smith, and now Go City. His most memorable travel experiences include drinking kava with the locals in Fiji and pranging a taxi driver’s car in the Honduran capital.
