Las Vegas - An Englishman's Experience
Las Vegas is a long way from Europe. Thirty-five years ago, I
had seen the place on TV, and wanted to go there. When you're
22, Vegas has a magnetic pull.
I was on a tight budget, so my girlfriend and I bought the
cheapest air tickets we could find to the west coast, together
with vouchers to stay in cheap motels. We pre-booked the
cheapest rental car we could and then complained about it at the
airport pick-up, so they gave us a free upgrade to a more
expensive model.
In San Francisco, we looked at the map. Being used to UK road
maps, which were on a bigger scale, the distance from San
Francisco to Las Vegas looked like a half-day drive - so we left
in the early afternoon. Late in the evening, having driven
longer than was good for me, tired and probably dangerous, we
saw the great glow of Vegas ahead in the desert. I felt like I
was on a different planet.
It was midnight when we checked in to the Vagabond Motel on the
Strip. The lady owner insisted on chatting to us for half an
hour, even though we just needed urgent sleep. She told us about
the high number of unsolved homicides in the area and the
numerous bodies regularly found in the desert on the edge of the
city. We probably wouldn't have slept if we hadn't been so
tired.
Next day, we hit the town. We set a limit on our gambling
expenditure and made it last. I think we just about broke even,
by careful betting. We loved the excitement, the constant buzz,
the timelessness. Being in air-conditioned, artificially lit
buildings, with no clocks in sight, was strange. It was August,
so the journey from one casino to the next involved leaving one
very cool casino and entering what seemed like the very hot
outlet of a giant hair drier, before escaping once more into the
next.
We quickly learned where to eat well for practically nothing, if
you didn't mind standing in line for a while. It was possible to
drink cocktails free 24 hours a day, just by putting a coin in a
slot whenever you caught sight of a waitress.
Circus Circus was just amazing - high wire and trapeze artists
performing right over the heads of the folk on the gambling
floor.
For us, the nightly entertainment was the most enjoyable part of
our stay. We saw the Four Tops one night and Diana Ross on
another and at a tiny fraction of the price we would have paid
elsewhere - especially in Europe.
I have returned to Vegas twice more over the years and now feel
its time to get back again. My best tip for European visitors
arriving in the summer, which is low season in Las Vegas, is not
to make advance hotel reservations. If you tune in to local
radio when you arrive, you hear numerous casinos competing with
each other by making really great offers. On two separate
visits, I got a high-class room in a casino for a fraction of
the normal price, with a free or reduced-price show and free
gambling thrown in!
Las Vegas is a great vacation destination for a short break and
I'm ready to go back.