Las Vegas

Las Vegas sits in the Mojave Desert, several hours from the Pacific, so there is no beach life in any real sense. The nearest natural swimming is at Lake Mead, a reservoir about 40 minutes' drive away, where Boulder Beach has a gravel shore and summer water around 27°C, though the setting is a bare desert basin with no shade.

What visitors use instead are the resort pools along the Strip, some with sand-lined wave pools and lazy rivers. They are good for an afternoon in the heat, but they are hotel amenities rather than a reason to come, and anyone who wants the sea should look elsewhere.

Eating in Las Vegas is mostly an imported affair, but on a large scale. The Strip resorts hold outposts of famous chefs from around the world, classic steakhouses, French dining rooms and elaborate tasting menus, alongside the buffets the city made famous. Quality at the top end is high, and there is little a visitor cannot find somewhere on the Strip.

The more interesting eating is off it. Spring Mountain Road, the long Chinatown strip west of the resorts, runs for kilometres with Sichuan, Cantonese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese restaurants, many open late, and the suburbs have strong Mexican cooking. What the city lacks is a cuisine of its own, markets or much café culture, and most meals on the Strip come at resort prices.

The sights here are the city itself as spectacle: the Strip's themed resorts with their replica canals, towers and skylines, the dancing fountains in front of the lakeside resort, and the covered light show over Fremont Street in the old downtown. They are worth an evening's wander, but they are entertainment rather than heritage.

The genuine history is short and concentrated downtown. The Neon Museum keeps a yard of retired casino signs that tells the city's story well, and the Mob Museum, in the old federal courthouse, covers organised crime and the early casinos. Beyond those there are few museums of note and almost no historic architecture, so a visitor who travels for sights will run out quickly.

Las Vegas is built for going out, and it runs around the clock. Casino bars never close, drinks can be carried along the Strip, and the big resort nightclubs host the world's best-known DJs on weekend residencies, with dayclub pool parties filling the hours before. On a Friday or Saturday the Strip is as busy at three in the morning as at nine in the evening.

The character is lavish and commercial: dress codes, queues, table service and steep prices are part of the experience. For something looser, the Fremont Street area downtown and the bars of the nearby arts district are cheaper and more local, with dive bars, cocktail lounges and craft beer. It suits groups and celebrations best; those who want underground club culture will find little of it.

Beyond the resorts the desert is spectacular and close. Red Rock Canyon, half an hour west, has red and cream sandstone cliffs with scenic drives, hiking trails and some of the best rock climbing in the country. Valley of Fire, about an hour north-east, is a maze of flame-coloured rock, petroglyphs and slot-like washes, and Lake Mead offers kayaking and boating among bare desert hills.

An hour north-west, Mount Charleston rises to over 3,600m with pine and bristlecone forest, cooler summer trails and a small ski area in winter. The catch is the climate: from June to September daytime heat makes desert hiking dangerous except at dawn, so spring, autumn and mild winters are the seasons for it. A car is essential for all of it.

There is really one classic day out in terms of places to visit: Hoover Dam, the 1930s concrete arch on the Colorado River about 45 minutes away, combined with Boulder City, the small, orderly town built to house its workers. Together they make a pleasant half day or more.

Beyond that the list thins quickly. The desert towns within two hours are small and mostly of passing interest, and the famous excursions sold from the Strip, to the Grand Canyon, Zion or Death Valley, are long journeys to landscapes rather than to towns or heritage sites. Visitors who want a varied set of outings will find the city's isolation the main limit.

Las Vegas can be done with children, but it is not designed for them. Minors may pass through casino floors but not linger there, and those floors are the route through almost every resort. The Strip's adult advertising, crowds and late-night atmosphere are hard to avoid.

There is enough to fill a day or two: an indoor amusement park with rides and roller coasters, a shark aquarium in one of the southern resorts, the free fountain show in front of the lakeside resort, thrill rides at the top of the tall observation tower at the north end of the Strip, and the Discovery Children's Museum downtown. Big resort pools help in the heat, which in summer makes walking with small children hard going. Most families who come treat the city as a stop on a wider road trip to the national parks.

Most of what visitors come for lies along the Strip, about 6km of resorts, with downtown's Fremont Street a few kilometres further north. In principle that is manageable on foot, but the scale is misleading: the resorts are enormous, a neighbour that looks next door can be a twenty-minute walk, and pedestrians are routed over footbridges and through casino interiors rather than along the street. In summer the heat makes long walks punishing.

A monorail runs behind the east side of the Strip and buses run its length day and night, reaching downtown too, but most visitors lean on taxis and ride-hailing. For Red Rock, Hoover Dam or anything in the desert, a hire car or tour is the only practical option.

Shopping in Las Vegas happens indoors, in malls attached to the resorts. The Roman-themed arcade at Caesars Palace, the luxury mall at the centre of the Strip and the Venetian's canal-side shops between them hold most of the major fashion and jewellery houses, and the large Fashion Show mall adds department stores and high-street chains. Two big outlet centres, north and south of the Strip, draw bargain hunters.

The range of brands is wide and the malls stay open late, which suits shopping as part of a resort stay. What is missing is anything local: there are no markets or bazaars, few independent or design shops and no crafts tradition, so souvenirs beyond the usual are hard to find.

Las Vegas has a reputation for cheap rooms that is only half true. Sunday to Thursday, hotel rooms on and near the Strip can be inexpensive for their size and comfort, and downtown is cheaper still. At weekends, and when large conventions or events are in town, the same rooms cost several times as much, and resort fees are added to almost every booking.

Once inside, prices climb. Cocktails, club entry, headline shows and dining on the Strip are expensive by American standards, and the casinos are designed to keep money moving. Eating in Chinatown or the suburbs and staying midweek bring costs down a great deal, but few visitors leave thinking it was a budget trip.

Live entertainment is one of the main reasons people come. The Strip resorts have built permanent theatres for long-running productions, from water-based acrobatic spectacles and aerial shows to magicians, illusionists, comedians and burlesque revues, and dozens of shows play on any given night. Major pop, rock and country stars take long residencies in the big resort theatres and arenas, so a visitor can often see an act that rarely tours.

The formal arts are a smaller part of the picture. The Smith Center downtown hosts touring Broadway musicals, the Las Vegas Philharmonic and ballet, but there is no opera house or theatre tradition of note, and local live music outside the resorts is modest. It suits those who want polished spectacle rather than an evening of serious drama.

Las Vegas has no bathing tradition of its own, but its resorts have built some of the largest hotel spas in the country, with thermal circuits, steam rooms, saunas, salt and ice rooms and long treatment menus open to non-guests for a day fee. On a quiet weekday morning they can be genuinely restful.

The city around them works against it. Casinos are noisy, lit and busy around the clock, and the whole place is designed to keep visitors stimulated. Those who want to unwind do best to choose one of the non-gaming hotels on the Strip, book spa time early in the day and spend afternoons by the pool rather than on the casino floor.