Nitpick: Fremont.
Yeah, the casino run bars did that, I’m talking about the beers you bought in the corner store type places.
I was there one time, 90s, for a conference/class. The big attraction was the casino implosion, except just the parking garage; the casino was dusted the previous year. No big movie filming. 5 am folks were standing outside to see it. Crazy, I knew the dust clouds would reach so I viewed from inside. An impressive collapse and panicked people. Priceless!! Better than gambling.
LV? Not for me, don’t smoke, drink, or gamble.
AIUI, you can’t drink out of a can or bottle that the alcohol was sold in, but plastic cups are fine.
One of the things I love about NOLA is asking the tender for a to-go cup.
I’m cringing at a visitor to these United States walking down the strip: “So this is what Americans like… I fear I have overestimated them.”
Yeah. Vegas and Punxsutawney Phil may provide clues to the age-old question “why do they hate us?”
It’s a starter introduction to America, good Mexican food (not something which can be said of New York for instance), buffets, some of the best scenery in the world nearby, relatively easy to traverse (rather than say LA), and since the rest of the world already have casinos, most of them are not there for the casinos.
I give it to people as the starter destination. Never quite loved New York. Boston is too, well, not american. San Francisco is (or was) too expensive. LA is largely a hellhole. Florida too. Texas, come to think of it. Others such as Portland Oregon, or San Diego are too niche but nice.
Thank you! Keep telling people this.
LA or L.A.?
Both. Either.
There’s no uniquely “American” city that I can think of. And yet all of them are wholly American at the same time- Miami is no less American than Kansas City, San Antonio, New Orleans, Boston, etc…
That’s sort of the frustrating charm of the US, I think. New Orleans, Boston, San Antonio, and Albuquerque are all as old as US cities get, but they’re all drastically different, and yet very American at the same time, and the newer cities like Dallas or Kansas City are still very American and yet very different from each other.
Yeah, I know there’s no uniquely “American” city, but broad swathes of food from others in a melting pot is what Vegas brings you. You’ll find a Rueben sandwich, you’ll find a Prime Rib much easier than a whole bunch of places (I’m not sure if I found one in Portland and East Oregon last trip I was on), and they can be cheap (Ellis Island, though it was up to $20 with a drink last time, think it was $10), the Mexican food is excellent, if you want Grits, or Crab, or Lobster, they’re all there, somewhere. Big pancakes, French dips sandwiches, diner type of food.
Only thing mostly lacking is BBQ, but you can find some, but more chains, though the place inside Binions, Bennys, which often was closed by 8pm, was absolutely magnificent when we finally managed to get there when was open back end of 2021. But I’d say BBQ is something the West Coast lacks too, there’s a need to serve it from a burning bucket in the middle of nowhere, I guess.
What Vegas brings is the ability to traverse it, without the need for car hire, and rush hours of a real functioning city, like you might need to in a lot of the big cities mentioned there. Vegas suits foreigners DESPITE the Casinos, rather than because of them like US citizens. There’s no prestige or cache to blowing all your cash on betting for us. We’re there for the sideshow, the food, for us, the areas nearby. Nothing can match the full loop of Zion right around to Page clockwise. That’s an America of a million movies.
And cartoons. My first visit to Vegas, taking the bus out to Hoover Dam, and I was riding through a Roadrunner vs Coyote cartoon.
I love Vegas. I’m surprised at the dislike for it in the thread. I don’t think I’d wanna live there, though.
I think Vegas is like cruises. You like it or you hate it, there’s not much in between.
Pretty accurate comparison IMHO. Las Vegas is most likely more polarizing than any other city in the United States.
Having lived there for ~20 years …
Vegas is “special”. Like any special needs child, you’ll either really dig that basket of goods, or really hate it.
It’s been almost 30 years since I left. When I go back now I see the same things I always did, but now turned up to eleventy.
There’s now a whole corporate rip-off program aimed at fleecing the middle-class rubes. And now there’s a sorta low-life scruffy bring-your-own-MJ culture that did not exist back in Ye Olden Tymes.
But OTOH, the last time I was there my work partner and I had a seriously high end dinner at the New York New York. Cost just shy of $500 for two men, but that same meal in Los Angeles, NYC, or London would have been $750. And would have been worth it at $750. At $500 we stole that thing.
What seems to have disappeared is the middle-class opulence. A scruffy fuck can live large by his/her standards, a (very) modest fat-cat like myself or a seriously fat fat-cat can live real large, but Joe medium-person is left out.
I visited the region about 6 years ago from the UK. I had seen a TV program of the top 50 places in the world to see before you die and Las Vegas cam in at number 6, but as I planned my itinery it struck to be gauche and built round gambling and sex. I flew to Pheonix (flight was cheaper than LV and I was finishing the holiday as a ranch between it and Tulsa) spent my first day visiting Route 66 and the Hoover Dam stayer overnight in Boulder City and first thingthe next Morning drove to Zion not leaving the intersate as I went though LV.
Funny thing is number one on the top 50 places was the Grand Canyon, I did visit it but found it disappointing I thought Canyonlands was just as if not more awe inspiring though my favorite national park was probably Bryce for the colo(u)rs.
I’m a fan of both gambling and sex, but would never place Las Vegas that high. Number 6 in the world? No way. Not even in the top 50, and I like going there occasionally