Are you under the impressions that foreigners don’t visit Vegas, that they don’t have an understanding of what Vegas is like, or that vibe is a uniquely Vegas experience?
I don’t think anyone thinks that. If anything they know it’s an artificial place because you couldn’t gamble or marry. Not in any way typically American.
I can’t speak for others but for me it was pretty damn obvious that LV was - at best - what some Americans liked, and even then turned up to eleven (or possibly twelve).
My Dad always described it as a haven for the grossly self-indulgent. Which to him was a pretty repulsive personal fault. He was speaking of 1960s-70s Vegas, not the current incarnation. But the ideas are eternal even if the implementation varies over time.
When I’m feeling grossly self-indulgent however, Vegas is great. For me though, that’s an occasional deviation from my usual personality, not a full-time lifestyle.
Vegas is, however, also probably the largest concentrated gathering of addicts out and proud in all the world. Whether it’s drugs, booze, smoking, or gambling, they’re all out there displaying their addiction-crippled lives in full living color. Which is kinda pathetic if you look too closely.
Perhaps, but it’s not completely unique in what it is. Amsterdam or the Reeperbahn in Hamburg are havens of sex tourism, the Reeperbahn has alcohol too. Indeed, Amsterdam has the drugs tourism (which hasn’t quite gelled in the US as far as I can tell), but Reeperbahn is much more alcohol. There are cities across western europe which are great for alcoholics, Antwerp, for instance, has 24 hour drinking if the bars are willing to stay open (and you can often follow the barstaff from one bar to them drinking in the next, making your own drinking companions), and that’s not country specific, Brussels is a much duller city, where you’ll struggle to find a drink past midnight. I’m not sure if you can place a bet at 4am, but I’m pretty sure there will be casinos somewhere, but they’re probably zoned away from the red light districts.
But this stuff is there. And sometimes ramped up much much more. The streets windows in the red light districts where the women sit and you can walk about making your selection, is very much a western europe thing, and when I took friends around Antwerp, I made sure I showed the area to them, but in the middle of the day, rather than the much fruitier night time.
I think the mistake here from some people is thinking the rest of the world doesn’t have hedonism, it has. It doesn’t have it in the same way, and you’ll probably be refused a drink in Vegas if THAT drunk, which isn’t a problem in a lot of Europe, they’ll serve you until you fall. So the hedonism isn’t that extreme to some from overseas.
What Vegas seems to be is an area of relief amongst much stricter states around and nearby, so they celebrate that much more. The first time you try and find a drink in Utah, you’ll see that (and it’s freaky alcohol laws), and the many states in the US which still have setups where you can only buy strong alcohol with a meal or state shops in the middle of nowhere.
For sure. Most US people’s impression of Vegas is comparing it to home, and what they know of the rest of the USA, not comparing it to the world. It wasn’t that long ago that fewer than 10% of Americans had ever visited another country.
Also for sure, things are much different now throughout the USA than they were in the 1960s-1970. Back then, if you wanted legal gambling, significant amounts of live entertainment, or 24 hour booze it was Vegas, baby, or nothing.
Nowadays there are local tawdry casinos in a lot more places, opening hours for booze in most of the USA are a lot looser, etc.
But the impression of Vegas’s uniqueness remains despite the dwindling factual support for that. Especially for us older folks.
As to Europe, certainly they’re good at hedonism as you point out. But ISTM that they’re so much more matter-of-fact about it that it loses its frisson. What made Vegas special was that the Baptist bluenoses could Gasp! at the concentrated horrors on display there. AFAIK Europe largely lacks that tutt-tutting moralizing. Sort of like how the Japanese approach sex has a lot less hang-ups than the USA way which is much bigger on shame than on fun.
For self-indulgent behavior, I think a cruise is far better. Much less walking, even compared to relatively small Fremont Street resorts, and a lot more personal attention built-in to the experience. The crew-to-guest ratio even on a cheap cruise far exceeds anything a casino resort offers. From the time you wake up to the time you go back to bed, you literally don’t have to do anything for yourself if you don’t want to. Waiters will bring drinks, you can get room service or sit-down meals all day, and just sitting by the pool or in a hot tub for hours on end is a perfectly acceptable use of your time.
Did we leave out sex?
There’s rather little of that on display in public in living color. But yeah, I hear that goes on too. 
Also illegal as a retail transaction in Clark County.
Also don’t forget places like Brazil and Thailand. Not to mention cities like New York, Montreal, New Orleans, London and others all have big party scenes.
My friends and I were into all that when we were younger. I suppose that sort of debauchery is frowned upon in certain circles, but when you are younger it’s pretty awesome if you can afford to do it.
After awhile thought, it does seem, if not pathetic, at least pretty empty. At least if that’s the only thing you got going on in life.
A wild weekend with your friends in Vegas (or wherever) every now and then is fine. All the time, you got problems.
Forgot to answer this…
Lake Mead looks low. If I had to estimate, I’d say 40-50 feet low based on the mineral deposits on the canyon walls and the intake towers. Here’s a shot I took from the Arizona side spillway.
Go and see Lake Mead before it’s gone?
I’m of two minds:
- We’ve had droughts before, this might just be a drought
- We keep growing populations in places with no water, what happens when there are too many people to support? Does Vegas go dark if there’s no Hydro?
Long thread on Lake Mead water levels, trends, etc.
As to Lake Mead, it’d take a decade of above average rainfall / snowmelt to refill it. Maybe even 2 decades. Meanwhile to climatic trend is drier, not wetter.
As to the burgeoning headcount in the Southwest, yeah, it’s a problem. But the electricity from Hoover Dam is small potatoes; what matters to Vegas and the entire desert southwest is water. Power can be shipped in from anywhere. Water not so much.
We were thinking of doing our conference in SLC, so we went to the convention center where they showed us the standard SLC Convention bureau. There was more drinking in that video than any I’ve ever seen. They’re obviously sensitive to the incorrect perception of SLC as a dry city.
Ah, We’ve not quite got to Salt Lake City. Yes, Utah is not dry. It’s just, well. weird with alcohol. I’m not sure how extreme SLC is, my reference is Springdale near Zion, Cannonville near Bryce, Torrey near Capital Reef and Moab.
The reality is that you can get alcohol above about 4% beer in a restaurant, but you need to order food. Thus there was a huge waiting time to eat anywhere because those who had food then sat for hours afterwards drinking. We could get beer down the supermarket, about 4% but no wine or anything else (which was fine, we just wanted beer, and aren’t super strength fans). Only “dry” place was the one motel town on Cannonville (for some reason hotel.com never offered any accomodation near Bryce itself, which there seemed to be plenty). It was ran by a mormon preacher, but he had no problem telling us where we could drive to buy some. It was made up by an excellent BBQ truck in the car park though.
Only in Moab did we find a bar. I believe there was two in the city. They couldn’t sell food, and I think their hours were highly restricted. They had state machines on the measure of every spirit. I think we drank some red wine because we could for a change. I also remember eating somewhere which didn’t sell alcohol at all, so it might have been somewhere where it was much easier to have a restaurant without alcohol.
I don’t remember much about Torrey, but I think we were just used to drinking while you eat. Or took a day off from it.
Little of it is dry, per say, just troubling and complicated. For the unprepared that is. Know in advance, and load up the car/van with what you might want, as long as the unlikely event of the police stopping you and arresting you for having liquor in your car was ok with you (might not be true, our guide book was OLD).
There’s a portion of the Visit Utah website devoted to the liquor laws and availability in the state.
There are 41 liquor stores in the entire state.
I’ve driven through other places, but only stopped at restaurants. In SLC there are bars, and the way they work is that someone buys a membership which comes with 10 guests all of whom can drink. It was $1 I think. When I first went to Oklahoma City in the early '80s they had more or less the same thing - your hotel room came with a membership to the bar.