Luxor Hotel

In 1931 gambling was legalized in the barren desert state of Nevada while it remained illegal in the more populous neighboring state of California. As early as 1940, the first hotel casino named El Rancho Vegas was constructed on the outskirts of a sleepy desert community in the Mojave Desert of southern Nevada known as Las Vegas. A second hotel casino named the Last Frontier was opened a year later. Both profited fr

om their proximity to the large gambling population living in Los Angeles and other southern California communities. In December of 1946, Bugsy Siegal a reputed New York gangster, then living in Beverly Hills California, and managing various illegal gambling operations on the West Coast, built a lavish new hotel casino named the Flamingo. He dreamed of creating a whole new resort city in the desert dedicated to gambling and entertainment. Unfortunately, Bugsy was shot to death in his Beverly Hills home in 1947; so he never got to see his dream fulfilled; but the legacy of lavish hotel casinos controlled by gangsters persisted in Las Vegas for many decades to come.

Today, this desert gambling oasis is a thriving city with more than one million inhabitants and over 38 million visitors a year. It is one of the fastest growing cities in the USA, with up to 5,000 new residents settling there every month. It has fourteen of the fifteen largest hotels in the USA and over 130,000 rooms available to visitors. Gambling and entertainment are still its biggest attractions and its largest industries. Supposedly, all the mafia gangsters have been removed from the Las Vegas gambling scene, only to be replaced by large corporate owners. (Is that an improvement?) In 1999, Oscar Goodman, the flamboyant lawyer whose spirited defense of many reputed gangsters and criminals earned him the unofficial title of “mouthpiece for the mob”, was elected mayor of Las Vegas. He seems to be a most appropriate character to lead the government of “Sin City” USA.
Las Vegas Boulevard is “the Strip”

Las Vegas is located in the southwestern corner of Nevada near the borders of California and Arizona. It is 2

75 miles (450 km) from Los Angeles and less than a four-hours drive on excellent interstate highway. The city is situated in a broad flat desert valley surrounded by barren arid mountains. It receives only about 2 inches (5 cm) of rain per year; yet the city is an oasis of green grass, flowers and palm trees all subsisting on imported water. A vast checkerboard of low suburban homes sprawls across the valley floor for dozens of miles in every direction with new tracts of houses eternally sprouting like fields of cactus in the surrounding desert.
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Las Vegas Welcome Sign

All the action is centered on one broad avenue that stretches from the southern fringe of the city northward for a dozen miles until it reaches the heart of old downtown. This is Las Vegas Boulevard, commonly known as “the Strip”. McCarran International Airport is located adjacent to the southern end of the Strip, and nearly all of the major casinos are lined up along its sides. A drive down Las Vegas Boulevard takes you past the pyramid of Luxor casino, the skyline of New York casino, the Eifel Tower of Paris casino, the great tent of the Circus casino and the lofty tower of the Stratosphere casino

. Eventually, it takes you to downtown Vegas and Fremont Street, home of the historic old gambling parlors like Binyons and the Golden Nugget. Just driving down the strip past all these spectacular casino resorts is a fantastic experience. At night, “the strip” comes alive with miles of colored neon and millions of dancing, pulsating lights.
The Bargains are often “off the Strip”

Most of the newest, grandest Las Vegas casino hotels are located along the southern end of the strip near McCarran Airport. Even the smallest of these newer casino hotels has over 2,000 rooms with MGM Grand offering more than

5,000 rooms. Each casino contains thousands of slot machines, hundreds of gaming tables, multiple restaurants, numerous shops, theaters featuring “Las Vegas Shows” plus numerous bars, cocktail lounges and smaller entertainment venues.

If you need a Las Vegas hotel to sleep. Book a room via EasyToBook.com.

Along the northern part of the Strip, a few miles away from McCarran Airport, and also in the downtown area even further north, the casinos are older and a bit less spectacular. That means they usually offer their accommodations, their all-you-can-eat buffets, and their shows at bargain prices to entice you to come and gamble at their facility. There are also a few large casino hotels like Sam’s Town and Boulder Station located well away from the strip. Those isolated casinos often offer somesuper-saver bargains.
Las Vegas Weddings
Las Vegas Wedding Chapel
Las Vegas Wedding Chapel

Since the early days when Las Vegas was but a sleepy town in the desert, Nevada has had a reputation as a very permissive state that allowed legal gambling, legal prostitution and easy divorce. Many California citizens would drive across the state line to Las Vegas in order to obtain quick-and-easy divorces from their unwanted spouses. Since divorces were often instigated by the desire to marry a new mate, Las Vegas began offering quick-and-easy weddings to go along with the quick-and-easy divorces. Wedding chapels sprouted along the Strip to accommodate this unique industry of legal mate swapping.

Today, many other states offer quick no-fault divorces, so the “Las Vegas divorce” is no longer in great demand. The city has, however, kept its reputation for quick-and-easy marriages. The wedding chapels are still visible along the strip and in the downtown area near the Clark County Court House. Nearly all the major casinos have wedding chapels or wedding rooms. The City marriage office is open until midnight every weekday and open 24 hours a day from Friday until Sunday. If you suddenly decide you want to get married at 4AM on a Sunday morning, you can easily do it in Las Vegas.
Las Vegas Entertainment

Since the time of Bugsy Siegel, Las Vegas has been renowned not only for its gambling, but also for its free flowing liquor, its fine dining and its extravagant entertainment especially at the Las Vegas Shows. All these original ingredients are still available in even greater variety and quantity in modern-day Las Vegas.
Las Vegas Entertainment
Las Vegas Entertainment

The famous old Las Vegas Shows were typically variety shows featuring headline entertainment, well known bands, scantily-clad dancing girls and ribald humor. You can still find some of those shows on the Strip. The afternoon performances and the early evening performances are usually toned-down family-oriented presentations, while the late night performances are more adult oriented featuing nudity, risque humor and adult themes. A typical old-time Las Vegas Show in family-oriented theme is held at the Stratosphere Casino every afternoon, and the admission is very reasonably priced.

Some of the newer shows are even more extravagant productions than the old-time ones. Cirque du Soliel runs about a half dozen fabulous productions in Las Vegas including: Mystere, Ka, O, and Zumanity. Each production is set in an immense specially-constructed theater with fantastic sets and technological marvels. The prices are fairly expensive, but they are certainly amazing feats of entertainment.

At least two or more Broadway-style productions of musicals or plays are constantly featured in Las Vegas. There are a number of Las Vegas “regulars” playing at Casinos throughout the city, and new famous, world renown entertainers appear for limited engagements nearly every week. In addition to all this, there are free shows and free entertainments available at many of the casinos nearly every day. There is certainly no lack of entertaining diversions in this town.
Las Vegas Dining

Good food in large quanities has been the staple of Las Vegas hospitality since the early days, and the all-you-can-eat buffet was a renown attraction at nearly every casino. They are still popular and almost universally available. The more isolated and the less popular casinos offer their buffets at ridiculously low prices just to attract gamblers to their gaming tables. The newer casinos often feature higher priced buffets with better quality foods. All of them provide unlimited quantities.

For more serious dining, Las Vegas provides hundreds of good restaurants in the casinos and throughout the city. Each of the large casinos offers at least four or six restaurants ranging from inexpensive snack bars and all-you-can-eat buffets to high-class, expensive, five-star restaurants.

Information by http://www.usatourist.com

At USA Travel Guide, we don’t peddle false hope. Even the best laid plans can go asunder in the face of crippling weather and the unpredictable masses. However, there are some simple, easy and worthwhile steps you can take to alleviate and even avoid the stresses of holiday travel. From Thanksgiving vacations to Christmas gatherings, take advantage of these Holiday Travel Tips.

Home Sweet Home
It’s funny that we call it “going home” for the holidays. Most people actually leave their homes. Leave them unprotected that is. Here’s a little pre-trip prep.

* Traveling families means empty houses, which burglars see as an open invitation. Avoid the signs of abandonment by having someone pick up your mail and newspaper regularly.
* Timed lighting will help to give your house an occupied appearance.
* Don’t go blabbing about your trip to anyone you don’t trust. This includes putting silly out-of-town messages on your answering machine, voicemail or email.
* Naturally, you’ll want to double-check every last lock.Key
* Unplug unneeded appliances. This reduces electricity usage and the chance of fire.
* Print out all necessary maps and travel information early. Don’t get slammed by a finicky printer the morning out.

Leader of the Pack
You’re leaving for all of three days, so why are you packing four suitcases? The experts will tell you, that’s not the way to go.

* Pack light. Checking baggage is more expensive than ever, and lost baggage claims go up during the holidays. Avoid both problems by minimizing your use of checked baggage.
* Ship gifts before you travel, rather than carrying them. It’s safer, often less expensive, and when purchasing gifts online, it’s easy as can be.
* Leave gifts unwrapped when flying. Security staff scrutinize concealed items. Chances are your delicately wrapped Twilight box set will be opened before Christmas morning.
* Don’t put your address on the outside of your luggage. You know what a luggage tag says to the unscrupulous? “I’m not home!”. Place tags and identification inside instead.
* Bring a collapsible bag, ideal for the (hopefully) heavier load on the return trip.

Flight Plan
Unless you’re in a movie, you’re probably not going to have one of those disastrous Thanksgiving dinners where we learn horrible secrets about everybody. No, your grief will almost certainly erupt at the airport.

* Book early to save money, and print boarding passes online to save time.
* There’s no upside to parking at the airport. Get a friend to drop you off if possible.
* Arrive early. Always a good idea, but even more so during the holidays. Lines are longer, baggage moves slower; hedge your bets by arriving early.
* Connecting flights are the bogeyman of holiday travel. Morning flights tend to get out okay, but somehow midday connects just can’t get it together. If you must use a connecting flight, leave plenty of space between arrival and departure, 45 minutes at least.
* Timing is everything. For fewer crowds, fly out early or late. 9:00 a.m. – noon is the worst time to go to the airport during the holidays.
* Timing is everything part 2. What day you travel makes a big difference in price and crowds. If it ever fits your schedule to travel on the holiday, do it! Otherwise, avoid the day just before. For Thanksgiving, the preceding Wednesday is a terrible day, but the Monday and Tuesday are usually okay.
* Look to alternate airports. Crowds are often smaller Delayedat secondary airports.
* Just as you were dropped off, try to be picked up if possible. Failing that, embrace public transportation as a cheap, eco-friendly option.
* Don’t wait, utilize. Waiting is only a burden when it feels like waiting. Come prepared to make the most of unexpected delays. Been meaning to read a book? Been meaning to write a book? Take advantage of the time you’ve been given.

Driving Directions
I love to drive. The open road, tunes blasting, awesome sights, freedom. During the holidays, though, it’s a whole other story.

* Print all necessary maps and double-check them. Ask someone at your destination about construction, inclement weather conditions or any other idiosyncrasies that Google and MapQuest may not report.
* Check tires, oil, lights and fluids to stem possible roadside ruin.
* Joining a roadside assistance club like AAA is never a bad idea.
* Hide the goods. Nothing invites a smash-and-grab like a colorfully-wrapped, iPhone-sized box. Keep as many items out of view as possible.
* As you approach the bigger cities, there will be traffic. Make it better on yourself and others by driving courteously.
* Don’t hurry. After all, what’s the big rush? All of this “no bathroom breaks”, “we’re not stopping” nonsense has got to stop. Enjoy the trip. Bring a few new CDs, get Harry Potter on tape, sing along with the Spiceworld soundtrack. Just have fun!

There you have it. Some simple holiday travel tips for making your trip, while not a treat, at least not so much of a chore. Be safe and have fun!

Information by http://www.wrsol.com