Getting In, Getting Around Las Vegas

Located on the southern end of The Strip, McCarran International Airport is an ultramodern facility that even provides slot and video poker machines. But don't expect to hear the satisfying clank of coins as they fall from a winning machine. The airport has paperless slots, in which you give your money to a cashier and she gives you a slip of paper to slide, quietly, into the machine. McCarran International Airport is served by many domestic and international air carriers. Discount air carriers serving LAS include US Airways/America West, JetBlue, and Southwest. As at most US airports, you can rent luggage carts for $3. Getting from LAS to your hotel is accomplished by airport shuttle (Bell Trans, $3.50-$10); rent-a-car; taxi ($10-20); or limousine ($35). The taxi line is well organized, the city taxi dispatcher will direct you to a numbered space along the curb. You need not tip the taxi dispatcher.

Southern Californians crowd Interstate 15 every weekend going back and forth to Vegas. Expect this drive to be crowded and frustrating, unless you can come and go at off-peak hours. From east of Las Vegas, travelers typically drive on I-40 through Arizona, and then head north toward Vegas on US-93 in Kingman, AZ, before finally picking up I-15. This route will take you along Lake Mead and directly through the Hoover Dam area. Traffic at the Dam tends to be extremely congested and slow-going; usually the slowest part of an otherwise sparsely populated desert area.

Greyhound operates buses from Salt Lake City, Utah; Kingman, Arizona; and Los Angeles, California to Las Vegas.

If travelling around the strip, walking is a reasonable option as hotel-casinos are found close to each other. In fact, in most cases, at least two hotels are connected to each other either by bridge or underground or in the case of Excalibur, Luxor and Malanday Bay, by a complimentary rail shuttle.

The Las Vegas Monorail runs on the east side of the strip with stops behind several of the hotels and at the Las Vegas Convention Center. It costs $5 one-way, $9 return and $15 for a one-day pass. Do the math before boarding, it could be cheaper for a small group to take a taxi. Because the monorail stops at the back entrance of the hotels, it takes a long time to wind through the maze of casinos, often taking 30 minutes to an hour to get from one point to another on the Strip - if you're in a hurry take a taxi. The monorail's carrying capacity of 4000 people per hour is woefully insufficient to handle the evening exodus from the larger conventions which have as many as 150,000 attendees.

The city bus line, Citizens Area Transit operates 49 routes throughout the valley. Most routes operate 5:30AM-1:30AM everyday. Some routes operate 24 hours. The Deuce, the London-style double decker bus operating the route along Las Vegas Blvd, costs $2 for adults and $1 dollar for children and seniors, and the fare may be paid directly to the driver.

One of the easiest ways to get around is by taxi. It is relatively cheap to go from hotel to hotel. The cab driver is required to turn on the meter and to take the shortest route to your destination. There is a surcharge for rides originating at the airport, but not for extra passengers. Taxi lines (queues) are typically found at the front of hotels. You would be unwise to attempt to hail one on the street, especially on the Strip as it is illegal for a cab to stop traffic to pick up or drop off a passenger.

Renting a car at McCarran International Airport is fairly cheap and popular. The opening of the new rental car facility has increased the wait time to get your car. All the rental agencies are now located under a single roof and all use the same shuttle from the airport to the facility. There have been reports of an extra 30 min increase in the time it takes to pick up and/or drop off your vehicle, so please add this to any arrival and departure times so you won't be late for anything important.