Las Vegas- More than just gambling

Las Vegas needs no introduction whatsoever. This populous city in Nevada, is internationally renowned for its nightlife, casinos,shopping and fine dining. A week in this city and we understood first hand why it is the tourist attraction that it is.

We traveled from Los Angeles to Las Vegas by bus (LUX BUS AMERICA). You can also choose to travel by airplane, or to drive down by renting a car. We decided on travelling by bus for the landscape pics along the way, and well, just for the experience of it. We reached Las Vegas in around 5 hours.

Vegas bound!

Commuting within the city:

The city of Las Vegas is well connected by buses and the monorail, which covers the strip. The ‘strip’ is where all the hotels and casinos are located. You could also choose to travel around by cab/ rented car, although we found travelling by the monorail to be very convenient.

Hotels:

The hotels here are reasonably priced and you have a number of them to choose from. Each hotel has a casino and may also have special performances by singers, musicians and magicians. Do check with the hotel for any such performances during your time there. There are some hotels worth visiting for the wonderful design and interiors, like Caesar’s palace, which is a Roman themed casino hotel, Circus Circus, which has circus acts as well as a theme park, Stratosphere, for the rides and the view at the top, just to name a few. You will find tourists walking in and out of different hotels, for a tour of the unique set up and for the casinos there.

Gondola ride at The Venetian

What to do:

Gambling at casinos is the first thought that comes to mind, when in Vegas. We aren’t gamblers in the true sense of the term, although we did try our hand at that too! It is fun, but know when to stop, before you land up spending a good chunk of your travel money! Apart from this, as mentioned, you could also book tickets to a show running during your stay. We visited Little New York, located at New York-New York hotel, the theme being the skyline of New York, as the name suggests. We also visited the chocolate stores- M&M and Hershey’s, which were a real hit with chocolate lovers, who were walking out with huge bags of merchandise and chocolates. The fountain show at the Bellagio is also worth checking out, if you happen to be in that area after dark. We booked a tour to the Grand Canyon from our hotel concierge, which also covered a tour to the Hoover dam site. This is a must-do, the canyon is truly a marvelous sight! The walking tour along the canyon was an interesting way to learn more about it and click pictures.

Little New York at New York New York

M&M store

Fountain show at The Bellagio

Food & Shopping:

You will find a variety of cuisines to satisfy your taste buds here- pizzas, burgers, subways, buffets, steakhouses and diners. We also came across people giving out discount coupons for food and drink at certain restaurants as promotional offers. Numerous fast food joints can be found all along the strip.

For shopping, if you are looking for high end boutiques, you will find a host of such in a number of luxury hotels and also on the strip. If souvenirs are what you want, walk along the strip and you will find many small stores like 10$ souvenirs shops, with a collection of t-shirts, post cards and other such mementos of Vegas.

All in all, Las Vegas proved to be an exciting city, with fun tourist attractions and interesting sights to see.

Paris- Las Vegas: Eiffel tower restaurant

The Grand Canyon

View from the monorail

Los Angeles- The city of dreams

This was our first trip together and we picked the city of dreams- Los Angeles. It lived up to all that we had imagined it to be..and more! With such a vibrant city, you need to plan your schedule ahead, just so that you do not miss out on anything. Of course unplanned days have their own element of surprise, but with a city like L.A, you do not want to have any regrets of that sort.

Landing at L.A after a really long flight (we were travelling from Asia, so flights from here are no less than 15-17 hours long), we were grateful for the hotel pick up from the airport. Most hotels, especially those located closer to the airport, provide shuttle service, so do check for the same before you arrive.

Commuting within the city: 

This was made very simple for us by the hop on hop off buses (HOHO bus) and the Big blue bus. We chose these are our main mode of transport since the bus stops were conveniently located just a stone's throw away from the hotel we stayed at. The HOHO buses in L.A. follow different routes (green, yellow, purple and so on) that gives tourists a choice of famous sites to visit. Always on time and providing audio commentary in a host of languages, these buses are your best bet on your first visit to L.A. You may opt to rent a car or take a cab around too, but we wanted to enjoy touring the city on an open roof-top bus. (It also helped to click pics from a higher view with no obstructions)

 

The upperdeck on the HOHO bus. Love the trees!!Characteristic L.A.

Hollywood sign, as seen from the upperdeck of the bus

What we visited at L.A.:

Los Angeles is a vast city to actually cover in just a few days although, as mentioned, if you plan ahead, you can make the best of your stay here. Although we saw most of the "must see" sites through the hop on and hop off, we did get off at certain places to spend more time there or just to shop and eat!

Hollywood Boulevard: As a tourist, you should definitely visit this place. Hollywood walk of fame, TCL Chinese theatre, Madam Tussaud's, Ripley's believe it or not are just few of the many attractions here. You can also view the Hollywood sign in the distance from here. We landed up staying in this area for around 2-3 hours; lots of entertainment, good place for shopping.

At Madam Tussaud's

Hollywood walk of fame by evening- when the 'superheroes' came out to play!

Santa Monica Bay/ Venice Beach: You can plan a half day or an entire day trip to this beach, depending on the availability of time. There are a lot of restaurants and cafes close to the beach. We rented cycles, hung out at the pier and lounged by the sea side before trying out the choice of fast food available there at the far end of the beach. There are also street performers and small shops, eateries in this area.

Cycling at Santa Monica Beach

Street entertainment with shops and eateries around at the end of the beach

Fisherman's village at Marina Del Rey: Fisherman's Village is a waterfront mall, commercial boat anchorage and tourist attraction located in Marina del Rey. The waterfront offers panoramic views of the harbor and the brightly painted lighthouse and attractive set up catches the eye. Tourist attractions include live music concerts, restaurant and café dining, harbor and fishing cruises, boat and bicycle rentals and souvenir shops. You may also find water sports being done here; it does not hurt to inquire about the same. Do carry swimwear if you intend to go for it. We also loved the place for the lovely background it provided for photos.

Fisherman's Village

Beverly Hills, Rodeo Drive, Sunset Strip, China Town are other places we had a chance to visit with the HOHO bus. Good for shopping/ window-shopping and just enjoying the pulsating atmosphere at these places in general. We also made it a point to go to farmer's market to try out the various yummy eateries there. Must try for foodies!! You get a wide choice of different cuisines from various countries here.

L.A is the place for celebrity spotting, so have your camera handy at all times! We didn't have any such luck, but who knows, you may! We did manage to click a whole lot of photos which contribute to the amazing memories we hold of the beautiful city.

The cityline from the pier

Santa Monica Pier

Sunset

Driving by

What about you? Have you been to Los Angeles? What was your experience like?

The start of my travel diary

        My journey around the world with my spouse started with our honeymoon trip. After only a couple of days of browsing through honeymoon destinations, we decided our first trip together would be to United States, as we both were keen on visiting it. This was in January, 2014. Fast forward to July 2014, when we actually started the planning and booking process. We picked 3 states to visit: California,Nevada and Florida. Since we had only 3 weeks in hand (job constraints), we narrowed down the trip to Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Orlando and Miami. And oh, what a wonderful holiday it turned out to be! We would do it all over again in a heartbeat!

           You can browse through our planning process, must see, must do things according to us and city travel details of each trip in my posts to come.

 Feel free to ask questions/ leave a comment on any of the topics