Where to stay in Las Vegas

 Shimmering from the desert haze of Nevada like a latter-day El Dorado, Las Vegas is the most dynamic city on Earth. At the start of the 20th century, it didn’t even exist. Now it’s home to two million people. Here, we take a look at some of the best places to stay in Las Vegas.

In the old days, the casinos along Las Vegas’s legendary Strip were cut-throat rivals. Each stood a long way back from the road, and was a dark, low-ceilinged labyrinth, in which it was all but impossible to find an exit. During the 1980s, however, visitors started to explore the Strip on foot. Mogul Steve Wynn cashed in by placing a flame-spouting volcano outside his new Mirage. As the casinos competed to lure in pedestrians, they filled in those daunting distances from the sidewalk and between each casino and the next.

With Las Vegas booming in the 1990s, gaming corporations bought up first individual casinos, and then each other. The Strip today is dominated by just two colossal conglomerates, MGM Resorts and Caesars Entertainment. Each owns a string of neighbouring casinos. Once you own the casino next door, there’s no reason to make each a virtual prison. The Strip has therefore opened out, so that much of its central portion now consists of pedestrian-friendly open-air terraces and pavilions housing bars and restaurants.

Bemused by the options and wondering where to stay in Las Vegas? From the new PocketRough Guide Las Vegas, we’ve selected eleven of the best options on The Strip and beyond.

For opulence

In 1998, casino magnate Steve Wynn unveiled Bellagio as his attempt to build the best hotel in world history. It is undeniably a breathtaking achievement, striving to be somehow more authentic than the original town on Lake Como.

It’s perhaps not quite state-of-the-art anymore, but still at the top end of the Vegas spectrum. Plush European furnishings and marble bathrooms give the luxurious rooms a slightly retro feel. Some face the fountains at the front, others the superb pool complex.

The fountains at the Bellargio © Shutterstock

For ambience

Paris was the 1999 handiwork of the same designers as New York–New York. With a half-size Eiffel Tower straddling the Arc de Triomphe and the Opera, it’s a little compressed, but the attention to detail is a joy.

Rooms, if not the absolute pinnacle of luxury, are still pretty good. For location, views and ambience, they more than hold their own.

A replica of the Eiffel Tower outside Paris © Shutterstock

For pseudo-Roman splendour

Caesars Palace still encapsulates Las Vegas at its best, more than fifty years since it opened. Outside, ever more bars and restaurants fill extensive open-air patios. The interior is a vast labyrinth of slots and green baize, peopled by strutting half-naked Roman centurions and Cleopatra-cropped waitresses.

The older rooms in this epitome of 1960s luxury still burst with atmosphere. Those in the newer towers are more conventionally elegant.

Caesars Palace © Charles Zachritz/Shutterstock

For theming

New York–New York, a miniature Manhattan, boasts a skyline featuring twelve separate skyscrapers and is fronted, of course, by the Statue of Liberty.

Unusually, the interior too is carefully realized, with some nice Art-Deco flourishes and entertaining nightlife options in its Greenwich Village area. The sheer attention to detail makes this one of the most exuberantly enjoyable places to stay on the Strip. In addition, it’s small enough that you’re not always shuffling down endless corridors. las vegas hotel reviews

New York, New York on the Las Vegas Strip © Shutterstock