The Unwritten Rules of Visiting Las Vegas

What happens here doesn't (necessarily) stay here, and there are a few things you'll want to do right.Andreas Selter/Getty ImagesLas Vegas can be a disorienting place to visit. Over 85,000 hotel rooms crammed into a single corridor. A reputation for nickel-and-diming. Extreme heat. And far too many escalators.But the city’s unique mythology—bright lights and round-the-clock entertainment for 55-year-olds and 5-year-olds alike—keeps people coming back. And despite the city’s incessant need to modernize and reinvent itself, it remains the larger-than-life, slightly flamboyant entertainment capital it was back in the 1950s, when crowds first took notice of the strange casino town in the middle of the desert.“Old movies like Casino gave Vegas cachet,” says Juyoung Kang, who has helmed mixology programs on and off the Strip since the early 2000s. “You don’t find that character anywhere else.”Kang, who currently oversees the bar program at Doberman Drawing Room, has lived and worked in Vegas for years. But she says she never fell out of love with what makes Vegas classic. “I’ve been to Caesars Palace so many times,” she says, “and somehow I still get excited seeing all the statues and the fountains."That sense of discovery, she argues, has kept Vegas fresh, and it pushes people to continue to seek out new and unexpected pockets of the city. Yes, the casinos are designed to confuse you. And you’ll almost definitely get a little lost. But that’s actually the point.Below, find a few ideas on how to make the most of your next Vegas trip.Read our complete Las Vegas travel guide here, which includes:The Best Hotels in Las VegasThe Best Restaurants in Las VegasThe Best Pools in Las VegasThe Best Steakhouses in Las VegasThere are myriad ways to get outside not far from Vegas, and doing so with spare some of your sanity. Getty ImagesGet into natureLas Vegas was once a lush desert oasis (the name “Vegas” comes from the Spanish word for “meadows”). It’s mostly concrete now, but the surrounding area still has pockets of pristine beauty. In summer, Mount Charleston—40 minutes from the Strip—offers a portal into a serene, woodsy sanctuary that’s thirty degrees cooler than the rest of the city.Know your late-night spotsWhen you’re stumbling out of XS or Omnia at 3 a.m. and ready for a second dinner (or is it early breakfast?), you won’t be in the mood to scroll through Yelp reviews. Consider bookmarking a few late-night eateries ahead of time—Secret Pizza at the Cosmopolitan, for example, or the Venetian’s Grand Lux Cafe—so you’ll know exactly where to land when the revelry ends. As one Reddit user said of Grand Lux Cafe: “Those Asian nachos hit hard.”Don’t sleep on the Italian foodSpeaking of food, Vegas’s legacy of classic Italian-American dining goes all the way back to the Rat Pack days. Many of the old-school spots are still around, and they’re all fantastic. The Italian American Club, an off-Strip eatery with a dedicated lounge singer, is as charming as it is delicious. Meanwhile, Piero’s holds the title for best veal parm in Vegas (if you don’t believe us, ask Joe Pesci, who filmed multiple scenes from Casino right inside the restaurant).Remember you’re on Vegas timeBetween the ungodly traffic, queueing for the elevator, and the wilting heat, seemingly small distances can take a while to cover in Vegas. You may think you’re only hopping across the street, or three casinos over, but it’s usually more complicated than that—particularly if you’re relying on rideshare services like Uber or Lyft. So leave more transit time than you think.It’s not all about the residenciesSure, the Eagles and Backstreet Boys are great, but not every night out in Vegas has to be a $500 ticket. From a five-piece jazz band at Delilah to Cirque du Soleil to Star Wars-themed burlesque, there’s always someone in this city ready to put on the razzle-dazzle. Enjoy watching mermaids swim in a 117,000-gallon tank? We’ve got those, too.The Arts District is worth a visit for a slice of more regular life off the strip. GettyGive the Arts District a whirlThe caliber of dining and nightlife in the Arts District, a five-block strip just north of the major casinos, has steadily risen each year. No longer a fledgling development, the Arts District now has award-winning chefs, sophisticated coffee shops, and an ornate Victorian-inspired cocktail den. Oh, and the fire-breathing mantis is pretty cool.Don’t skimp on the viewYou should never demand or expect an upgrade, but it's worth trying for one in Vegas to ensure the view from your room is a good one. Ask nicely at the check-in desk. It could mean the difference between marveling at Vegas’s quintessential, 24-hour marquee lights and staring at a row of parked cars.It’s a gay paradiseNot only does Vegas have a vibrant, welcoming LGBTQ+ community, but its nightlife zone was recently named an official historic district by the state. The Fruit Loop, as it’s called, contains landmark clubs like Gipsy and Piranha, both of which regularly feature performers from RuPaul’s Drag Race. It’s not uncommon to wind up staying out til 4 a.m. on a Saturday—in which case, see above on tips for late-night munchies.Rodeo season is litMega-conferences like CES and CONEXPO are usually reasons to stay off the Strip. But one event worth overlapping with is the National Finals Rodeo, which takes over the city each December. You’ll know the cowboys are in town because every casino suddenly fills up with Stetson hats, and street buskers start belting Chris Stapleton and Garth Brooks. The lasso-wielding crowd adds a rowdy, playful energy to the usual Strip mayhem, and they sure know how to drink.Dress to impressWhile it’s technically not against the rules to wander around the casino in your PJs, putting a little effort into appearance goes a long way in Vegas. Remember, this is a city of illusion, and standing out is kind of the whole point. So go ahead, wear that floor-length sequin gown to dinner. You only live once, right?Be smart about the spaSpa day passes are for chumps. Instead, book a service (a basic 50-minute massage, say) at one of the nicer spas like Lapis or Awana. And do it on a weekday, when prices are lower. Then, after your treatment, enjoy full access to the pools, rain showers, saunas, and salt grottos. That’s what I call a winning bet.Showgirls aren’t a thing of the pastGia Coppola’s 2024 feature, The Last Showgirl, may have come off as a eulogy to a uniquely Vegas art form, but the headdresses haven’t been hung up quite yet. At Dita Von Teese’s phenomenal revue, which takes place at the Venetian, you can still see proper showgirls in all their finery—and a few showboys, too.Your bartender is your conciergeA good restaurant tip from a Vegas bartender is worth its weight in gold. Get to know the person pouring your martini (tipping always helps). They’re about to make your night a whole lot better.Be an off-season bitchSummer is peak season in Vegas, which is counterintuitive when you consider how brutally, brain-meltingly hot it gets. If you’re not dead set on spending your whole vacation by the pool, consider coming in the milder months (November-March), when Vegas is as idyllic as Tuscany in spring. It’s still sunny, and you’ll have the freedom to linger at the open-air Neon Museum, or take a ride out into the desert, or even go ice skating (really) on top of a casino.Create your own Las Vegas itineraryKrista Diamond is a longtime Las Vegas resident whose writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Cosmopolitan, Hazlitt, Longreads, and elsewhere. Her debut novel, Close Relationships With Strangers, which is about a Las Vegas wildlife photographer who moves to Los Angeles to become a paparazzi photographer, will be ... 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