That depends on what you like doing! LV is a great place for all sorts of other activities; there are great shopping malls, magnificent restaurants, all the hotels have great pool areas (weather is practically guaranteed to be great) there's golf courses, you can spend several days just wandering in and out of the hotels/casinos marvelling at the architecture, you're near the Grand Canyon, LA is only a 4 1/2 hour drive away, there are great shows ( many many famous headline acts, like Cher, Donny & Marie, Elton John, and the 'Vegas style' production shows, like a choice of Cirque Du Soliel shows, magicians, hypnotists...........

not to mention the things like the white knuckle rides at Stratosphere New York New York and the Riviera.............

Thanks for the reply. During the day we'd probably do the shopping malls and relax around the hotel pools and by night would take in a meal and a few shows. How far is the Grand canyon and do you know how much an organised tour would be?

I've also noticed that most package deals come with the use of a car. How busy and complicated are the roads in LA? thanks.

By road the Grand Canyon (and go to the South Rim, not the north) about 4.5 hours. Lots of Vegas firms offer helicopter trips either just flying over, or even landing to explore the Canyon floor. If you seach this forum you'll have lots of details about costs (I've only been under my own steam!)

Vegas is surprisingly sedate to drive around. I panicked before I first drove there, but now don't think twice, even driving down the Strip is a doddle, apart from the jams! LA is more hectic, especially some of the multi-lane freeways. That said, we've done it several times with no problems (and are doing it again in November!)

I don't think driving in LA is any more/less worse than driving in, say, London. There are considerably more freeways, it's true, but the plus side is that it means it's easy to get to almost wherever you want to go. Avoid driving towards LA between 5am and 10am and avoid driving out of LA between 4pm and 7pm. The sheer volume of traffic means you can expect a trip to take double, or even triple, the length of time it would normally take. Driving towards LA should be fine after 10am and driving out of LA should be fine after 7pm.

I also found Vegas to be quite sedate to drive around, although that may be because I am used to the LA traffic and Vegas is tame by comparison! I found the freeways around Vegas to be surprisingly free of traffic but that could have just been the time of day I was driving. Actually, the worst part of driving to Vegas from here (I live a little outside of LA) is the drive back home. Driving back on the 15 south can take forever when there is a lot of traffic... especially the closer you get to LA.

We have been twice and never spent a dime gambling, there is lots to do Pools, shows , eating and drinking, shopping....ish as its not so cheap in Vegas, grand canyon, Hoover dam, etc etc
But would say 4 days/nights are more than enough.
Internal flights in the US are so cheap if you book in advance that I would say a stay in Vegas alone would be a waste of a long journey.

LA in my opinion is totally over rated,
where as San Francisco is a brilliant city.

we flew in and out of Vegas but went all over on our tour, Texas being the highlight.

We don't gamble, but we're over half way through a SIX WEEK trip to Las Vegas. We love it here and really don't want to go home every trip. The shows are great, the weather is fantastic, there is so much to see and do here. We visit museums and state parks, we try out different restaurants and generally have a wonderful time.

Thanks for popping in pebbles Glad to hear your enjoying your long break

Thanks for all your replies. I think one of the reasons I've avoided the states so far is the sheer volume of choice. I normally take around a year to decide on a fortnight's holiday in the med, I think I'd need 3 years to plan our holiday to America

Hubby's always said he'd love to hire a camper van or car (and stay at motels) and tour one of the coasts but whilst the children were holidaying with us, I didn't fancy it. Now that it's just the two of us, It would be nice to do something like that. I can't really see me getting round to arranging it though, I think it will remain a pipe dream of his

Shirley

One of my first trips to the USA about forty years ago was in a camper van touring the some of the western states. We flew to Los Angeles, visited various places in California, Arizona, Utah and Nevada before returning to California spending a few days in San Francisco then heading south down the coast to Los Angeles.
To be honest I wasn't a great fan of Las Vegas it was far too brash and crowded for my liking and that was nearly 40 years ago so goodness knows what it's like nowadays, but we are all different in what we want from a holiday ( I know some of my trips wouldn't suit many people). There is a variety of activities to chooes from in Las Vegas and it's a great base for heading out into the desert to see various places of interest and an easy drive from Los Angeles and if you want to see some of the California coastal resorts you can combine the two.
I've returned to the USA west numerous times since using both cars and motels/hotels and camper vans(much improved since my first one all of those years ago) and the area remains one of my favourite holiday destinations.

Judith

Definately Shirley...we are doing our 3rd trip to Vegas this Sept...I've never put so much as a cent in a slot machine while I'm there....Gambling doesn't interest hubby or me....we still find plenty to do...last 2 trips have been for 14 and 10 days and we doing 14 again this trip....I never get bored and find my all my time is taken up without gambling......mind you we do stop and watch others from time to time....but it just doesn't appeal to us

Hi tangobunny, do you do a package deal or do you diy and where do you fly from and into? Also does it entail a lot of driving? Although hubby said at one time he'd like to tour in America, the reality is he does most of his driving in Wales and isn't very comfortable with very busy roads and loads of lanes so God knows how he'd cope.

I'd be happier with a package deal to somewhere like Las Vegas where we would stay put apart from maybe an organised trip or two. Is there a thread here somewhere with basic info for newbies? I have no idea on the cost of things there, so apart from the initial cost of the room only holiday how much would I need to budget for? A very difficult question I know but it would be nice to have an idea of basic costs of meals and drinks and also roughly how much the shows cost.
Thanks and sorry for all the questions.

We had 2 days there a few yeas back as part of a package. We had our kids with us. To be honest 2 days was 1 day too many and we were glad to be leaving. Best bit of the stay was booking the flight up to the Grand canyon.

Shirley

Vegas isn't for everyone, but you won't know if you don't try.

I would seriously consider booking flights and hotel separately as you can usually do it cheaper, or at least much better hotels for the same price as a package. Many packages are well over priced.

However to give you an idea of costs you can check Virgin flight + hotel, Expedia, etc to see what a package would be.

Check the Vegas Hotels topic and you will see the kind of rates you can get using offers rather than going direct to the hotel. You would still be booking direct with the hotel and get the benefits that brings, ie you only pay the first night's deposit which is fully refundable if you cancel at least 72 hours before arrival. That way you can book something and cancel it if you later find a better offer.

If you put Vegas into the Search facility you will find all previous topics, and there are quite a few with advice for people considering it for the first time.

Virgin go to LAS non-stop from Gatwick and BA go non-stop from Heathrow, but their fares are high. You can price flights using http://www.netflights.com or http://www.opodo.co.uk

There is no need to drive in Vegas as it is easy to get around using public transport.

luci

I'll give you a rough idea of prices - this Sept. will be our 13th trip (I think) to Vegas

A direct flight with Virgin will be between £450-£550. Indirect with another airline will save up to around £100 per person but add on a total of 5-7 hours on your trip depending on turnaround time. We've done both and the change overs aren't bad but we prefer to go direct.

If it's your first time in Vegas you want to stay on the strip to be central. If you are staying for several days and want to get some sun, you want a hotel with a decent pool area, if you aren't planning on sunbathing at all, then a pool area isn't so important.

Hotels like Imperial Palace, Bills, Bally's, Harrahs and Flamingo are all basic but very decent hotels with not much in the way of pool areas (actually I lie about Flamingo, it's not bad at all for the pool area) these will all be fairly cheap hotels costing somewhere around $30-$50 a night, there are others like Excalibur which can be as cheap as $20-25 a night. The thing with Vegas hotels is that they are all very reasonable inside, it's hard to find a really poor one, a two star Vegas hotel is more like a 3* british hotel.

Eating out - you have every kind of choice you could hope for, from fast food like McDonalds, Pizza etc to high end restaurants costing several hundred dollars for a meal. Some of the hotel buffets are amazing for the money, it can cost $15-25 for lunch or dinner and you'll get a choice of almost every food you can imagine. The better buffets are at Planet Hollywood, Mirage, Wynn, Bellagio and Paris (imo). You can eat very well on a budget if that's what you want to do. Drinks can be expensive in bars but if you sit by a 1 cent slot machine and stick a dollar bill in as a cocktail waitress walks by you can order a 'free' drink from her - this can be a bottle of beer like Corona or a cocktail or a short and mixer, you just need to tip her a dollar for each drink so if there's two of you and you have two drinks, tip 2 bucks. That way it's cost you $3 for two drinks that would have cost anywhere between $5-12 in a bar in the same hotel/casino!

Driving is dead easy in Vegas and the surrounding area and very different to driving in LA or San Fran in my opinion. You can hire a car before you go (http://www.netflights.com are very good, we always use them) and get all insurances and a tank of petrol thrown in. Cost is about £20-25 a day all inclusive for a basic small car. Petrol (gas) is very cheap in the States I believe it's somewhere around £2 a gallon at the moment.

A flight to the Grand Canyon by helicopter is a must to be honest. Prices range from around $199-300 per person depending on who you go with and what you want to do. Peoples favourite companies to fly with on this forum tend to be Maverick and Papillon.

Shows can be expensive, often around $80-$120 for a ticket, but you can search for cheaper tickets before you go and pick up at the venue, or there are ticket booths dotted around the 'strip' that sell discount show tickets each day, just walk up and see what they have.
I will shortly bebooking some tickets myself, I've seen Lion King tickets for 40% off, several of the Cirque du Soleil shows are available with a minimum 25% off at the moment. A really good site for cheap tickets is http://www.smartervegas.com/ these also give hotel deals as well so you can see some good deals all round.

Cheers,

TC

Thanks you all for your replies and hints and tips- there's certainly plenty to keep me occupied for a while. BTW, I haven't mentioned my interest in LV to hubby yet, I'd better ask if he fancies it or I'm wasting my time

aia have pm'd you Shirley

Virgin used to do a twin centre trip for Vegas and San fran, met some people on the plane doing it once. Most people diy though I think, there are terrific deals on hotels and even the scruffy cheapo places are pretty good to stay in.

My sister and I drove round California for a week staying in motels as and when and it was great. Very easy to do, it's a good add on to a Vegas trip.

I do gamble, only in Vegas but not anything like as much as some.
Love the shopping, shows, food and pools.

I dont gamble apart from a quick dabble just to say id done it, theres the grand canyon and hoover dam plus all the shows in the casinos, but i found once off the strip there wasnt much else, i used vegas as a stopover to san fransisco staying 3 nights in LV 7 in san fran and another 3 back in vegas, no comparison at all san fransisco is a brilliant city much better than vegas for me, vegas has an artificial feel to it whereas san fran has much more vibe to it. Its only a 1 hour 20min flight and the fares are really cheap. Would defo do it again but staying longer in SF.