Las Vegas

Most of the hotel run sits outside the city boundary, on county land. Crossing the boulevard at street level is barred, so reaching the far side means climbing a footbridge and coming down again. A block on the map turns into ten minutes on the ground.

The jets change angle to music, running at long intervals by day and closing up as it gets dark. The lake sits on what used to be a golf course, flooded over to make it.

A barrel roof covers five blocks and its whole underside is a screen. At set times the lights go down and video runs across the ceiling, while a zip line carries people beneath it. The casinos here are older than the Strip and their table minimums are lower.

Signs stripped from demolished hotels stand outdoors in a yard. Most are left rusting and only a handful have been relit, so even after dark the dark ones outnumber the lit. Entry is by timed guided visit, and the night slots fill first.

The dam closed the Colorado and was finished in 1936. You can walk the road across the crest, and stepping into Arizona moves the clock by an hour. Lake Mead behind it fell for years, leaving a wide white band on the rock. Lately it has been creeping back up.

A one-way loop road runs twenty-one kilometres along the escarpment. Grey limestone lies on red sandstone here, older rock pushed over younger, so the colours read upside down. From autumn to spring, daytime entry needs booking for a time slot.

This was the first state park Nevada designated, opened in 1935. Wind has cut the red sandstone into waves, and a steel stair at Atlatl Rock climbs to the petroglyphs. In high summer no shade falls anywhere, so carry more water than seems necessary.

The whole outer surface of the ball is a display, so after dark it turns into an eye or a planet. It opened in the autumn of 2023, and the inner wall wraps the audience in screen as well.

Collect a licence at the county office downtown and no waiting period applies, so the ceremony can be the same day. The licence window stays open late. Small chapels line the Strip's northern end, and one or two marry couples at a drive-up window.

It occupies the old federal courthouse, a building from the 1930s. The second-floor courtroom is the room where a 1950 hearing on organised crime actually sat, down to the benches and the rail.

Opened in 2014, the wheel takes 30 minutes to turn once. Each cabin holds up to 40 people behind floor-to-ceiling glass, with the Strip spread below. A separate ticket puts a bar inside the cabin and pours drinks on the way round.

Betty Willis drew it in 1959 and never trademarked the design, so anyone may copy it onto souvenirs. A small car park in the median at the Strip's south end feeds a constant photo queue. The back reads Drive Carefully, Come Back Soon.

An hour's drive northwest of the city, this peak tops 3,600 metres. It runs far cooler than the valley below, so locals drive up in high summer to escape the heat, and in winter snow opens the Lee Canyon ski area.

A horseshoe of glass over the west rim of the Grand Canyon, on Hualapai land and separate from the national park. To spare the glass, cameras and bags go into free lockers and you walk out in shoe covers. The drive out is over two hours.

Under a glass roof behind the Bellagio lobby, the flower garden is rebuilt from scratch each season: Lunar New Year, spring, summer, autumn and the year-end holidays. Each changeover closes it for a few days. Admission is free, and it is open around the clock.

A canal cuts through the Venetian's second-floor mall under a painted sky, so indoors it is always late afternoon. Gondoliers sing in Italian as they row. An outdoor canal out front has boats too, but at midday in summer the indoor one is cooler.

No observation tower in the United States stands taller than its 350 metres. Rides at the top swing you out over thin air, and another option drops you down the outside of the tower on a cable. The deck-only ticket is separate from ride tickets.

A nonprofit runs this pinball hall. Walking in costs nothing; each machine takes coins. Hundreds of them stand switched on, from 1950s tables to new releases. In 2021 it moved to a new building close to the welcome sign.

From 1951, nuclear bombs were tested in the desert northwest of the city, and hotels threw rooftop parties to watch the mushroom clouds. The museum holds test-site gear and gauges, and a small theatre recreates the moment of detonation.

It looks like an ordinary supermarket, until doors in the fridges and gaps behind shelves lead into other worlds. Meow Wolf opened it inside AREA15 in 2021, with rooms by over 300 artists. Even the packaging copy is invented, so reading the shelves pays off.

A cactus garden beside a chocolate factory in Henderson, free to wander. Windows on the factory side look onto the chocolate line. At year's end every cactus is wrapped in lights, and crowds come at night.