If you have never been to Las Vegas and you are planning a trip there, the most important thing you can take with you are “COMFORTABLE SHOES”!!! I cannot stress this enough. Even if you are not a walker and you plan on taking a taxi or public transportation, you need to realize that to get from your room to any other given point in the Casino, hotel, or outside to catch that cab, you may have to walk up to a half mile before you can sit again, so make sure your feet are comfortable.

Visitors do not realize how much they walk when they are visiting Las Vegas. Even if you are only walking to the next casino to try your luck, it could be a good mile before you get out of your hotel and enter the neighboring one. Las Vegas developers had ample land to build their humongous hotels and casinos. It makes it great with all of that room, but you can easily walk four to five miles a day and not even realize it. So be prepared.

Las Vegas is located in a desert, which can get very hot, so don’t forget to bring suntan lotion. Again, you may think you are going to be in the hotel and casino’s your whole visit, but getting from one location to the other requires you to be out in the sun, so don’t forget the lotion.

Has anyone told you to bring money and lots of it to Vegas? Even if you are not a huge gambler, you will spend money. If not on gambling, shopping, and eating can cost you a small fortune in Las Vegas. They have one of the best shopping in the world, along with the finest dining experiences you can imagine. The theory of “Build it and they will come” holds true in Vegas. They did, and everyone comes.

Attitude, Attitude, and Attitude. If you are amongst the young and beautiful, Vegas is the place to be. With all of the late night entertainment, and the rich and famous, your attitude will either get you in the door at one of the hottest night spots, or have you standing in line waiting all evening for a chance to get in.

A cell phone is almost a must in this large casino town. You can be at one location in the casino waiting for your companion, and they could be at the other end with no way of knowing where you are. Each person on the trip should have a cell phone so communication is simple and clear.

Go to Las Vegas and have a blast. It will be a trip of a lifetime and bring those essentials that will make your trip the best it can be!!!

Being told by many who like to play the slots, the Casino’s on Freemont Street, which includes The Golden Nugget, are suppose to have the best pay offs on the slot machines. After speaking to several friends and relatives who visit Las Vegas, it is almost unanimous that everyone believes this to be true.

So, when you are visiting Vegas, make sure you take the time to see the history of the old town and how it was many years ago. Freemont Street may not be the most glamorous area of Las Vegas, but the old time glitz and lights will remain for the young and the old.

I recently took a trip there and decided to go the least expensive, without giving up on quality of time and money. I chose to go at the end of September; because it fit my schedule, but I also thought it would be part of the off-season. As I investigated flights and hotels, I found that not to be so.

I always use the Internet to check for flights, hotels, and car rentals. After spending several hours, I found the best search engine to use for this was kayak.com, which searches hundreds of sights and gives you the lowest prices found. For my flight, I have a preference of U.S. Airways, because I have been loyal to them and their dividend mile program for many years. But this may change in the near future because of the change in miles needed to fly. I will soon be writing on this.

After checking with Kayak.com. U.S. airways had the best rates and I booked them directly with U.S. Air because Kayak.com does not do reservations, but only leads you to the sites that have the best prices. By booking direct with U.S. Air on the Internet, I received double mileage credit for using my U.S. Airways MasterCard, and I received miles for my dividend account.

I knew I wanted to stay on the strip, and the prices ranged from $79.00/night to $350.00/night for weekdays, and from $169.00/night to $579.00/night for the weekend. Because of my schedule, I had to stay two week days and one weekend night. The least expensive rooms on the strip were Circus Circus, Excalibur, and Tropicana. I chose the Tropicana because I had stayed there many years ago, at a time when it was one of the nicer properties on the strip. Since then the property has gone down in quality, (which I knew it would have), and it is at the south end of the strip, which makes the walk longer to get to the more popular destinations.

When I arrived at the Tropicana, I found the property to be overall clean, and it was what I expected for the price I was paying. Two things that disappointed me was that I was told there would be free Internet access, which there was not, and my safe in the room was broken and I had to check my lap top and valuables in at the front desk every time I needed them. This became annoying since I sometimes had to stand in a line for fifteen minutes waiting to check something in or out. I complained to the manager and asked to be compted for a show or something and I was told that there was no guarantee that the safe would work, which made me angry. I also had to pay $14.95/day for Internet access, and I found out that most of the other hotels offer it free to their customers.

I decided not to rent a car for transportation, but to walk, or use the monorail or bus. A rental car would have cost $150.00 plus gas, and I spent approx. $90.00 for transportation while I was there. I always ate a late breakfast and had an early dinner, which I could do for a discount at many of the restaurants. This allowed me to eat on approximately $40.00/day per person, which I thought was a good deal.

To sum things up, my next trip to Las Vegas will be a little different. While looking at the Tropicana as an inexpensive resort, I’m not so sure. Once you add in the extra expense for the Internet Service, the transportation cost when traveling up the strip, and the inconvenience of not having a safe, I would have spent more and upgraded to a hotel that was more expensive, but offered more as in location, amenities, and overall higher standards.

I would not get a rental car because all of my experiences with public transportation worked fine. I even went into Freemont Street where the original Casino’s were on public transportation and had no problems.

My eating schedule of late breakfast and early dinners worked well also. Not only did I save a large amount of money on the food, I also ate less and felt better for it. I did not have to wait for hours to get into a restaurant, and I enjoyed the same food that everyone else does in Las Vegas.

My Las Vegas adventure was a truly fine experience. I will not be returning in the near future, but I will be ready for trip out there in years to come.