The Strip

About The Strip

The Las Vegas Strip is technically in unincorporated Paradise, not Las Vegas proper, but it is the image the city sells to the world. From Mandalay Bay at the south end to the SAHARA and Stratosphere at the north, the corridor packs nearly every major resort, show, and celebrity-chef restaurant into a single walkable (and very warm) boulevard. The modern Strip took shape with the opening of Bellagio in 1998, which kicked off a twenty-year cycle of ever-larger themed resorts. The center of gravity now sits between Bellagio and The Cosmopolitan, where the fountains, the Eiffel Tower replica, and the footbridges across Las Vegas Boulevard create the densest people-watching in the country. Walk the Strip, but plan for it: blocks are resort-sized, not city-sized, and a trip from Wynn to Bellagio that looks close on the map is a twenty-minute hike in July heat. Use the free Mandalay Bay/Excalibur/Luxor tram and the Las Vegas Monorail to cover the longer stretches, and save the walking for the Bellagio-to-Venetian core where the sights are stacked.