I’m an east girl with a west coast heart.
Earlier this year, I packed my bags for my first trip of 2024 and headed out to Sin City.
Vegas has always been on the top of my list of places I want to travel, but I’ve never been able to make the trip work. My friend Nicole and I have been best friends since pretty early on in college, both of us love being out west, and we both have a serious case of the travel bug but we’ve actually never travelled together.
Toward the end of last year, we decided that we wanted to finally make the trip. On a whim, we booked our flights, hotels, and started planning the weekend. We booked a flight out on a Friday afternoon and took the redeye home Sunday night. I was a little bit nervous that wouldn’t give us enough time there, but it was honestly the perfect amount of time. It’s an exhausting city, and although there were things we didn’t get to do that I wished we had, they will all still be there next time.
Where We Stayed
We stayed at a different hotel each night we were there and both definitely had their pros and cons. I actually did enjoy both of them, but I don’t think I’d stay at either of them again.
Night One: Circus Circus
Circus Circus was so.freaking.fun. There was so much to do in the hotel – I felt like we could’ve spent almost a full day in the hotel and we wouldn’t have gotten bored. The hotel had a casino, huge arcade area, bars, free circus acts, tons of food and dessert options, gift shops, a salon, and an amusement park???!!!
It’s definitely a perfect place for families to stay. It was fun, it was lively, and there were countless things for the kids to do.
If you’re looking for a 5 star hotel, though, this isn’t the hotel for you. It was safe, it was clean, but it was dated. For me and Nicole, though, it did the job; it fit our budget for the night and it was a hotel where we felt safe.
One of my qualms with the hotel was the location. It’s on the strip, but it’s on one end of the strip, so it was very inconvenient for night life. We had to Uber to other parts of the Strip when we went out and we had to Uber back to the hotel at the end of the night and I would’ve preferred to be able to walk.
Night Two: Hilton Grand Vacations Club on the Las Vegas Strip
This hotel was straight out of my DREAMS. I love hotels and this might (okay, it probably will) sound weird, but this was one of those hotels that just smelt clean and luxurious when you walked in.
The room was beautiful – it had a full kitchen, full living room/sitting area with a pull out couch, and a spacious bedroom and bathroom. There was even a washer and dryer!
I loved EVERYTHING about this hotel, except one thing: the location. It was actually next to Circus Circus, but on the other side, closer to the end of the strip, so again, it wasn’t really walkable to where we wanted to be.
But if location isn’t a concern for you, I’d definitely recommend this hotel!
What We Did
Our first night in town, we didn’t do too much. We were exhausted and fighting a bit of a stomach virus, so while we intended to go to XS Nightclub to see Chainsmokers, we dressed up, went to the Circus Circus casino for a little while, and met up with a friend from college. At that point, we’d been up for over 24 hours, so we ended up spending the majority of our night eating In N Out and Raising Cane’s and catching up.
The next day, the three of us met up with another friend from college and got brunch at Hash House a Go Go – which, if you’ve never been, you have to try! We spent the rest of the day exploring the Strip and walking through all of the casinos and being tourists.
Later that afternoon, we explored Circus Circus and then headed to the Venetian and got dinner at Smith & Wollensky before heading to the Westgate Resort for a Frankie Valli concert – probably the highlight of the weekend for me! Frankie is one of my all time favorite artists and being able to see him in concert meant the world to me (I might’ve even shed a tear or two!). Westgate was also really fun and lively – their casino was fun, there was live music in the casino after the concert, and it was also SO COOL to be in the same place that Elvis was.
That night, my friend from LA came to town and we went to XS Nightclub to see Marshmello, but there were SO many people there that we ended up going over to the club at Resorts World where Louis the Child was playing a set.
On our last day, we got brunch in the Venetian and then did some more exploring on the Strip. We went to go on the High Roller, but unfortunately, it was closed and it was a little bit too chilly to go ziplining, which was right next to the High Roller. Then we headed over to Fremont Street and explored Old Las Vegas before going over to The Strat and doing a little bit of gambling.
Tips If You’ve Never Been to Vegas
- Vegas is Not Walkable – Plan Accordingly
- Vegas is a BIG PLACE. You might think because you’ve heard of the Las Vegas Strip that everything is going to be close and walkable, but you would be wrong. My friends and family told me, ‘Jordyn, you can’t walk everywhere. It’s a big city.’ and I heard them, but I don’t think I listened to them. When we were there, we had to Uber to different places, there was no walking from place to place. Even though things look close on the map – THEY ARE NOT!
- Do Your Research
- The city can be overwhelming. It very big, it’s very crowded, and there are so many things to do that it really can get overwhelming.
- I wouldn’t suggest planning your trip down to the minute, but I would suggest coming up with a list of things to do while you’re there. I find that when I have too many options of things to do, I end up not doing very much at all because I overthink the decision making process. If you have a list of things you want to get done while you’re out there, it will help keep you busier and you’ll have a better time.
- I felt like I had done so much research before I visited, but I still felt like a deer in the headlights at times, so I would highly suggest educating yourself before you go.
- Wear Comfortable Shoes!
- I know I said Vegas isn’t a walkable city, but you will still do your fair share of walking! If you’re out during the day, I’d suggest wearing sneakers or flip flops – basically, what I’m saying is, wear flat shoes.
- I’m stubborn and I love wearing heels when I go out, so during the days, I wore my sneakers, then in the evenings, I wore a pair of heels and carried a purse big enough that I could stick a pair of flip flops in it and switch my shoes when my feet started to hurt too much.
- Check Out All of the Hotels/Casinos
- One of my favorite parts of the trip was going from hotel to hotel. Once you get to a certain part of the strip, it does get easier to walk from place to place and all of the resorts are so grandiose. It’s definitely worth seeing as many as you can.
- Go With People You Trust
- I didn’t feel like any parts of the city I visited were dangerous, but I definitely was on guard the whole time. I felt like it was a city where I couldn’t trust many people and I was grateful that I was with people who had my back and vise versa.
- Vegas is obviously a big drinking and gambling city and it’s a place where people can very easily be taken advantage of. Stay safe and stay on guard.
- Over Budget
- Vegas is an expensive city. I was on a tight budget while I was there, and I was able to still do everything I wanted, but everything costs money. Food and beverages are expensive, experiences require tickets, gambling gets expensive if you choose to do that, so make sure you allot enough money (and then some) for the things you want to do.
- Go to the In N Out Company Store!
- I love In N Out and getting at least one burger from there was at the top of my Vegas bucket list. What I didn’t know I could do was visit the Company store. They had so much In N Out memorabilia and I ended up leaving there having spent way too much money. My favorite things I bought were my license plate frame lined with little red In N Out palm trees and a dog collar for my dog!
Can’t wait for my next trip out west!
Anchored Musings 