36 Hours
36 Hours in Las Vegas
Las Vegas
Las Vegas has rebranded itself in recent years. Ditching its former Sin City credo, it now aims to lure visitors with the promise of unique experiences. (The famous slogan that winked at its hedonistic reputation, “What happens here, stays here,” was subtly updated in 2020 to “What happens here, only happens here.”) Indeed, Vegas’s glut of entertainment options can lead to decision paralysis: Where else can you play 1960s pinball machines, see headliners like Adele and Bruno Mars, tuck into a 16-course underwater-themed banquet, and play poolside blackjack in the same night — all within view of the Rialto Bridge and the Eiffel Tower? The trick is knowing how to balance all the spectacle. More than ever, a well-rounded tour of Vegas requires going beyond the Strip: What you find may surprise you.
Recommendations
Key stops
- Red Rock Canyon, a popular hiking spot close to the city, offers a 13-mile driving loop, hiking trails and a stunning glimpse into Vegas’s ancient geology.
- Chinatown, a one-stop shop for Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Malaysian and other cuisines, is spread over a two-mile stretch of West Spring Mountain Road.
- Area15 is a sprawling off-Strip arts complex that is home to interactive, often-psychedelic spaces like Omega Mart, Illuminarium and Lost Spirits, a circus-inspired rum distillery.
Restaurants and bars
- Wakuda Lounge offers sophisticated Japanese cocktails and adjoins a high-end sushi restaurant inside the Venetian hotel.
- Piero’s serves Italian-American classics like veal parm and osso buco in a polished, old-school space.
- PublicUs is a downtown cafe that hums on weekends, when locals stop in for Hawaiian loco moco, Belgian waffles and seriously strong cold brew.
- 20,000 Leagues is an underwater-themed restaurant that serves 16 elaborate courses (with rum cocktails) in a space that resembles a Victorian-era submarine.
- Easy’s, the Aria hotel’s not-so-secret speakeasy, pairs whimsical cocktails with live jazz.
Shopping
- 11th Street Records is a destination for vinyl fans, and has a recording studio.
- Fergusons Downtown houses over a dozen independent retailers who sell anything from floral arrangements to artisanal dog food in a repurposed 1940s motel.
Attractions and entertainment
- The Magician’s Study stages intimate, 90-minute magic shows in secret locations on the Strip.
- Fremont Street Experience is a slice of pure Vegas kitsch; the five-block pedestrian mall unites a row of old-time casinos like the Golden Nugget and Main Street Station.
- The Punk Rock Museum is an ode to the underground genre’s five-decade history, with guided tours by distinguished punk alumni.
- The Beverly Theater is a new independent cinema that screens international and arthouse films.
- Guardian Angel Cathedral, an oasis of calm just off the Strip, shows the talents of Paul Revere Williams, an influential midcentury-modern architect.
Where to stay
- NoMad Las Vegas, a hotel inside a hotel, occupies the top four floors of the Park MGM on the Strip; among its perks is a sixth-floor rooftop pool inspired by Jardin Majorelle in Morocco. Rooms from $159.
- Virgin Hotels Las Vegas has all the amenities of a major Strip casino, but sits a few blocks away from the action. The playful, 70s-inspired rooms (from $70) are spread among three towers which are named Opal, Canyon, Ruby; the last overlooks Elia Beach Club, an outdoor pool hangout that doubles as a live music venue in the summer.
- El Cortez Hotel and Casino, in the heart of lively Fremont Street, isn’t just the oldest continuously running casino in Vegas, it’s also one of its best deals. Rooms (from $39) are all recently renovated, though the original Spanish Colonial-style building remains gloriously unchanged since 1941.
Getting around
- The Las Vegas Monorail ($5 each way) connects most of the major casinos on the Strip; there are also three independently operated trams (free) that provide direct links between select casinos. Beyond the Strip, rideshare apps like Uber and Lyft remain the best way to get around for those not renting a car.
Itinerary
Friday
6 p.m.
Lounge around
Wakuda, a new Japanese restaurant inside the Venetian hotel, boasts a $500 omakase menu, but there’s more here than just exorbitant fish. Its adjoining lounge is a gold-flecked, dreamlike sanctum with some of the most distinctive cocktails on the Strip. A good entry point is a particularly fizzy Japanese highball ($20), made with a machine that the bartender said adds five times the CO2 of a regular soda, or the Cable Gai ($24), named for Tokyo’s Golden Gai district, that pairs fresh-pressed apple juice with Mars Iwai whiskey. Light bites such as sashimi toast (small crackers with lobster, $25, or marinated tuna, $10) and yuzu-drizzled kanpachi ($35), or amberjack, offer a taste of the main dining room, which is the U.S. debut by the acclaimed chef Tetsuya Wakuda.
7:30 p.m.
Have dinner with the family
Organized crime helped build Las Vegas, and few places embody that history — or at least, the lore — like Piero’s. The elegant and moody Italian eatery opened in 1982, and the director Martin Scorsese featured it in his 1995 film “Casino.” (Not to mention its real-life mob ties: According to the owner, F.B.I. agents once kept an apartment across the street to spy on regulars like “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein and Tony “The Ant” Spilotro). Of the six dining rooms, locals are partial to the oak-paneled Tarkanian Room (reservations for this room recommended); or you can live out your Rat Pack fantasy with a martini in the Monkey Bar. As for the menu, think family-style portions of bone-in veal parmigiana ($65), a four-hour-simmered osso buco ($49) and an appetizer known simply as Pat’s Meatballs ($21).
9:30 p.m.
Pick a card, any card
The Magician’s Study is a 90-minute magic show that diverges from the jumbotron antics of David Copperfield in two big ways: The audience is small, with a maximum of 40 guests; and children aren’t allowed. This intimacy lends an impromptu feel to the card magic and Houdini-style stunts of a performer who, even as he pals around with the audience, remains nameless. The venue changes frequently: You won’t know where you’re going until a few hours before the show, when an email provides instructions. By the time the magician emerges in a giant rabbit mask, the audience is already in giddy suspense. That a Vegas show can sustain such mystique, even in today’s age of oversharing, is quite the trick. Tickets from $99.
Vegas’s glut of entertainment options can lead to decision paralysis: Where else can you play 1960s pinball machines, see headliners like Adele and Bruno Mars, tuck into a 16-course underwater-themed banquet, and play poolside blackjack in the same night?
Saturday
9 a.m.
Do brunch like a Las Vegan
When PublicUs took over a deserted storefront in downtown Vegas in 2015, the cafe had little company in the area (a record store, a mall with indie retailers, and a pink, 1950s-themed wedding chapel have since moved in). On weekends, locals cram around communal tables, enjoying the kitchen’s international take on the brunch format. Choose from Hawaiian loco moco ($14), a gravy-smothered platter of eggs and hamburger patty served over rice; Japanese bento boxes (from $14); or colossal Belgian waffles ($11). Iced coffee is a must on 115-degree days, and baristas serve it a few ways, including flash-brewed and Kyoto-style slow-drip. For something unusual, try the espresso old-fashioned ($6), a non-alcoholic drink served with an ice sphere, fresh muddled cherries and aromatic bitters.
11 a.m.
Swim with the sharks … kind of
The Fremont Street Experience — a five-block pedestrian mall covered by the world’s largest video screen — is sensory overload, and its crowds can be unruly. Still, the Fremont East District’s old-time casinos are worthwhile. At the Golden Nugget, opened in 1946, live sharks circle a 200,000-gallon tank at the center of the outdoor pool (day passes, from $30, are available for nonguests); go see the “Hand of Faith,” a 61-pound gold nugget on display in the lobby. Farther north, Main Street Station, opened in 1978, flaunts treasures from the Gilded Age and onwards: Its previous owner packed the casino with crystal beaded chandeliers, a giant brass boar from Nice, France, and an original 1927 Pullman train car. In the spirit of random historical artifacts, the men’s room contains a portion of the Berlin Wall.
Punk Rock Museum
2 p.m.
Jam out, or veg out
Entertainment comes in all forms in Vegas. The city, which hosts two annual punk festivals, opened a first-of-its-kind Punk Rock Museum this month. Even casual music fans will geek out over rare collectibles like demo tapes, beer-stained journals and a studded leather jacket worn by Joan Jett. (A 1989 poster for the band Operation Ivy lists a then-obscure opening act: Green Day.) Admission is $30, but for an extra $70 a distinguished punk alum like Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols or Don Bolles of the Germs will take you on a guided tour (see schedule). If noisy rock isn’t your thing, catch a matinee at the Beverly, a new, 150-seat cinema nearby that screens arthouse and international titles.
Punk Rock Museum
5 p.m.
Dine at the bottom of the ocean
If SpongeBob SquarePants and P.T. Barnum threw a candlelit dinner party, it might resemble 20,000 Leagues. Set aboard a fictional submarine inside a real rum distillery, the underwater-themed restaurant invites strangers to dine elbow-to-elbow at a 21-foot banquet table over 16 courses ($299 per person, including drinks). Don’t worry: The potent (and frequently served) rum cocktails will help dissolve any shyness. The chef Taylor Persh steers away from literal recreations from Jules Verne’s 1870 novel (no curdled whale milk here), but her innovative and masterful seafood dishes tell quite a story. The distillery is inside a sprawling arts complex known as Area15, so after you’re done, walk off the rum next door at Omega Mart (tickets from $59), a surreal adventure course disguised as a convenience store.
8:30 p.m.
Drop a coin in the slot
Unlike the Strip’s 35,000 slot machines, pinball requires at least some strategy. Test your flipper skills at the Pinball Hall of Fame, a hangar-sized (and air-conditioned) warehouse at the south end of the Strip with 200-plus machines. Head to the back rows, where older models from the 50s and 60s beckon with vivid, comic book-style graphics. (A 1966 game called Buckaroo features a mechanical horse; score points and the horse will kick a spinning cowboy!) If you pass duplicate versions of the same machine, look closer: Because of a nationwide crackdown on pinball in the early 1940s, certain models had to be built without the “free play” feature. The reason? Authorities considered it a form of gambling. Admission is free, games cost between a quarter and a dollar.
10 p.m.
Swing the night away
It might seem like every bar in Vegas is screaming for your attention, but at so-called secret bars, the fun is in the hunt (see: Ghost Donkey, 1923 Prohibition Bar, the Lock). At Easy’s, a nondescript doughnut counter on the second floor of the Aria casino leads to a velvet-draped, jewel box lounge. There’s a small bandstand at the front; starting at 9 p.m., a jazz quartet launches into spirited renditions of songs by Amy Winehouse and Lorde. Seating is limited, especially on weekends, but walk-ins are welcome, and the music will have you on your feet anyway. The cocktail menu offers classics alongside more flamboyant creations like the Shroomin’ ($50), a two-person gin-and-matcha concoction served in twin mushroom-shaped glasses on a moss-covered tray.
Sunday
7 a.m.
See Jurassic-era Vegas
No buses connect Red Rock Canyon to the city, and the half-hour drive is best done early to avoid the stifling midday heat. But the popular hiking spot is well worth the early wake-up call. Head for the Calico Basin trail, an easy 1.5-mile loop that crisscrosses a natural spring with cottonwood, oak and honey mesquite trees. Continue up the rocky path to see 180-million-year-old Aztec Sandstone peaks that reach into the sky like giant embers. The area is home to sagebrush lizards, gray foxes, desert tortoises and jackrabbits, who use the protruding rock to escape the desert heat. Nearby, the Red Meadows Boardwalk is a half-mile, wheelchair-friendly trail built over lush saltgrass meadow; find a bench to sit and enjoy the trills of white-crowned sparrows and spotted towhees.
9 a.m.
Restaurant hop in Chinatown
Vegas’s Chinatown began as a single Chinese strip mall in 1994, and has since expanded into one of the city’s most vibrant and multicultural neighborhoods. The Spring Mountain Road corridor is the subject of dedicated foodie walking tours and is easy to explore on foot. A good starting point is Taiwan Deli, where you can have Taiwanese doughnuts and fresh soy milk ($7) in a dining room that evokes the glamor of 1930s Taipei. Next door, Shanghai Plaza has a dizzying array of restaurants and bakeries: Try the sheng jian bao, or pan-fried soup dumplings ($8.95), at Shanghai Taste. Finish at Sul & Beans, the Los Angeles-based Korean dessert chain that specializes in bingsoo, or shaved ice sundaes, in flavors like fresh mango and injeolmi, made with roasted soybean.
11 a.m.
Atone for your sins
Peace, prayer, and penance don’t describe the typical Vegas experience, but the words, stamped on a sea-blue mosaic outside the Guardian Angel Cathedral, offer a clue to the calm that awaits inside. The church was designed in 1961 by Paul Revere Williams, a prominent California-based architect who is also responsible for the shell-shaped Concha Motel, now part of Vegas’s Neon Museum. (Mr. Williams designed homes for stars like Frank Sinatra and Lucille Ball, and was the first Black member of the American Institute of Architects.) During Sunday morning mass (11 a.m., open to visitors), the stark, light-filled hall is a serene oasis amid the roar of the Strip. Be lulled by the clean, unbroken geometry of Mr. Williams’s design; you can take that tranquility with you when you step back outside.