How to Get Around Las Vegas on the Cheap

If you plan to spend all your time in a major hotel on the Strip, you probably won't have to worry about transportation once you've arrived. Much of what you'll want to see and do will be within walking or shuttle distance of your hotel - or you can order a limo and see the town in style!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Guidebooks

1. Ask when you make your reservation what transportation is offered free by the hotel. Many of the Strip hotels offer free shuttles to the airport, to shopping malls and to other Strip hotels.

2. Hop aboard the Strip trolley. The trolley goes up and down the Strip with stops at all the major hotels. A trolley comes by about every 20 minutes, and trolleys run until 2:00 a.m., making them a convenient way to get to shows and casinos.

3. Walk. While this is not advisable in all seasons (see Warnings, below), walking is a good way to meander along the Strip and check out the hotels and attractions. The Strip in its entirety is four miles long, so you may want to stick to the area around your hotel.

4. Use the Citizens Area Transit (CAT). Buses run to all areas of the city, with three lines serving the Strip.

5. Take a monorail. Some hotels have monorails that connect them with other hotels - for example, you can go from Bellagio to the Monte Carlo or from Excalibur to the Luxor and Mandalay Bay. This service is free.

Tips & Warnings

• Other trolleys run from the Downtown Transportation Center to downtown Las Vegas and to the Meadows Mall.
• Most casinos and Strip hotels have huge parking lots. You can choose between valet and self-parking.
• Since the airport is so close to the Strip, shuttle transportation is likely to cost less than $5 to get you to your hotel. If you're staying downtown, add a few more bucks to the cost.
• In summer, average daily temperatures are consistently over 100 degrees F and sometimes 10 or more degrees hotter than that. It's not recommended that you do a lot of outdoor walking during the day as it won't take long for the heat to get to you - sometimes with serious consequences.

on 4/3/2006 The CAT (citizens are transport) now runs double decker busses called "The Deuce" They run from the DTC (downtown center) through downtown (old Vegas) and all the way down the strip to the transportation station by the airport, they however unfortunately do not run to the airport (the 109 does). A 24 hour pass cost $5 as of November 2005. I found "The Deuce" busses to be much faster than the trolleys and with a 24 hour pass they're much cheaper.

on 11/22/2005 Although traffic on the strip can be a pain much of the time, taking the bus is the cheapest way to get around if you are going from one end of the strip to the other. If you plan on making many stops, ask for a day pass when you get on the bus. You can get on and off as much as you want in a 24 hour period for around $7.