What To Do With Just One Day In Las Vegas

Las Vegas is known around the world as a city of depravity where the masses come to drink, gamble and forget about their daily lives.

It serves another purpose, though, as the departure city for many of the American Southwest’s best national parks along the Grand Circle road trip. If that’s your plan, you may have just one day in Las Vegas. Here are some recommendations for what to do in that short period of time!

Updated August 2023

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Arriving in Las Vegas

Depending on when you arrive in Las Vegas, you’ll have more or less time to explore either your hotel’s casino or wander out and see the Las Vegas Strip. If you arrive in the evening with a time change, this is a good time to just take it easy and wander around your hotel’s casino, get dinner there and have a few drinks before hitting bed early to rest up for the long day ahead.

Some Important Considerations for Las Vegas

First, Las Vegas is expensive. Even if you don’t gamble, you can expect to drop a decent chunk of change on drinks, food and entertainment. Most people are probably already aware of this warning; however, it can be so expensive I still think it’s worth mentioning.

Second, if you aren’t a gambler, plan on doing a lot of walking. Between walking around the casinos and going up and down the Strip, according to my Garmin we walked 24,510 steps or 12.5 miles. That’s even with spending a decent amount of time sitting with drinks or food to people watch.

Third, when we went, there were no shows happening due to COVID-19 restrictions which probably made points one and two worse. If you go in more normal times, you should try to see at least one show!

Las Vegas is great as a gateway to the rest of the Southwest. We used it as a first stop on the way to Zion National Park and the rest of the Grand Circle.

The Flamingo Hotel and Casino

We picked the Flamingo for our hotel. The hotel was nice enough for two nights, but I wouldn’t say it was anything special. The room was pretty generic compared to what I expected a Las Vegas hotel room to be. It didn’t help that instead of having a view of the Strip, we instead had a view of a parking deck. Fortunately, we weren’t in the room very much, so it wasn’t a deal breaker. The casino was kind of cramped and chaotic, too, so if you really want to gamble and not visit any other Vegas casinos, that could be an issue.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have its pro’s. It’s in the middle of the Strip so it’s convenient to walk to any other attraction in either direction. The entry facade is fun; the lights and sign that greet you look like something out of pictures of old Las Vegas. There’s also the Flamingo Wildlife Habitat where they have various birds in a peaceful oasis setting, which I found to be very pleasant.

So, if you are only there for one or two nights you could definitely do worse than to stay at the Flamingo.

Caesar’s Palace

You’ve likely already heard about how great Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas is. If you’re like me, you’ve also wondered if Caesar’s Palace could really live up to the hype.

It does.

I fully expected Caesar’s Palace to be tacky and corny. However, it surpassed these low expectations by leaps and bounds! The designers did a great job nailing the ancient Roman aesthetic throughout the casino. Even the gambling areas are tastefully done.

We spent the better part of two hours just walking around the various shopping areas and galleries scattered throughout Caesar’s. It feels so big and immersive that you could easily lose track of time in there if you aren’t careful.

I found the sports betting area of Caesar’s to be the most impressive part of the whole casino. It’s like a sports bar on steroids with several massive screens showing current events and scoreboards. If you like sports (and sports betting), you will definitely want to check it out!

The Venetian

After Caesar’s Palace, we wanted to check out the Venetian next. The Venetian feels a lot like Caesar’s Palace except not quite as elegantly done and modeled after Venice instead of ancient Rome. It’s hard to even put my finger on the exact reasons why it wasn’t as nice as Caesar’s. I think had we not gone directly to the Venetian from Caesar’s I wouldn’t have noticed much of a difference.

The Venetian has a canal system that runs throughout the inside and outside of the casino. If you have the time and want a chance to rest, you can pay for a gondola ride throughout the casino. They seemed fun, but we chose to skip this attraction due to time.

The only other point worth mentioning about the Venetian is Trustworthy Brewing Co. I had a couple different brews here to rejuvenate myself. Both were solid beers. My favorite is What Plane?, a refreshing oatmeal stout with only 5.3% ABV so it’s not too strong if visiting at midday

Mon Ami Gabi at Paris Las Vegas

If you’ve ever been to France, you know how much fun it is to sit in an open-air cafe with a glass of wine to people watch. Mon Ami Gabi perfectly encapsulates this in the middle of the busy Strip without feeling like you are in a sea of people.

To top it off, the outdoor seating is right across from the Bellagio Fountains giving you the perfect spot to watch the first show at 3:00 p.m. It is an ideal place to have some wine and relax in the middle of the afternoon after a busy morning.

They have a very good wine menu that is accessible to the casual wine drinker but still with enough selection to satisfy my kind-of-snobbish taste. We also had escargot which was just as good as any we had in Paris!

Click here to reserve a table to make sure you get an outdoor seat for the fountain show!

The Bellagio

We visited the Bellagio towards the end of the day to see the Conservatory and have dinner at LAGO. Besides these two things, I don’t remember much else worth noting about the Bellagio because we didn’t explore it very much.

The Conservatory and Botanical Gardens

The Conservatory was somewhat disappointing. Some of that was partially due to my expectations. I thought it was going to be just a garden. Instead, it was more of an assortment of topiaries and flowers made into large sculptures and displays. It wasn’t necessarily bad, just not what I was expecting. I also wasn’t a big fan of the theme that they were going for at that time which didn’t help matters.

If you like gardens, I would still suggest checking it out. It’s free and it’s pretty quick to go through even with a queue of people.

LAGO

LAGO in the Bellagio is an Italian restaurant with small plates. The food and atmosphere were both excellent, and there are floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Bellagio Fountains so you can watch the fountain shows while you dine.

The menu is fairly extensive which is typical of a small plates restaurant. It’s pricey, but no more than I expected for a fancier Las Vegas restaurant. Regardless, it is worth the money, especially if you are only having one expensive meal during your trip.

This is the type of restaurant that needs reservations so make sure you book as soon as you know when you’ll be visiting.

Resources to Book Your Trip to Las Vegas

Whether you’re looking for tours, hotels or flights, here are some tools to help get you started planning your trip to Las Vegas!

Look for activities and tours offered through GetYourGuide or Viator!

Still can’t find what you’re looking for? Check out my travel essentials pages for more of my recommendations.

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