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There are a few basic things that you must know if you are planning to go to Vegas. The first thing that you must carry with you is walking shoes for a trip there. You will need a pair of shoes that will help you stand in long lines and walk long distances.

The second thing is that the Vegas weather is fairly predictable. The nights are cool from October to April so you must carry warm clothes. You must also carry a lot of sunscreen lotion to protect you skin from sunshine with which the place abounds. Vegas is a desert town so you must drink a lot more water than you may be used to. The climate in Vegas is very dry and quite possibly, you might not be used to such heat and dryness.

You should avoid going to Vegas during the holiday season as the prices are higher and it is way too crowded. You should plan and book your trip well in advance and make sure that you get good accommodation.

If you play golf then you must come prepared so bring the best clubs to play a couple of rounds. Bring a good set of formal clothes too, to see some of the great shows playing in the city. Vegas may be expensive and is known to be an attraction for big spenders, but if you spend carefully say about $100 per day you could have a good holiday for two. On the other hand people who spend lavishly could spend thousands of dollars on a single meal easily. If you are on a fixed budget then do a bit of planning beforehand.

If you want to wander off from your resort or hotel then you must hire a car and drive on your own. It’s quite likely you may not keep track of the time while you are enjoying yourself in the casinos.

Vegas is also very famous for its weddings as much as it is for the casinos. If you are planning to get married in Vegas then you have a lot of styles to choose from and you will not be alone as there are around 122,000 couples every year who apply for licenses to get married in Vegas. Licensing fees in Vegas is about $55 (this is the present rate and it may change) and there is an additional fee that is charged for the use of the chapel and for the services that are offered. You may want a small and simple wedding or a lavish and bold one, whatever you can afford.

A trip to Vegas would prove an excellent vacation experience for your entire family if you are planning a wedding, a gambling festival, to see one of your favorite acts, a golf smorgasbord or if it is just spending time with your family at the pool. A trip to Vegas is what you make of it. Make sure you have a lot of fun. Watch shows, go sight seeing, enjoy the food, spend time at the spa of your hotel, relax and rejuvenate yourself before you get back home and to your daily routine.

Vegas stands out like a jewel across the desert. The bright lights can be seen from great distances and act as a beacon bringing in droves of visitors in search of riches, romance, and a myriad of other goals year after year. If the lights weren’t enough from a distance, once you’ve entered Vegas you will discover that the lights and sounds are even more pronounced up close and personal. Vegas is the ultimate experience in sound and light. If you’re not hearing the chinking of slots or music from the Elvis impersonators you are hearing chapel bells from someone getting married along the Las Vegas Strip.

Whether you are coming to Vegas for the casinos and hopes of finding fame and fortune, the fabulous shows and big name headliners, the wonderful food that is one of the biggest sins to be found in this city, golf, marriage and happily ever after, or the nightlife that has earned Vegas the title of ‘Sin City’. You are well on your way to an experience you are unlikely to forget.

While Vegas has not always been thought of as an appropriate vacation destination for those with families, this city is mending its ways and now offers more family-friendly attractions. They are even developing resorts and hotels with kids and family entertainment in mind. From theme park like atmospheres to everything in between the Vegas hotels of today are marketing to a much younger audience.

If you haven’t checked out some of the newer hotel and resort experiences in Vegas, perhaps now is the ideal time in which to do so. There are so many fun ways to enjoy your time in Vegas that the problem isn’t choosing which casino to visit or which hotel you want to stay in, it’s deciding which attractions you must see and which attractions you can actually live without.

In order to attract visitors hotels and resorts are going to further and further extremes and levels of competition. Some of these hotels have even gone to the extent of bringing thrill rides into the mix in an effort to attract new guests and thrill seekers. If it isn’t rides that are being offered it’s the biggest shows and brightest stars to perform for your pleasure. With the tight competition among casinos for your business it’s hard to imagine just how much money these hotels and casinos are bringing in each and every year but you can rest assured they wouldn’t be constantly building, upgrading, and offering more and more features and services if it wasn’t a highly profitable endeavor for them.

The fierce competition among hotels and casinos is good news to some extent for you as a potential guest. The tightness of the competition keeps the prices relatively affordable and allows you to pick and choose which hotel you want according to the services and amenities they offer rather than by the prices of the rooms. In fact, if you find another hotel that you aren’t as interested in for less money, try bartering with the hotel you prefer. It is very possible to get a lower price by going back and forth between two or three competing hotels.

Saving money is a great idea in Vegas, the more money you save on hotel accommodations, the more money you’ll have to spend on the entertainment of choice. Also consider some of the ‘perks’ offered by hotels when considering the price of the rooms. Some of the perks will include complimentary breakfast buffets or lunch and dinner buffets. Compare the price of buying breakfast to the price difference in the room before you make your ultimate decision. Some of them offer show tickets or discounts such as buy one get one free offers for attractions that may have been on your itinerary at any rate. It’s always good to shop for the best bargain and Vegas is one of those cities where it can’t really hurt to ask for a better deal.

When you hear someone mention Las Vegas, what do you think about? Do you think about the excitement of gambling? Do you think about the lavish Las Vegas shows? Do you think about a weekend mecca away from the drudgery?

There’s no doubt about it, Las Vegas is the most popular vacation spot in the world. But, have you ever wondered how it really evolved into such a well-known vacation spot?

Most people believe they know all there is to know about Las Vegas. Sin City, founded by gangsters, a purely gambling-based economy, flowing with booze, feeding addictions, anything goes. After all, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Right? (Hmm…well, you may want to ask O.J. about that one.)

Oddly enough, the truth of Las Vegas is far stranger than what people believe.

Las Vegas celebrated its 100th birthday in 2005, making it one of the youngest cities in America. But people were coming to the Las Vegas Valley long before its official designation as an incorporated city.

It was, as many still see it, an oasis in the desert. Literally. An oasis with trees and a spring where wagon trains carrying supplies from Los Angeles to the Mormon capital in Salt Lake City could stop to rest and refill their water barrels in the mid- to late 19th Century. The first non-Indian settlement was a small fort built on the orders of Mormon leader Brigham Young in 1855; although abandoned two years later, it still stands today as a museum on Las Vegas Boulevard.

While Mormons always have played, and continue to have, a significant role in Sin City especially in the financial community, they are not alone in terms of religious influence. Las Vegas may have more ways and places to gamble than anywhere else on Earth, but it also is home to hundreds of houses of worship, representing an extremely wide range of religions.

Mining (especially silver) was the next major attraction bringing people to the area. As often was the case that was soon followed by a rail line. And that oasis of water made Las Vegas a major rail stop, where steam locomotives and crew and passengers could pick up water.

The railroad, then agriculture joined mining as the linchpins of the Las Vegas economy for nearly half a century. And while all of those involved in those enterprises were known to play poker and other games of chance, the first formal gambling licenses were not issued until 1911.

But it was another new state law making divorce quick and easy that actually spurred the arrival of short-term visitors and money, most of them staying at small dude ranches…precursors, in a way, to today’s luxury hotel/casinos along The Strip.

A precedent of sorts was set in 1931, when Las Vegas first experienced what has seemed a near invincibility to the economic downturns that have affected the rest of the nation through the decades. With the Depression well underway, the Las Vegas economy experienced a boom with the arrival of thousands of workers building the giant Hoover (aka Boulder) Dam. Those in charge, however, didn’t want their workers losing all their money and sleep gambling, so they built the non-gambling town of Boulder City to house them.

The next boom was World War II and the construction of Nellis Air Force Base, which remains one of the largest and most important Air Force facilities in the country.

It was not until after the war that the foundation for today’s gaming industry came into being along with the short but storied career of one Bugsy Siegel and the Flamingo, which still stands (albeit considerably changed over the years) at the heart of The Strip. It also was then that gambling and tourism took over as the engine for Las Vegas’ future growth.

And considerable growth it has been. As late as 1960, the entire population of Clark County barely exceeded 100,000. Today, it is pushing, if not already over, 2 million, with an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 net new residents arriving every month.

Which brings up another, major misconception: The vast majority of tourists who come to Las Vegas never actually set foot in Las Vegas. The city itself is a relatively small part of the greater metropolitan area and does not include The Strip, McCarran International Airport, the Las Vegas Convention Center or even the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

McCarran is the nation’s fifth busiest airport; unlike those above it on that list, however, McCarran is not a hub, where many passengers are simply changing planes and never leave the airport. To paraphrase the city’s motto, those who fly into Vegas, stay in Vegas. At least, for an average of 3.4 nights.

The airport, which sits on the southeast edge of The Strip and has no room left to grow, will reach maximum capacity by decade’s end. A new airport has been proposed for about 30 miles outside Vegas, to siphon off much of the international and other long-distance flights. If built, their combined maximum capacity will be about 90 million passengers a year, sometime in the 2020s…about double the current rate.

Las Vegas is the world’s unchallenged king of hotels, boasting more than 140,000 rooms by the end of 2007 and more than 175,000 by the end of the decade. That tally includes 12 of the world’s 15 largest hotels from current Number 1 MGM/Grand to soon-to-be new champion, the Venetian/Palazzo.

The same is true for convention space, with three of the nation’s largest convention centers plus hundreds of thousands of more square feet of meeting space in all those hotels. The result: More than 22,000 conventions and trade shows every year…a number that is expected to grow dramatically as the available convention space increases by 50 percent in the next three years.

The average life of a hotel/casino is Las Vegas is about 25 years – making implosions of these huge complexes practically an annual festivity. In 2007, that “honor” is scheduled for the Stardust and possibly the Imperial Palace, although the recent change of ownership at Harrah’s (which just bought the adjoining IP) could change that. Others reportedly being measured for wrecking balls include the New Frontier, Riviera, Las Vegas Hilton (next to the Convention Center) and Sahara.

With some coming down, others going up and existing hotels adding new towers all the time, anyone who hasn’t been to Vegas in two or three years isn’t likely to recognize it the next time they visit. That has been true for decades and almost certainly will remain true for decades to come.

At the moment, the biggest change in the skyline is the appearance of dozens of new high-rise condominiums. What some call the “Manhattanization” of Las Vegas. But all those new residents have to live somewhere and, increasingly, they don’t want that to be 30 miles out in the desert. Which is why the bulk of the high-rises are going up within a block of The Strip.

With all those new residents, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Clark County, which comprises the Las Vegas metro area, is the fifth largest school district in the nation. About a dozen new schools open every year. Many of them over-crowded on day one.

Las Vegas also is becoming a major medical center, not because of some 15 major medical facilities, but because of its expanding investment and growth in cutting-edge medical technology, training and development. In fact, the Nevada Development Authority predicts Las Vegas one day will be as well known as a center for high tech medicine as it is for gambling.

It already has become known as a major culinary center, with a goodly portion of visitors coming as much to enjoy dozens of world-class restaurants as to gamble. Or watch dozens of world-class shows, including five different productions by Cirque de Soleil. Or shop at some of the nation’s largest and most unusual shopping centers. Or play golf on some 60 courses, among them many by the world’s top championship designers.

Las Vegas remains, and almost certainly always will be, the world’s premier destination for gambling and adult entertainment. Always changing, like a shimmering mirage in the desert, it is a place that is always new, no matter how many times you visit.