Beyond Downtown and the Strip Travel Guide

Las Vegas may look enormous on the map, but as far as tourists are concerned the only significant neighborhoods are the Strip and downtown. Nowhere else even deserves to be called a "neighborhood," in the sense of having a distinctive identity, a variety of attractions, and being explorable on foot. If you think the individual blocks along the Strip are large, wait until you drive into the rest of the city. Soon the streets start to be spaced half a mile or more apart, and often there really is nothing between one and the next. As it has grown, the city has repeatedly vaulted across swaths of empty space, and sizeable portions of the grid remain completely undeveloped.

Certain districts of Las Vegas are known for their shopping - Maryland Parkway close to the University, for example - and there's the odd concentration of restaurants, such as on Paradise Road south of Twain. However, no area of the city ranks as a destination in its own right, nor is likely to tempt you out of your car should you happen to pass through. Instead, your only ports of call away from downtown and the Strip are likely to be specific individual attractions, either the scattered casinos that cater primarily to local residents or the handful of museums . And if you're not driving, none of the latter, with the possible exception of the Liberace Museum , merits an excursion on public transport.

Note that Las Vegas has fewer public parks than any major city in the US. If you want to get out into the open air, your best bet is to head for nearby Red Rock Canyon.