We went to Vegas, baby!

This last weekend was Peter’s 25th birthday and we decided to celebrate in style. While one day in this eccentric city is not possibly enough to do and see all that it has to offer, we did our best to cross off some of the “must-do” things in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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Despite the title being “A Day in Las Vegas”, truthfully we arrived in Vegas around 10:30PM the night before our official “day”. We drove straight from work Friday evening, the four hour drive becoming a five and a half hour one thanks to traffic.

In Vegas, we met up with our dear friend Erika (you may know her from our weekend in Yosemite) who lives in Las Vegas and generously offered up her couch to us for our first night there. Since traffic delayed our arrival, however, we had to immediately head out to Fremont Street to make our zip-lining reservations.

Zip-line down Fremont Street.

This was a really fun, exhilarating experience and the perfect way to kick off our exciting weekend in Vegas. The zipline took us right over the crowded, bustling pedestrian street of downtown Las Vegas: Fremont Street. Unlike some thrill rides, this lasted long enough to allow you to really look around and take it all in, from the flashing neon lights to the live music playing down below as it whizzed by.

You can either purchase tickets ahead of time from the Slotzilla website for a specific time slot, like we did, or buy them at the location in their ticketing office (you just might have to wait in line and specific time slots might already be sold out). There is a lower line and an upper line to choose from. The lower line is perfect for those looking for a taste of the zip-lining experience who don’t want to spend as much at $25 a ticket. The upper line stretches for a longer distance, is higher, and goes faster for $45 a ticket. Naturally, we went for the upper line. For a little extra, you can wear a GoPro and keep the footage! Watch my YouTube video above to see the footage from our zip-lining experience.

Get a picture of the famous and iconic Las Vegas sign.

I admit I had forgot about this top tourist attraction until actually arriving in Las Vegas. And then I saw it everywhere – used in all of the gift shops, plastered on merchandise, and recreated by various stores and restaurants. Erika took us to the sign on our way to a late night meal and it was worth it for the picture. It’s just one of those things that you have to do!

I recommend visiting at night like we did to see the sign in its fully illuminated glory. Another perk of visiting late at night was that there weren’t many other people there. Erika warned us that there is sometimes a long line of tourists waiting patiently to get their own picture with the famed sign. Around 1 or 2am, we only had one other couple to wait for and the sign was all lit up and picture perfect. The only downside of the night was that it made it somewhat difficult to get a good selfie. Don’t be afraid to use flash!

Jump off of the Stratosphere.

Doing the SkyJump from the Stratosphere was without a doubt both me and Peter’s favorite thing from our short trip to Vegas. I have never went skydiving or jumped off a building before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Yes, I did get nervous beforehand. Not like I was going to back out nervous, but like I suddenly had two left feet and couldn’t form a proper sentence kind of nervous. After getting all strapped in and secured to the controlled fall line, the SkyJump worker asked me to step onto the “yellow line” on the edge of the jump platform. I looked down to see where to step. It was at this moment I saw the city below and just how high up we really were. She repeated herself, more insistent this time that I step onto the yellow line. I numbly moved forward, and before I had time to further psyche myself out she yelled “Jump!”. I immediately jumped (I respond well to authority).

It was incredible. You could see everything from up there. The controlled fall was decelerated so it lasted a little longer than gravity might have intended, but it was still over very quickly. After landing, my legs were literally shaking from the adrenaline. The jump costs a whopping $119.99. For an extra $10, you can get photos taken as we did with Peter. For $30 more, you can upgrade to GoPro footage. Be warned though: We paid extra for GoPro footage for my jump but unfortunately, the file was corrupted when we went to play it back at home. Try to get them to double check the footage from the flash drive that they give you (we suspected that the damage may have been from the flash drive itself). We contacted the SkyJump help center but never heard back. While the jump was pricey, I think that it was worth it as a one time incredible experience.

Enjoy the view from the Stratosphere.

While you’re at the Stratosphere, you might as well get a drink at the “highest bar in Vegas” and enjoy the impressive view from its observation deck. It was the perfect solution for us to calm our nerves after the jump and get another look at the height that we fell from! And you can also watch as other visitors take on the SkyJump. You can literally see past the city limit of Vegas to all of the expansive deserts beyond and the mountains which frame the entire valley. The landscape is beautiful.

Stay at a hotel on the Strip.

These links are Hotels.com affiliate links, which means that if you make a booking using one of these links we will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you, helping to fund our future travels. For more information, read our Disclosures page.

If you can afford it, it is a fun part of the Vegas experience to actually stay at one of the hotel casinos directly on the Strip. It ain’t cheap though. The only reason we could justify the expense was because it was Peter’s birthday and we did a ton of research in advance for which hotel would offer the best price for the day that we were in the city. We stayed at the Venetian.

We saved a lot of money by only staying one night and spending our arrival night in Vegas at our friend Erika’s house. Another tip would be to go during the week when the hotel prices are drastically lower than their weekend prices, but unfortunately we had no time off from work to spare.

Top Hotels on the Strip: The Bellagio, The Venetian, Caesars Palace, The Cosmopolitan, MGM Grand, Flamingo, Paris, The Mirage, New York-New York, and many more.

Explore more Las Vegas Strip hotels on Hotels.com

The Venetian

It was great being centrally located to everything that the Strip had to offer. And if we had so chosen, we could have easily stayed within the hotel the entire time because it seriously had everything.

The Venetian is not only a massive hotel with a sprawling casino adorned with chandeliers and painted ceilings, but it also boasts a canal complete with gondolas and a shopping strip! It was crazy. Besides countless restaurants and shops, there was even an ice bar and an air bar?! We didn’t have the chance to try those out sadly. This hotel truly had everything, all in an extravagant package.

Book your stay: The Venetian Resort on Hotels.com

Walk down the Strip and explore the Casinos.

The Las Vegas Strip was just as eccentric and extraordinary as I could have hoped for. Lined with towering hotels each vying to grab your attention with flashing lights and elaborate decorations. Before getting dressed up for the night, Peter and I wanted to explore some of the neighboring casinos and see the spots we had seen only in movies before. Unfortunately we were there on a cold and windy day, so we didn’t explore the Strip quite as thoroughly as we would have liked. We popped into Harrah’s, Flamingo, Cesar’s Palace, and the Bellagio. Each hotel had its own theme which it flaunted in every piece of architecture and design. The Flamingo in particular grabbed my attention with its pink neon lights (apparently there are actual flamingos there at certain times but we missed them).

After spending the day exploring many of the other well-known hotel casinos on the Strip, Peter and I both agreed that The Venetian felt the most extravagant. Some of the hotels just felt like too much. And others just didn’t have enough of that flair that one comes to expect from Vegas. The Venetian had the best balance of being over-the-top without crossing into the realm of tackiness, in our opinions. Maybe we were biased. But one thing the Venetian didn’t have was an incredible fountain show…

See the beautiful Bellagio fountain.

If you’re like me and Peter and love the movie Ocean’s Eleven, you’ll recall the end scene where the team stands before the Bellagio fountain in reflection of their epic accomplishments. Well that fountain is real and is even cooler than the movie portrayed. This fountain is not your standard circular fountain in a driveway, but is really more comparable to a lake. The water extends along the entire front of the Bellagio hotel and casino. Within it are innumerable jets that sprout water up stories high into the air, all perfectly timed and synchronized to perform their mesmerizing show.

This beautiful spectacle lasts about five minutes. It is especially impressive at night as the jets of water are lit up. And unlike most things in Vegas, this is a totally free thing to do! Just waltz up to the man-made lake between the Strip and the Bellagio hotel and casino, and wait for the show to start. The fountain show is “every 30 minutes from 3pm to 8pm Monday through Friday and every 15 minutes from 8pm to midnight” according to the Bellagio website.

Gamble!

This is Las Vegas, after all. Neither Peter or myself find gambling particularly exciting, but I feel like you have to just to say that you did. When in Vegas, right? So Peter and I walked around the casinos and played any of the games that caught our fancy. We made it our mission to find the craziest slot machine. Specifically the loudest, most obnoxious, or most eccentrically themed. A few contenders: the colorful Willy Wonka machine, a Chinese New Year themed machine with blaring sound effects, or the “Kitty Glitter” slot machine featuring sparkling cat imagery (seemingly designed specifically with the crazy cat lady looking to gamble in mind). The slot machines didn’t hold our attention long though. Peter was hoping to find a roulette table with a minimum lower than $25 and we ended up at another machine. By the end of the night we had only spent a fraction of the money we had allotted to gamble, so Peter went to a table with real people for a few rounds before we were bored with losing our money.

Once we had our fill of gambling around 1:00AM, we headed back to our extravagant hotel room to pass out from exhaustion. Keep in mind – exploring the length of the Strip and around the various casinos makes for a TON of walking! Both Peter and I had blisters on our feet from our fancy evening shoes by the end of the night. The next morning we were still exhausted. Rather than spending more of Sunday in the city, we woke up ready to pack up, make the four hour drive home, and crash at home for the remainder of our weekend. I guess we are officially old people.

Have you ever been to Las Vegas?

As I mentioned, one day in Vegas is nowhere near enough time to do it all. We already started a list of things we need to do during our next visit! Next time we want to ride the High Roller, the biggest observation wheel in the world, go to the top of the Eiffel tower at the Paris hotel, make our trip with a group of friends to possibly making the gambling a little more interesting, see one of the famous shows, and maybe even treat ourselves to dinner at one of the many very fancy, very expensive restaurants on the Strip. Oh, and plan our trip for when it’s a little warmer outside! I’m sure there are endless possibilities of things to do, all dependent on your time in the city, your preferences, and your budget. But hopefully, our short trip helped you get a glimpse at some of the options on how to spend a day in Las Vegas.

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Have you ever been to Las Vegas? If so, what was the most fun thing that you did there? Tell me in the comments!