Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
1
Losing It in
Las Vegas
Sin City will rob you of your time, your money,
and your waistline (but not your desire to vaca-
tion here again)
L
AS VEGAS NOW RECEIVES THREE TIMES AS MANY VISITORS PER YEAR AS
Mecca and Vatican City
put together.
Pilgrims of a, well, different sort, these con-
ventioneers, vacationers, gamblers and gawkers come here not to be saved but—
let's be blunt—to sin. Or at least to engage in behavior that previous generations
would have found slightly immoral at best.
What sort of behavior? There's the wanton
gluttony
of Vegas, with its choco-
late fountains, meals that cost more than one's rent, endless buffets groaning
under the weight of their fat content.
Lust
is as big a money-maker, with a third of the casinos on the Strip support-
ing some sort of T&A show, and cocktail waitresses squeezed into costumes that
wouldn't have been seen outside a bordello in, say, the 1930s and '40s.
Sloth
is celebrated with architecture and attractions that are proudly plagiarized
from other cities, huge mountains of cash that substitute for genuine creativity
or (in many cases) good taste, and with kitsch that runs rampant in every fake
pyramid and Eiffel Tower.
And then there's
greed,
the driving engine of the city; that happy sin that puts
the spring into crap players' wrists and circumvents the super ego, allowing players
to forget their mortgages as they wager their earnings away.
It is, in short, a place to dip your toe into that undercurrent of nihilism, of
derring-do, of the unadulterated sensuality that courses through most of our veins
but perhaps hasn't been given free rein since our teenage, or maybe even, toddler
years.
And yet it's all great fun. The sins of Sin City are what 40 million mostly
ethical, upstanding travelers pursue each year. They come to this never-never land
of fantasy piled upon fantasy to let off steam, stop watching the clock (just try to
find one in Vegas!), forget their inner lives, and simply act in ways that give them
pleasure. In short, to do the things these upstanding citizens might be shy about
doing publicly at home (there's a reason the slogan “What Happens in Vegas,
Stays in Vegas” has been so popular). It can be a hell of a lot of fun to visit Vegas.
As an added bonus, Las Vegas, which means “The Meadows” in Spanish, is
also set in one of the most starkly beautiful areas of the United States, an oasis (the
springs here formed those meadows) in the heart of the Mojave Desert. As such,
it is a superb hopping-off point for excursions into the arid region, whether you
decide on a day of hiking in nearby Red Rock Canyon or Valley of Fire National
Park, or make a car or copter trip all the way to that exquisite, unearthly, hole in
