The Best Sight in Las Vegas, Nevada

Background Illustration for Sights

Easter Island, Machu Picchu, and other celebrated wonders of the world are certainly impressive. But Las Vegas…Las Vegas is a land where jungles thrive and fountains dance in the middle of the desert. It's a place that unites medieval England and ancient Egypt with modern-day Venice, Paris, and New York. It's a never-ending source of irony and improbability where you can turn a chip and a chair into a million dollars, or celebrate your shotgun wedding by shooting machine guns. Where else does such a wonderland exist? Nowhere. But. Vegas.

The smallish city (geographically) is larger than life, with a collective energy (and excess) that somehow feels intimate. Maybe it's the agreeable chimes and intermittent cheers from the casino floor that fade to tranquillity when you enter a sumptuous spa. Maybe it’s the fish flown in nightly from the Mediterranean that lands on your plate. For each individual, Vegas is an equation where you + more = more of you: more chances to explore aspects of your personality that may be confined by the routine of daily life. It's for this reason alone that the "what happens here stays here" phenomenon is shared by so many visitors.

The city itself has a number of different faces. For a dose of history, head Downtown and explore everything from old casinos to a museum that pays homage to the mobsters who built them. For fun, glitz, and glamour, head to the Strip, which itself has three distinct sections (South, Center, North). For outdoor adventure, head west and south, either to the Spring Mountains beyond Summerlin or out to Hoover Dam and Lake Mead—man-made accomplishments of an entirely different sort. Along the way, you can pamper yourself at world-class spas and restaurants, engage in retail therapy at some of the best shopping spots in the world, dance the night away at rocking nightclubs, or—of course—court Lady Luck long enough to strike it rich. With the right itinerary, Vegas even can work for families with young kids.

MSG Sphere

East Side Fodor's Choice

The most exciting new concert venue in Las Vegas opened in 2023. With the largest high-definition (wraparound) video screen in the world, it's an unforgettable concert venue for such stars as Kenny Chesney, The Eagles, and the Backstreet Boys, but you don't have to see a concert to experience it. There are two other options to experience the magic. The "Sphere Experience" includes the Darren Aronovsky film "Postcard from Earth" as well as early entrance to play with some of the interactive, high-tech doodads in the lobby; it's usually shown daily (sometimes several times depending on the concert schedule). You can also watch a film of U2's inaugural concert at the venue in 2023 (called "V-U2"), which is shown on nights when there's not a concert or other event. The Sphere is accessible by a pedestrian bridges from The Venetian if you aren't arriving in a vehicle.