Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Grand Canyon, Las Vegas - Top Tips

So you have booked your inexpensive flights to Las Vegas, made certain you have finished the online ESTA (Electronic System for Travel Authorisation) to make certain they allow you in the United States of America, booked a hotel and rented a car, and now you are wondering what an Earth you will do when you get there!
Well No.1 on the record is evidently the casinos, otherwise why bother going away to the World's gaming capital in the first place? But to be entirely blunt with you, Once you set eyes on a casino floor, the others are something like a replica. However, it is still worth it to visit many casinos to question what other plans with places like The Venetian built like Venice, is one of the channels! Circus Circus is great for children, and a trip to the stratosphere provides a great view of the Las Vegas Valley, along with the beautiful Red Rock Canyon in the West, a visit if you have setcar.
Other hotels worth a look are Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay, while those at the upmarket end, such as MGM, Bellagio, etc are nothing special from a visitor's point of view.
One area though a lot of folk think of is the Grand Canyon Las Vegas. However many visitors from around the world fail to realise the real size of the USA, as Las Vegas is in Nevada, while the vast amount of the Grand Canyon is situated in Arizona. If you View at a map it appears barely a couple of centimetres away, no challenge travelling to it then eh? Wrong. First of all you have to cross over the Hoover Dam into Arizona, and if you are leaving from midday onwards this can take you a while to get through due to peak traffic loads (unless the new road has opened since I wrote this!).
From the dam you enclose to drive South some way along Highway 93, which is not such a bad trip but will have plenty of roadworks till around 2011.
Unlike the hotel car parks in Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon is pretty well sign posted, and it is a left turn onto Highway 145, towards the Skywalk. Whatever you do, don't ignore the junction; it is miles prior to the next one. The further along this road you move, the more rugged the terrain, with the road reaching more than 5000 feet in places, supplementary oxygen is not necessary though! The more along this road you go the more you realise that Las Vegas seems a different world away.
A lot of the trip is across an Indian Reservation, and the final leg involves driving on an unpaved road, although they have promised to build a good smooth one for the tourists who donĂ½t like the rugged natural feel of the desert. Although car hire companies state you are not allowed to drive off-road, the roads to the Grand Canyon are official roads even if they may possibly appear off-road to a number of people.
The whole travelling distance from The Strip is about 120 km and can take anywhere from 3-4 hours, then you get a whole day, so start early. Only a separate proposal, this is the desert, take a load of water, energy, food, and offers a full, tourists in Nevada, Arizona and California deserts dead in the past, not on the list.
If you rented a car or you're not going to get up to yourself, other options are plenty evident in view of the GrandCanyon.
You can locate coach tours to the area, and these are comfortable and air-conditioned with toilets, and are good value, but again you are still fixed with the travel time and it is longer on these tours. You additionally will not be stopping every 10 minutes to take photos and video as you would if you drive yourself.
One other option that is much faster is to take to the air. You may well think this is expensive, well in nearly all cases it is. Going by helicopter certainly is not cheap and you'll be back at least $ 200 per person, but it's a fantastic experience that floats in the Grand Canyon, and the increase over the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead, with breathtaking views of Las Vegas. A lot of people are not aware that, even if it is possible that the flight from Las Vegas to Canyon, and that under a plan proposed. As for the helicopters taking off from McCarran have to pick and bring you back to your hotelbut the price is much lower. I haggled them down to $80 each for a 3 hour flight.
The only downside is that you can't hover for photos, and it is noisier than the helicopters, but for the money and experience it is well worth it, and the views are just as spectacular from the air.
One final thing, if you have flown in from Europe, or Eastern USA, after you leave Las Vegas, if it is a clear day, the pilot generally flies over the Grand Canyon, so you get a free view, although it may be a little misty from the altitude, and you do require a right-hand side window seat.

Reference : www.thaisabuy.com

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