Check out where Vegas started on Fremont Street, Downtown – here, it’s all retro casinos and neon. Take a crawl of the hippest block in the city (Las Vegas Blvd and N 6th St), where you’ll find a bar kitted out as a ’50s hair salon (Beauty Bar, No. 517); a beer-serving cafe (the Beat, No. 520); a cosy pub (the Griffin, No. 511); a hipster hangout (Vanguard, No. 616); and the best cocktail lounge in town, the Downtown Cocktail Room (corner 111 Las Vegas Blvd).

Downtown Las Vegas

The Rat Pack’s heyday may be long gone but you’ll find one man bringing it back to life at Cleopatra’s Barge, Caesars Palace. Matt Goss (yes, from Bros) has reinvented himself as a slick tuxedo-and-fedora-sporting crooner. It’s a standout show among the Strip’s other more gaudy offerings.

If there’s one thing that’ll prise your eyes off the Strip, it’s a desert sunset. The best place to appreciate it? Mix Lounge, a glass-fronted bar on the 64th floor of The Hotel at Mandalay Bay. Look north to catch the neon glittering into life on the famous Strip, and Vegas’s prettiest mountain range, blushing scarlet beyond it. It’s an unexpectedly moving sight.

The Strip isn’t as full of glowing signs as it once was, but bling doesn’t die in Vegas – it just retires gracefully in the Neon Boneyard in Downtown Las Vegas. The outdoor space contains more than 150 historic signs from defunct casinos such as the Stardust and the Silver Slipper, as well as the original marquee for Caesars Palace.

neon boneyard

If you are keen to feel part of the action in Vegas, but cannot yet afford either the time or cost to travel there,  you could try checking out an online casino and lose lots of money whilst trying to learn the games and pick up some top tips for when you do get to play the tables in Sin City.