Las Vegas Audio Tour

Highlights

• 
  Hoover Dam

  Without Hoover Dam, the structure in front of you, the modern Las Vegas you just toured almost certainly would not exist. Construction began in 1931 and required a workforce of more than 5,000 men at any given time, drawn from across a Depression-devastated nation by the promise of wages in an era when wages were scarce.

• Caesars Palace

  Caesars Palace, the resort in front of you, has no apostrophe in its name, and that was entirely intentional. This was intentional.

• 
  Luxor Hotel & Casino

  Your eyes land on a 30-story black glass pyramid rising from the Nevada desert. This is the Luxor, opened in 1993 by Circus Circus Enterprises, and it represents the apex of Las Vegas's themed-resort craze of the early 1990s.

• 
  The Venetian

  Sheldon Adelson opened the Venetian in May 1999 on the site of the imploded Sands Hotel, and at that moment it was the largest hotel in the world. Sheldon Adelson built it to replace the Sands, where the Rat Pack had performed decades earlier, and he did so with a scale and ambition that made even Steve Wynn's Bellagio seem modest.

• 
  Flamingo Las Vegas

  Mob money built the oldest operating resort on the Las Vegas Strip, the one in front of you, for a man who would be murdered in his girlfriend's living room six months after it opened. Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel — though nobody called him Bugsy to his face — opened the Flamingo on December 26, 1946.

All 40 stops

• Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Sign (South Strip)

  Look closely at the star design above you — silver dollars, in a starburst pattern typical of atomic-age America.

• Luxor Hotel & Casino (South Strip)

  Your eyes land on a 30-story black glass pyramid rising from the Nevada desert.

• Excalibur Hotel & Casino (South Strip)

  Picture a castle complete with turrets, moats, and battlements — a very enthusiastic imitation.

• New York-New York Hotel & Casino (South Strip)

  Your eyes take in a miniaturized Manhattan skyline — the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, and the Brooklyn Bridge, compressed…

• MGM Grand (South Strip)

  Your gaze meets the bronze lion guarding the entrance to the hotel that, when it opened in December 1993, was the largest in the world.

• CityCenter Complex (Center Strip)

  Notice the scale of CityCenter, the most expensive privately funded construction project in American history.

• Bellagio Hotel & Casino (Center Strip)

  Look at the property that changed Las Vegas forever.

• Bellagio Fountains (Center Strip)

  Your eyes settle on an 8.5-acre artificial lake holding more than 22 million gallons of water, improbably placed in the middle of the Mojave Desert.

• Caesars Palace (Center Strip)

  Caesars Palace, the resort in front of you, has no apostrophe in its name, and that was entirely intentional.

• Flamingo Las Vegas (Center Strip)

  Mob money built the oldest operating resort on the Las Vegas Strip, the one in front of you, for a man who would be murdered…

• Mob Museum (Downtown)

  Housed in the former Las Vegas federal post office and courthouse, the building in front of you is the National Museum of Organized Crime and…

• El Rancho Vegas Site (North Strip)

  Right here, the Las Vegas Strip began, when El Rancho Vegas opened in 1941.

• The Last Frontier Site (North Strip)

  Picture the second resort ever to open on the Las Vegas Strip, its Western cowboy aesthetic long gone from this spot.

• Tropicana Hotel (South Strip)

  Here is the Tropicana, one of the great survivors of the classic Las Vegas Strip era.

• Riviera Hotel Site (North Strip)

  Look up at the site where, in April 1955, the Riviera opened as the first high-rise building on the Las Vegas Strip.

• The Sands Hotel Site (Center Strip)

  Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack made history on the ground under your feet.

• Desert Inn Site (Center Strip)

  Picture the scene here in November 1966, when Howard Hughes arrived by private train at 4 a.m.

• Stratosphere Tower (North Strip)

  Above you rises the tallest freestanding observation tower in the United States, the Stratosphere.

• Fremont Street Experience (Downtown)

  Overhead, the Fremont Street Experience canopy is the largest LED display screen in the world.

• Golden Gate Hotel & Casino (Downtown)

  Welcome to the oldest hotel and casino in Las Vegas, the Golden Gate.

• Main Street Station (Downtown)

  Main Street Station is a Victorian-era themed casino that is also, somewhat unexpectedly, a museum.

• Binion's & El Dorado History (Downtown)

  Picture Benny Binion here in 1951, opening the Horseshoe Club with a simple idea: better odds and higher betting limits than any other casino in…

• Neon Museum (Downtown)

  Few institutions in Las Vegas are as unexpectedly moving as the Neon Museum, where you are now.

• Vegas Vic Neon Sign (Downtown)

  Look up at Vegas Vic, the 40-foot neon cowboy who has watched over Fremont Street since 1951.

• Downtown Las Vegas — City Founding 1905 (Downtown)

  Until May 15, 1905, the ground under your feet in the heart of downtown Las Vegas was desert scrub.

• Downtown Container Park (Downtown)

  Downtown Container Park opened in 2013 as part of one of the most ambitious and ultimately tragic urban revitalization experiments in modern American business history.

• 18b Arts District (Arts District)

  This is the 18b Arts District, named for the 18 blocks of Las Vegas's original residential and commercial neighborhood that artists, galleries, restaurants, and creative…

• Arts Factory (Arts District)

  A former industrial building, the Arts Factory in front of you seeded the entire 18b Arts District and remains one of the stranger success stories…

• Springs Preserve (West Las Vegas)

  Beneath the Springs Preserve, where you are now, lie the original Las Vegas Springs, the underground water source that made this valley habitable for humans…

• Helldorado Village / Rodeo History (Central Las Vegas)

  Back in 1935, the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce founded Helldorado Days near here, the city's original civic celebration and one of the oldest annual…

• Hoover Dam (Boulder City / Black Canyon)

  Without Hoover Dam, the structure in front of you, the modern Las Vegas you just toured almost certainly would not exist.

• Nevada State Museum (Downtown)

  Nearby, the Nevada State Museum Las Vegas tells the story of a state that most of the world knows primarily through its most famous city…

• Atomic Testing Museum (Central Las Vegas)

  Between 1951 and 1992, the United States detonated 928 nuclear weapons at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of the Strip, and the Atomic…

• Paris Las Vegas Eiffel Tower (Center Strip)

  Rising in front of you is a half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower, because you are in Las Vegas and of course you are.

• The Venetian (Center Strip)

  Sheldon Adelson opened the Venetian in May 1999 on the site of the imploded Sands Hotel, and at that moment it was the largest hotel…

• The Palazzo (Center Strip)

  In January 2008, the Palazzo opened as Sheldon Adelson's expansion of the Venetian complex, continuing his project of redefining what scale meant in Las Vegas…

• Wynn Las Vegas (Center Strip)

  Steve Wynn's second act in Las Vegas is in front of you: Wynn Las Vegas opened in April 2005, after he sold the Bellagio to…

• Encore at Wynn (Center Strip)

  Encore at Wynn opened in December 2008 as Steve Wynn's vision of what the companion to his masterpiece should look like.

• Aria Resort & Casino (Center Strip)

  When Aria Resort and Casino opened in December 2009, it was the centerpiece of the CityCenter complex and the most technologically sophisticated resort in Las…

• High Roller Observation Wheel (Center Strip)

  Straight up from where you are, the High Roller rises 550 feet above the Strip.

How it works