Las Vegas and Grand Canyon – One week southwestern USA

When flight prices drop and you don’t have plans for an autumn holiday yet, you might find yourself spontaneously visiting gamblers paradise (Las Vegas) as well as breathtaking nature, Hollywood famous feats of human engineering and one of the most well known roads of the world. An odd mix of things, which make for a very interesting week!

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Overview of the one week trip

• Las Vegas
• Hoover Dam
• Route 66
• Grand Canyon
• Sedona
• Phoenix
• Things you need for the trip
  • Visa
  • Rent a Car
  • E-SIM
  • Travel Health Insurance

Las Vegas

In Las Vegas I stayed at the Mardi Gras Hotel & Casino* for two nights, which was a combo-deal with the flight. The room was clean, it was mostly quiet at night. They have free parking and are in reasonably close walking distance to the strip. Which I did not visit that night, since I was absolutely exhausted.

In the morning I went to a buffet recommendation for breakfast: Feast Buffett at Red Rock Casino. 7$ all you can eat, with a casino pass, or 16$ without. Since I was only there for the food, I paid the 16$ and got access to the casinos buffet. Some of my highlights were the freshly carved bone-in ham, the wok station and the soft serve ice cream machine, which I put on a fresh crêpe from the crêpe station. But I also tried several plates full of “everything” from all over the buffet. Only small portions though, I can imagine the food waste in a place like this is already really high.

Exploring Las Vegas

Depending on when you get there, you can take a tour of the main touristic part of Las Vegas with Big Bus Tours* during the day where you can information about many of the casinos, hotels and sightseeing locations from an audio guide in many different languages.

I stopped for dinner at In-N-Out burger just off the strip, because I had been told that their burgers are good.

Then once darkness settles in, walk along the strip. All the pretty colourful lights make it a lot more beautiful and you don’t see as much of the dirt and trash in the evening and at night. You can enter most casinos and just look around. The Luxor is fascinating from the inside, but smelled odd. The fountain-music-light-show in front of the Bellagio is worth a stop, since it’s on the way anyway. No doubt my favourite Casino to look at was the Excalibur.

Without noticing I walked 6km from the hotel to the Luxor, then had to walk all the way back (because I was too stingy for a taxi). After 12km of walking, after a day of eating and exploring, I just wanted a hot shower and to sleep.

Careful! Look out for pickpockets. People in costumes trying to take pictures of you usually want money and won’t leave you alone even if you didn’t want the picture. Don’t take any flyers from scantily clad men or women.

Hoover Dam

In the morning I just got a coffee from Starbucks and went on a roughly 50km drive from Las Vegas towards the Hoover Dam.

I had just recently watched the first four transformers movies, after having seen a total of none at all before – shocking, I know. Megatron being hidden below is all I could think about while visiting the Hoover Dam. Well, that and that you can “time travel” by jumping back and forth over the state line between Nevada and Arizona, since it also separates two time zones.

On the way to the Grand Canyon I wanted to stop at the Mohave Museum of History and Arts, which is about one third of the way, but I could feel a headache coming on already and I still had 2 hours and 44 minutes of road in front of me.

Route 66

Part of my journey went along the historic Route 66, which I did not actually notice until I had to stop for petrol. The station had a dairy queen. The turning of the ice cream blizzard upside down almost gave me a heart attack, which amused an old couple, who then gifted me a candy cane to “Welcome me to the land of freedom” as I told them that this was my first time in the states.

Grand Canyon

398km from the Hoover Dam I parked the car at a parking spot near the Grand Canyon Village and got to see this fascinating spectacle of nature at sunset. Dreamy!

Another 1,5 hours away was the Americana Motor Hotel*, in Flagstaff, where I stayed for the next two nights. They also have free parking for guests.

In the morning I had breakfast at the IHOP directly in front of the hotel, before departing on an organised full day tour of a part of the grand canyon*, with pickup from Flagstaff.

The next morning I had breakfast at IHOP again. Did you know that sometimes the yellowish-beige knob on top of the French Toast is not vanilla ice or whipped cream, but butter?? I did not know and had a bite of it.

Sedona

Another roughly 60km away from breakfast I arrived in Sedona. The only thing I knew about Sedona before, which I had learned at university, was that they once forced McDonalds to adhere to their towns colours and thus the first not red-and-yellow restaurant was built. Nowadays most of their restaurants look closer to the Sedona one than the brightly coloured ones.

After walking through the city and having a look into several souvenir shops too many I checked in at Courtyard by Marriott Sedona*. Since Sedona seemed pretty boring except for the pretty nature I went for an early night, had a long hot shower and then curled up in bed with a tea and a movie on their premium movie channels on TV.

Phoenix

In the morning I had the hotel breakfast and then drove 187km to Phoenix to meet up with a friend who lives there. On the way, just after entering Phoenix, I went to In-N-Out again after my American friend told me the Las Vegas one should not be the one I base my opinion of the chain on.

I checked in to Home2 Suites By Hilton Phoenix Downtown* to spend my last two nights in the US of A. After checking in I dropped off the car, then was picked up by my friend who lives in Phoenix and we spent some time at the park with her dog, stopped to get a big smoothie at Jamba Juice, then played Super Mario Smash Bros with her flatmates. In the evening we went to a Mexican restaurant with her family and I can tell you: No Mexican food in Germany so far can compare even in the slightest to the Fajitas I had there. And the lemon tequila cocktail as well as the tequila strawberry cocktail? Delicious. But also strong XD

The following morning we stopped at IHOP before breakfast one last time, before she dropped me back off at the airport.

Things to prepare for your USA Trip

VISA

Depending on where you’re from you might need a visa to enter the USA as a tourist. And even if you don’t need a visa, you’ll need an ESTA at the very least. The most up-to-date info is on the official government website: www.usa.gov/tourist-visa

E-SIM for the USA

If you want to make calls, or, in this day and age, to access the internet via mobile data you can easily install an E-SIM on your phone, no need to change the SIM card!

Travel Health Insurance