Since I don’t travel full-time, I figured that instead of doing a monthly recap, I would recap each of my trips following the full posts. These recaps will contain highs, lows, logistics, funny anecdotes, pictures, etc. that I likely didn’t include in the full posts.

Without further ado, my Las Vegas trip!

Countries: 1 – United States
Year: 2010
Number of Days: 3 1/2, including travel
Cities Visited: 1
Favorite experience: the light show at Fremont Street
Type of trip: Friends/Celebratory (21st Birthday)
Money Spent: We got our hotel & flight through a deal with a travel agent – if I recall correctly, we paid roughly $630. I barely bought any souvenirs, but my food and drink was easily $100. The activities we experienced add up to roughly $80, Brit paid about $30 for her CSI experience, and our Cirque shows were roughly $75. These numbers aren’t exact, since it was all five years ago, but at the very least, it’s a good reference point.

Highs:

• At the same place Brit purchased her 32oz drink, when the guy checked my birth date on my ID he noticed it was about a week after my birthday and gave me a free shot. Welcome to Vegas!
• Fremont Street. We had an absolute blast and I loved the light show! Plus, getting to gamble in Old Vegas for my first time ever was pretty exciting.
• We walked a lot, but it was definitely a plus that it only cost $3 each to ride the bus all day!
• Being on the Strip and being able to drink along the Strip was awesome. It felt surreal at times, but I loved being there.
• The poolside restaurant was phenomenal. The bacon was drool-worthy and we happily ate breakfast there every morning.

Lows:

• For the second day, when we did most of our walking, I didn’t realize that the slight pain I felt along the outside of my heel was actually from my shoe. Part of the seam – which has the material feel of thin rope – had come loose and was rubbing against my foot all day. By the end of the day, I had a massive and painful water blister.
• The bar hopping tour being cancelled was more than a bummer. We were very disappointed about it. Even though we got our money back and saw an amazing Cirque show, we felt cheated out of a staple Vegas experience.
• My camera battery died at the end of our second day, and I was beyond frustrated at myself for not having a back up. From that trip on, I now travel with three batteries.
• We decided to walk from the Stratosphere to our bus stop, thinking it was only 2 minutes. It ended up being more than 10 minutes through the sketchiest area of Vegas. I don’t recommend doing that.

Funny Moments:

• We ended up passing by the Jack Sparrow impersonator a good three or four times. One of those times was right after Brit purchased her collector’s 32oz drink. He caught sight of us, and yelled out loudly, “THESE girls know how to drink!”
• Every day as we walked, we caught sight of the same ad being driven on three different vans up and down the Strip like clockwork. When we got back home, Brit was watching an episode of CSI and noticed that same van with the same ad in the program. We got a good laugh about it.
• We kept saying “ca-caw” every time we talked about KÀ. It didn’t even feel like something we had any control over.
• Our flight from Detroit to Vegas had individual seat screens. It took us until about 20 minutes prior to landing to realize they had a plane-wide trivia game. We were ready for it on the flight back, only to discover the plane had no screens at all. Story of our lives.

Overall Experience:

Vegas is amazing, and I really  want to return. Brit and I are constantly reminiscing over our trip, so I’m sure I’ll be back in a year or two. There are so many sites we didn’t get a chance to see, and so much more in the surrounding area. Plus, we need a chance to have that bar hopping tour! At the very least, we would probably return with a back up plan or two.