When we were in Vegas in February this year it was our 20th Anniversary. We have spent most of our adult lives strapped for cash and scraping by. Two kids and only employer as Walmart for both of us. So this year the opportunity came up where we were able to FINALLY travel somewhere. Vegas was on Jennifer’s bucket list, so that is what I planned. She didn’t believe I would, so she was still in shock until after the trip was over. From there the excitement began!

Many months have passed so I am going to try to give a basic rundown of the trip. We flew out of Columbus International Airport via Spirit. Spirit is budget friendly in exchange for about 4 hours of slightly uncomfortable travel. Everything flight wise was ok.

Now, you could do this trip cheaper than we did but we splurged a bit. We stayed at one of the cheaper hotels, Excalibur Hotel and Casino. Now, the strip is huge. You can walk around some, but if you are trying to make the best use of your time I would suggest walking only to nearby areas. Basically every street has a foot bridge across it which prevents having to try to get across streets. The down side to that is that you have to plan on doing a lot of stairs. Most of them do have escalators and elevators, but many of the escalators were down.

Another thing we quickly learned was how easy it was to get turned around. We would start walking and realize we were going the wrong way. The Excalibur was a decent stay, not as fancy as some of the others, but in the name of budget it was fine. The casino was loud and bright, but also kind of neat to see in person. One of the things that caught me off guard was the number of digital games. Growing up, seeing Vegas on TV as a child most of the games you would see were less video. I can remember seeing rows of slot machines in movies, but I didn’t really see any set up that way. I did find it fun to occasionally stop and watch the table games with attendants.

We spent a lot of time just roaming through the various casinos and checking them out. We went to a couple shows, AGT Superstars and Fantasy Burlesque. Both of these were great shows, Fantasy has nudity so beware. We also went up to Freemont Street, in which the LED roof was amazing.

Travel wise, there are several buses that you can buy a pass for. Fairly easy to hop on and off of, and very cost effective. The bus we used most often was the Deuce. It is a double decker bus, and it is kind of fun to sit up top and enjoy the sights if you are going to be on it for a bit.

On our last day, we rented a Corvette on Turo. We ventured around on the outskirts of Vegas and took in the non city side. While we were out we had our pictures taken, which is a rarity. We were both fairly exhausted, so we actually turned in the car and got an Uber to the airport, where we just hung around until the plane boarded.

I will likely come back and edit this, adding more details. If you have any questions about our Vegas trip feel free to ask, and I will gladly share whatever information I can with you!