Me and the wife to be are heading to Vegas on our honeymoon in November, We will be flying out from Dublin. Was wondering if you guys have any advice' eg fly to wherever and drive into vegas as we like to see the sights etc or fly in direct ? Would prefer sight seeing routes tho if possible....

Thanks all

Fly direct and make side trips (e.g. Grand Canyon, Los Angeles) when you get there. Vegas is literally in the middle of nowhere, anywhere else you could fly to means a long slog through the desert.

Do not do this. There is nothing between Vegas and other major airline nodes but miles and miles of miles and miles. If you want to see the wild desert, Grand Canyon, etc., do it as a day trip from Vegas.

It's hard to wrap your brain around if you're from Europe, but the distance between LAX (the nearest major airport outside Vegas) and the Strip is the same distance as Cork to Londonderry in Ireland, and there is almost nothing to see along the route at all.

+1 on the direct flight. Unless you fly business class you will be super exhausted when landing. Adding a 6+ hour drive from SFO or a 4+ hour drive from LA could be a big hassle. Fly to Vegas from London and go visit Red Rock or Grand Canyon.

I would definitely fly direct since there are more flight options available and you can also get hotel/flight/car packages.

You can drive to Hoover Dam which is under an hour away, or spend a night at the Grand Canyon (about 5hrs each way) and there are a lot of helicopter tours to the canyon as well.

SFO is more like 8+traffic.

There's a few good reasons to drive instead of fly.

1. You have a giant cocaine filled condom shoved up your ass and you don't want TSA to find it.

2. You're Bart O'Kavanaugh road tripping with your frat bros and want to save your money for beer BEER YEAH UP TOP BRO.

3. You like the desert scenery and want to stop by Death Valley National Monument.

I think LA would be the furthest I'd even consider driving to Vegas from.

IMO, fly into Vegas, take1-day side trips to Grand Canyon, Zion National Park, and Death Valley (whichever appeal to you - I also think Bryce Canyon is worth a trip but it's maybe 4 hours from Vegas).

And if you want a cocaine filled condom up your ass, you can get it in Vegas, just make sure you and your wife arrange a safe word first.

The best sightseeing is actually from the air. If the plane if flying literally from Dublin to Vegas, you might be able to see some of the big canyons in Utah, if not the Grand Canyon. You might also be able to see Lake Mead as you approach Vegas, it's pretty darn big. I would guess you want to sit on the left side of the plane and hope it's not cloudy.

Take a helicopter ride from Vegas to the Grand Canyon.

GO to Utah to see zion state park as well as the grand canyon...

I actually disagree with most people here. If you want a bit of an adventure and have a couple days there is a lot of fun to be had flying to Phoenix and then going north to Flagstaff, Grand Canyon, and Zion, then south West to Valley of Fire and Vegas. Will take 2-3 days.

Or you can connect and fly to St George UT. And get a little bit of very nice scenery and only a 2hr drive.

Don't fly to California.

Standard route from Europe crosses the boarder over Montana and goes South over Wyoming and Utah, just East of SLC. I think you might be able to see Yellowstone but I haven't yet.

Ignore the above nonsense. I live in the Las Vegas area and fly in and out at least once a month, the view from a plane is NOTHING compared to views from the ground.

I've also flown here from Dublin, (the gateway to flying to/from the Isle of Man).

If you like to drive thru a desert to see great scenery, fly direct to Las Vegas and get a car to go to Southern Utah parks, (Zion and Bryce ) about 300 miles one way. If you want to go to the Grand Canyon, you'll likely need to go to the South Rim, which is a great place to visit, about 300 miles one way. The Zion, Bryce or South Rim are generally open 365 days, the North Rim can get snowed in surprisingly early in the year.

Do not do these as a day trip, it is worth staying overnight in either trips.

You get zero sense of the scale of the big canyons or Lake Mead standing on the ground next to them. Standing on the Grand Canyon rim you have no idea looking out of the actual scale. You need to be in the air.

I've done both air and ground views many, many times. I do not see how you can claim that you don't get an idea of how big the Grand Canyon is by touring the South Rim. But that's not the point, the fellow was talking about scenery, not a view from 38,000 feet craning your neck looking out a tiny airplane window.

When you go to the rim and look out,across and over, the Grand Canyon is "pretty f**ing big", you get a real good idea of that off the charts scale.

When you drive thru Zion to go to Bryce Canyon, you get terrific scenery. then walk down into the hoodos, and you get much a much better idea of the scale of the formations, the really OLD trees along the rim, the pine forest etc.

I'd also add that if he drives to the South Rim and overnights at the Rim or even in Williams, to take the time to go further East to the Meteor Crater site ..... definitely an overlooked place.

It's well over 4 hours from Vegas to anywhere else and most of that is all desert. You'll want to fly in directly.

Depends how much time you have.

You could make a nice trip out of flying into SFO, spending a couple of days there, driving to Yosemite, couple of nights there. If the weather allows over Tioga pass to Death Valley, two nights at the Furnace Creek Inn, which in my mind is one of the great hotels in the US. On to LV for as much time as you want. Then Las Vegas to LA, see the sights (two or three nights) then up highway one back to San Francisco with a night in Santa Barbara, hit Hurst Castle, night in Monterrey, see the aquarium and back home after a night near SFO - twelve day + whatever you do in Vegas. If Tioga is closed (probably 50/50 that time of year) it's a bit longer (6.5 vs 5 hours or so) to Death Valley via Fresno. Or you could skip Yosemite and go up I-80 to Tahoe for a couple of nights, then over the pass to 395 and south to Death Valley. Pretty drive. If you simply have to see the Grand Canyon, you can add a couple of days after LV and skip LA (or do both, time depending)

Or, just fly to Vegas, spent two weeks there and go home broke and bitter and hating life, I suppose.

The people warning you about the driving around LV are right, by the way. Euros are routinely shocked by the scale of the Western US. Sometimes with bad results (for an interesting read, google "Death Valley Germans" and go to the otherhand.org website) - not that you'll do anything that dumb, but it gives you an idea.....

MM MD

Oh, I'm definitely down with the "western US vacation that centers on X amount of time in Vegas" plan. I've done it and enjoyed it. That's very different than a "Vegas vacation, but we land somewhere else so we can see the sites as we drive there" plan, though.

I would be too, but not for a honeymoon.

Unless you really like driving.

If you want to fly to a different city just for the sake of it, you can fly to St. George/Utah and drive 2 hours to Vegas. There are obviously no direct flights from Europe to St. George, but you can connect through Denver, Phoenix, LA or Salt Lake City.

Regarding seeing the Grand Canyon by air on the flight in, you might get lucky, but don't count on it. You might be arriving after the sun has set, or there might be cloud cover. Also, the wind direction at Mcarran Airport will dictate which runway is in use and that, in turn, will dictate the flight path approaching the airport--you might not see much or will be sitting on the wrong side of the plane. Besides you can explore the Canyon from a bird's eye view more thoroughly from home using Google Earth. Visiting the area on the ground is probably way more satisfying.

Day trips can be tiring, so I would limit them to areas close to Vegas, such as Red Rock Canyon. Stay overnight for longer excursions.

As for flying somewhere else, and driving in over a few days while sightseeing, I wouldn't recommend it, especially if this is your first long trip together. You will be in each other's company 24/7 and that could be stressful, with you getting on each other's nerves after a while, with no escape. Better to fly into Vegas for a several day trip and make a day trip or two, an overnight trip or two, and have a few off days for other things such as poker, spas, pools, shopping and other activities of which some are done together and others apart.

Good luck.

Thanks for the opinions and places to visit guys much appreciated