What Las Vegas Compass is
Las Vegas Compass is an independent travel-planning guide to Las Vegas — the Strip and Downtown, shows and nightlife, attractions and day trips, hotels and resorts, dining and getting around. It exists to help visitors make smarter decisions before they book: which part of the Strip to stay on, how resort fees really work, how many nights to budget, which shows are worth it and how to get around without a car. It is a guide, not a booking site — you book on official venue sites or with partners; we explain the choices.
Who it is for
It is written primarily for first-time and infrequent visitors facing an expensive trip with a lot of hard-to-reverse decisions — which resort, how many nights, when to go, which shows to book, whether to rent a car. It is equally useful for returning visitors planning a different kind of trip (a family visit, a budget Downtown stay, a Grand Canyon or Hoover Dam excursion, a bachelor or bachelorette weekend). It deliberately favours decision frameworks over a firehose of detail, because the hard part of a Las Vegas trip is choosing well, not finding information.
Our editorial approach
Three principles guide every page. Honest trade-offs: we say when something is not worth it, who a resort does not suit, and where the free option beats the paid one. Evergreen over ephemeral: we explain how things work (resort fees, dynamic room pricing, show discount channels, parking and rideshare rules) rather than quoting prices and schedules that go stale, and we tell you to confirm specifics on the official site. Reader-first: recommendations reflect what we believe helps the visitor, never what pays us most.
Independent and not affiliated
Las Vegas Compass is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any casino, resort operator, show producer, tour company or the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. All trademarks and venue names are the property of their respective owners and are used only for identification. Our recommendations reflect what we think helps the visitor — they are not directed or approved by any resort or venue.
How we are funded
Las Vegas Compass is free to read. Some links on the site are affiliate links — to hotel-booking sites and to tour and ticket platforms such as Viator, GetYourGuide and Tiqets — and if you book through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. The site may also carry display advertising. That funding keeps the guide free and is what lets it stay independent of the resorts. Affiliate and advertising relationships never change which options we recommend — see the full affiliate disclosure.
How we keep content accurate
Las Vegas details — resort fees, show line-ups, parking charges, restaurant openings, pool seasons — change frequently. We write guidance to be evergreen (frameworks and strategy rather than exact prices and dates that go stale) and recommend confirming specifics on the official sites before you book. Spotted something out of date or wrong? Please tell us via the contact page — reader corrections are one of the main ways the guides stay reliable.
What we deliberately do not do
We do not sell show tickets, hotel rooms, tours or packages; we do not publish live room-rate trackers or real-time event listings (the venues and booking sites do that better); and we do not chase every promotion. The site focuses on the planning decisions that are hard to reverse and expensive to get wrong, and points you to official sources for the live, changeable detail. Knowing what a guide should not try to be is part of keeping it genuinely useful.
How to use the guides together
The pages are designed to be read in roughly this order: decide when (best time to visit), get oriented on where things are (the Strip), choose where to stay (hotels & resorts) and how to get around (transportation), then layer in shows & nightlife, attractions and day trips and dining — all pulled together by the trip-planning checklist. First-timers should start with the first-time Las Vegas guide.
Photo credits
Some photographs on Las Vegas Compass are used under Creative Commons licences and are credited here with thanks to their photographers. Photos not listed are our own or supplied by the venues.
- 2017 Aerial view Hoover Dam 4774 — Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz), CC BY-SA 4.0
- LINQ High Roller - Las Vegas Ferris Wheel — Tony Webster, CC BY-SA 2.0
- Free cocktail glass bar counter — unknown author, CC0 1.0
- Steak Asparagus — Snapwire, CC0 1.0
- Love Cirque du Soleil Show Theatre Mirage Hotel Las Vegas — Michael Gray, BY-SA 2.0
- File:Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino from McCarran International Airport, Las Vegas, Nevada (15700532911).jpg — Ken Lund from Reno, Nevada, USA, BY-SA 2.0
- Bellagio Fountains Night 2 (15565620302) — Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, BY 2.0
- Carnival World Buffet, The Rio, Las Vegas Nevada 12 — Mark Miller, BY 3.0
- Turnberry Towers Las Vegas Monorail — Scott Ricamore, BY-SA 3.0
- Las Vegas monorail — David Shane, BY 2.0
- Las Vegas McCarran — Craig Butz, BY-SA 3.0
- Sportsbook at Wynn Las Vegas (2010) — xiquinhosilva, BY 2.0
- Stratosphere Tower Las Vegas Strip — Carol M Highsmith, CC0 1.0
- Las Vegas Strip2 — BrendelSignature at English Wikipedia, BY-SA 3.0
- Shark Reef Aquarium, Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas - 8133530582 — Holiday Point, BY 2.0
- Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada 01 — cjarv2010, BY-SA 2.0
- Mural on 18b The Las Vegas Arts District — ClearLight602, BY-SA 4.0
- Park MGM from Pedestrian Bridge — Coolcaesar, BY-SA 4.0
- Las Vegas (4194464675) — Bert Kaufmann from Roermond, Netherlands, BY 2.0
- Las Vegas Strip Traffic (22574558220) — Tony Webster from San Francisco, California, BY-SA 2.0
- Electric Daisy Carnival 2011 - Main Stage — Roman Fuchs, BY-SA 3.0
- Electric Daisy Carnival 2011 - Fireworks — Roman Fuchs, BY-SA 3.0
- CES 2025 - LVCC 01 — Xuthoria, BY-SA 4.0