Las Vegas

Viva Las Vegas. Glowing like a billon dollar neon bulb in the Nevada desert, there is simply nowhere quite like this non-stop-party town.

Glitzy, ostentatious and over the top, but also fun, the only way to spend time here is to ignore your sensible side and get on the Vegas merry-go round. Here, life is a show, and nothing is real - apart from the sound of cold, hard cash being raked in daily by the casinos.

The Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State is where the whole show began, and it's worth a visit to appreciate how quickly and dynamically the city has evolved into Vegas of today.

Divided between downtown Glitter Gulch and the 6km-long Strip, Vegas's hotels are not where you lay your head after a day of sightseeing - they are the sights you come to see.

Astonishingly huge (the city has most of the 20 biggest hotels on the planet), they encompass casinos, shopping centres and water parks - all designed and ostentatiously decked out according to the hotel's grand theme.

Each comes up with wilder and wackier ideas to outdo the others: Paris Las Vegas has a glittering half-size Eiffel Tower, Luxor a 30-storey black glass pyramid and Mandalay Bay a $40-million Shark Reef aquarium, to name but a few.

To draw passers-by into their casinos, hotels also put on spectacular free shows, from the Mirage's erupting 'volcano' to the 1200-nozzle fountain display at the Bellagio. The Fremont Street Light and Sound Show uses 2.1 million lights and a 540,000-watt sound system to blow your mind in six minutes.

Situated in the Mojave Desert in the southernmost reaches of the state of Nevada, Las Vegas is the gateway to incredible natural attractions too. Topping the list, a four-hour drive away, is the Grand Canyon - guaranteed to put any neon-light creations in the shade.