Las Vegas

Las Vegas is one of the few cities in the world that delivers exactly what it promises. It makes no claim to subtlety and no pretence to being something other than what it is: an entertainment machine built in a desert, operating at full volume around the clock, engineered to hold your attention and separate you from your money in ways that are, if you approach them correctly, genuinely enjoyable. The Strip — Las Vegas Boulevard South — is the concentrated expression of this. It is six kilometres of hotels built to a scale that architectural language barely covers: the Venetian recreates a canal city inside a casino floor, the Bellagio has a lake with fountains choreographed to opera, the Sphere is a structure unlike anything previously built. Walk it at night, when the light erases the desert darkness entirely.

The entertainment calendar is extraordinary by any standard. Las Vegas has been the home of the performer's residency since Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack established the format in the 1960s, and the tradition continues at a level that means on any given weekend there are likely more major acts performing within a square mile than anywhere else in the world. The dining has also shifted considerably over the past two decades — a significant number of the city's restaurants are operated by chefs whose reputations were built elsewhere, and eating well here no longer requires luck.

What surprises many visitors is how close the desert is. Red Rock Canyon, a 30-minute drive west, offers hiking among red sandstone formations with the city entirely absent from view. Valley of Fire State Park, an hour northeast, contains Aztec sandstone formations in colours that shift from orange to crimson depending on the light. The Hoover Dam, built during the Depression and still producing power for the region, is one of the great feats of 20th-century engineering and worth the drive. The Grand Canyon's South Rim is five hours by road — or 45 minutes by helicopter, which is, in a city of spectacles, one of the most spectacular things you can do.