Welcome to Sin City!

Arriving in any place is quite the experience. There's part excitement and there's part nervousness and there are no doubt several other emotions that run there course over the time it takes from leaving one hostel till arriving safely at the next. There's an even stranger feeling when you arrive in a City or place that you've seen so many times on telly over the years that part of you feels like you should know it before you even get there. Las Vegas is undoubtedly one of those places. You'd have to have had your head buried in the sand for the last 20 years to not have an idea of what the place was like without ever getting there!

No matter what you've seen on tv or what you're told though nothing quite prepare you for the real thing! As the plane began its dissent into Las Vegas Airport the blackness of a desert at night is suddenly illuminated. And how! A dazzling array of light comes into view it stands alone yet seems to go on for forever. Its expansive yet contained and the buzz of energy hits you before you've even landed.

Arriving late at night in the City that never sleeps I hadn't expected any problems in getting to my new hostel. That was exactly what I got though. My hostel may have been on The Strip but not one of the 7 shuttle companies wanted to take me. Leaving a tired and drained me, sitting outside the airport close to midnight now not knowing what to do for the best. It wasn't walkable at all and I'd been told a bus could take me 2-3 hours as my new accommodation was on the other end of The Strip. I hadn't expected this at all. I'd deliberately booked into the Sin City hostel because the location of the USA Hostels place was notoriously bad.

In the end I was left with little option but to spend $30 and take a cab. Vegas was already taking a hit on my wallet and I hadn't even entered a casino yet! As the taxi drove me down towards my new sleeping quarters I realised I didn't really know this place at all. Nothing was familiar. We avoided The Strip which it seems is slow moving at any time of the day or night and instead took an alternative route which avoided anything I may have found remotely recognisable. This wasn't quite what my imagination had conjured up before arriving here!

I arrived at the Sin City Hostel, tired and drained sometime around 1am o find people getting ready to go out. I managed to grab a beer or 2 and got chatting to a few people outside the hostel for a while before my body and soul brought me to my bed and not long after, to sleep. I would need to be well rested. I was in Vegas now. The party was about to start!