One Full Day in Atlantic City and Las Vegas

Those of us who love to travel all have our travel bucket lists of places we hope to visit. But the places we most want to visit aren’t always readily attainable. On the other hand, sometimes, we get the opportunity to go to a place that isn’t high up on our bucket list. But a new city is a new city, and you take advantage of those opportunities.

I’m not a gambler or a drinker, but somehow, I’ve managed to visit two of the biggest places for these two activities: Atlantic City, New Jersey and Las Vegas, Nevada. I would not have put either city in my top 10 places to visit, but when the opportunity arose, I jumped at the chance. And sometimes, having low expectations can make for exciting experiences.

Below are my experiences traveling to both Atlantic City and Las Vegas. In total, I only spent one part of the day and one night as a tourist in each city, but it was enough to take in the full experience of what each city had to offer to the casual tourist.

Traveling to Atlantic City

My trip to Atlantic City was a road trip traveling by car across Pennsylvania to the coast. I was tagging along with my parents who were going to see a concert. I was just going to say I had been there.

Most trips to the beach take a southeasterly route. So, I got to see parts of my home state that I had never seen before.

It was approximately a six-hour drive, and we arrived in mid-afternoon. Entering New Jersey helped me to see why the state is called The Garden State. We were met with green farmland that I didn’t expect. We knew that we had made it to Atlantic City when the green turned to a few high rise hotels and blue skies.

It was July of 2015, and by then, the city was no longer the tourist attraction that it had been. We had our own casino in downtown Pittsburgh, and there was no need for the gamblers in my area to travel all that way to play the slots. It was far from a ghost town but still not packed with tourists like one of the southern east coast beaches.

Traveling to Las Vegas

My trip to Las Vegas was a work trip that I took in September 2016. It was my first time on a plane, and I was excited to finally get the opportunity to fly. We left early in the morning. Luckily, my boss was a seasoned flyer and helped us to smoothly get through the bag check and airport security and get to our gate.

I was more excited than nervous until the plane actually took off. Then, the sensation of flying took some getting used to as did recognizing that the dips and bumps were normal when I looked around and saw that no one else was batting an eye over the rockiness of the flight.

The trip took approximately four hours. It was so interesting to pass over so much uninhabited land. You think of the United States as packed with people, but we barely passed over any cities, and most of the view was of wide, open terrain that changed from the flat farmlands of the plains to the Rocky Mountains and finally, the desert.

I could see parts of the Vegas strip as we landed, and already, the city seemed bustling and energetic. When we walked out of the gate, the first thing I saw was a slot machine. It felt like an appropriate cliché for this journey. We then stepped out side in the 100-degree heat to catch a cab to our hotel.

The heat was dry without the humidity of our Pennsylvania summers. It felt more bearable to me. However, after four days, the dryness was unbearable to my skin which began to dry up and crack it does in the dead of winter. I saw cacti along the road instead of pine trees, and I realized then that I was in a totally different world.

The scenery in Atlantic City

We stayed a block or two away from the Atlantic City boardwalk, and I could make out a slight saltiness in the air, but it didn’t overwhelm me like it does at Virginia or Myrtle Beach. We parked in a small, beat up parking lot attached to our hotel which cost $10 a day. The beach was just over the wall of the parking lot, and when we stopped out onto the wooden boardwalk, there was the ocean.

The boardwalk itself was lined with souvenir shops, game rooms, and, of course, casinos. The buildings looked rundown. A few years later, I visited Coney Island, and it felt like a better version of what was going on in Atlantic City.

The beach itself was pretty empty. A few people had spread their blankets on the sand or walked along the shore. Few people wore bathing suits or ventured into the water past their ankles. It smelled of garbage and as we approached the pier, we could see why as trash bags were piled up beneath it.

The scenery in Las Vegas

Our hotel was on the outskirts of Las Vegas Boulevard. So, we weren’t in the thick of the action, which was kind of nice. The hotel was new, and it wasn’t super decked out and did not have any particular theme to it. We weren’t close enough to the main part of the strip to be able to walk there. So, we had to take a cab every time we went out.

The rooms were nice with semi-comfortable beds. There was no refrigerator. I don’t think I even had a microwave. The only water besides the kind that came out of the bathroom sink and shower was a vending machine that sold lukewarm bottles of water for $2.00 each and an ice machine that you could use to fill up your ice bucket every night.

Each morning, I opened my window to a view of the sun rising over the desert. The morning sky contained shades of green and yellow that I just didn’t see at home.

Downstairs, there were nine restaurants, a horse arena, a movie theater, a bowling alley, an outdoor pool, and, of course, a casino floor. This was a four-day trip, and we spent most of our time inside the hotel attending conferences with dinners in one of the banquet halls or in one of the restaurants each night. It was like its own private island or what I imagine it’s like to be on a cruise ship. You’re confined to one space, but it’s a big space with a lot to do inside.

Eating in Atlantic City

Being on a budget, we looked for something quick and easy to grab for dinner. We scoured the street vendors, looking at the food that had been sitting out all day in cases with flies swarming them, and nothing looked appealing. We finally grabbed a map and found a Dominoes a few blocks down.

So, we headed down that way through a shady neighborhood where the sidewalks were literally covered in pills and needles. The Dominoes was so small that the rest of us had to wait outside while my mom went in to order. Then, we stood outside awkwardly for 20 minutes waiting for the pizza to be ready.

Once we had our pizza, we took it back to the boardwalk and ate on a bench with our backs to the ocean. As I was biting into my second slice, a seagull swooped down from nowhere and flew inches from my face, trying to grab the pizza out of my hand. I screamed bloody murder as I jumped up from the bench and ran away. A sympathetic street vendor confirmed that they will swoop you, and I almost died of embarrassment.

Eating in Las Vegas

Upon landing, we were three hours behind our usual east coast time, and though we had reservations at the Bellagio for dinner, we immediately ate at the Steak and Shake inside our hotel a few hours prior. I was glad I filled up cause I was not impressed with the Bellagio’s menu.

Upon arriving in our formal wear and meeting up with our coworkers from another office, we got a table for 10 in the same restaurant where George Clooney and Julia Roberts share their first scene in Ocean’s Eleven. I had mentioned to one of my bosses that I had wanted to see the fountains because of that movie. And while we couldn’t get a table outside, we could see the water shooting up to the sky through the glass doors every 20 minutes. And when they did, everyone would yell, “Laura!” and point out the door.

We ordered steaks, and mine was breaded in peppercorn which I hated. Our CEO also ordered every side dish on the menu which came in silver gravy boats, and there was barely enough for us each to take a spoonful. I didn’t eat much, which is unusual for me, and I was pretty disappointed even with a free meal.

I also didn’t like how the only water I could order was sparkling. But this place was too uppity even for iced tea. Luckily, the breakfast, lunches, and dinners that we had the following three days were much better, and I didn’t go hungry the rest of the trip.

The nightlife in Atlantic City

After dinner, my sister and I walked the boardwalk while our parents went to their concert. That is when we noticed tons more gaming places, particularly those that had skee-ball. I like skee-ball, but my Chuck E Cheese days are long over.

I had heard about the Ripley’s Believe it or Not Museum. We tracked it down and decided to go in. To date, it is probably my favorite museum I have ever visited. Those weird displays were right up my alley. It was also interactive and could even get a little haunted house-like at times. It took us hours to get through it and was definitely worth the money.

It got a little scary when, on our way back, a man approached us and begged us for 89 cents so that he could buy a hotdog. When we shook our heads no (I wasn’t about to open my wallet in front of him), he continued to follow us down the boardwalk until we literally had to run away from him. Luckily, a group of teenage boys were ahead of us, and we ran in front of them. Somehow, they cushioned us from the man, and we lost track of him.

We could see carnival rides in the distance and advertisements for go cart tracks. But again, these felt like activities for the kids. We only walked through one casino, the Taj Mahal. My sister was too young to gamble. So, we didn’t bother to play any slots or anything, and I honestly had no desire. We went back to the room by 10:00 pm, beating our parents back by at least an hour, and I struggled to stay awake until they returned as if I was the parent waiting up for my teenagers.

The nightlife in Las Vegas

After dinner that first night, our group separated. Me, my co-worker, and our other co-worker’s wife decided to go out. The co-worker’s wife was there to party, and she couldn’t have picked two worse people to have gone out with. We headed to the Chandalier Bar inside the Cosmopolitan and stayed just long enough to take some pictures and down a Diet Coke before convincing the other two to head back to our hotel.

The streets were crowded with tourists, a lot like a beach town at night. There were a lot of families with moms in shorts and flipflops and dads in Hawaiian shirts and straw hats. They blended in with the show girls heading for their shifts, the prostitutes working their corners, the costumed characters asking for tips in exchange for a photo, and the homeless people panhandling on the streets.

When we got back to the hotel, we played the penny slots for awhile which I found to be so boring. I didn’t understand what I was doing, not that there’s much skill involved, and once my dollar was up, I announced that I was going to bed. Unfortunately, the time change kept me from sleeping more than two hours that first night, and I was up early, waiting for it to be late enough for something interesting to come on TV.

Leaving Atlantic City

We left Atlantic City early the following morning so that we could shoot on over to Philadelphia to sightsee there for a little while before heading down to Washington D.C. where we would do more sightseeing before heading home the next morning.

The boardwalk was pretty dead that morning. There wasn’t much to do or see besides the ocean. My parents lamented the fact that they hadn’t gotten to explore the boardwalk because of the concert. We assured them that they weren’t missing much.

We stopped for breakfast at a McDonalds and then stopped for gas. An attendant ran over to our car as my dad was filling up and informed him that he wasn’t allowed to pump his own gas, it being New Jersey. Who knew that we would experience so much culture shock just one state over from our own?

Daytime in Las Vegas

The rest of the conference attendees wouldn’t be arriving until the next evening. So, that gave us  only one day to explore Las Vegas before we were locked away in conferences for the next two days.

Our boss had us take a cab to the Wynn because someone had suggested that we check out their flower displays. We then proceeded to walk the strip, stopping at each hotel to walk the lobby and see the theme inside and to window shop at all of the high end stores inside. I never knew that walking the lobbies was a central tourist attraction in Las Vegas. And maybe it really isn’t. But when you’re not there to gamble or drink, it’s what you do.

I love being on the move and trying to see as much as I can. I could have walked the entire strip that day, but my fellow sightseers got tired after a few hours. However, in that time, I got to see the insides of The Venetian, The Flamingo, Caesars Palace, and some of the other fountains besides the Bellagio’s.

We also toured the wax museum, something I hadn’t done since I was a kid. I’ve been to three wax museums in my life, and this was my second. It’s really strange to take pictures of mannequins who look like celebrities, but it’s also kind of fun too.

We headed back to our hotel to regroup before the official launch of the conference at the hotel’s bowling alley that night. Once we got back, I didn’t go outside again until we departed for the airport a few days later.

Comparing Atlantic City and Las Vegas

It’s no surprise that I found Las Vegas to be superior to Atlantic City. Even in its heyday, I don’t think that Atlantic city could hold a candle to Las Vegas. But I didn’t expect it to be so kid-friendly there. Las Vegas too had a lot of kid tourists who were herded through the casino floors as fast as possible to avoid getting into trouble and seemed to live at the hotel pools. But the city is still very much one for adults.

Las Vegas felt like a beach due to all of the nearby sand. I almost caught myself looking for the ocean a few times. But the dryness is hard to take. As soon as I landed back in Pittsburgh, the cool, stormy, humid September air hit me like a moisturizer.

Atlantic City seemed to wear me out while I had unlimited energy in Las Vegas. The time difference definitely affected me, having never crossed a time zone prior to that trip.

In both cities, I still found enough sightseeing to do that it kept me occupied. Besides the penny slots, I spent some time learning how to play craps in Las Vegas, and I hated it. Just walking the floor of the casino or exploring the other attractions in the hotel was enough for me. I lived on Diet Cokes and had no desire to drink. Everywhere you went, you would find empty glasses just sitting around, and staff would come around and collect them every once in a while.

The one casino I went to in Atlantic City was not nearly as impressive as the Vegas hotels, but it felt a lot cleaner inside. Every hotel in Las Vegas was smoky to the point of suffocation. I grew up in the 80’s when smoking indoors was still a thing, but it took some getting used to again.

Final thoughts

I have no immediate plans to return to Atlantic City, though I wouldn’t mind stopping to walk the boardwalk or visit Ripley’s again if I was in the area. Staying the night, though, is not a priority for me.

I do hope to get back to Las Vegas some day soon. Having two or three days to visit every hotel, see a show, or even venture out to The Grand Canyon would be a nice mini trip. And I’m surprised how much of a mark it left on me, despite me not being its target audience.

Have you been to Atlantic City and/or Las Vegas? If so, share your stories and thoughts in the comments below!

Buy it!

Buy a copy of Las Vegas Then and Now and/or Atlantic City and help support local bookstores. This is an affiliate link, and I will earn a commission on any sales.

Pin it!