Transporation

The question was do we pay for a car? Or do we find our way around Vegas using public transportation? The questions is simple. The Vegas Strip is roughly 4 miles long. Although the hotels feel far, they are actually close in proximity.

Public transportation was the answer, a car would have been too expensive. We had two options for public transportation 1) RTC 2) Monorail. Vegas caters towards tourist and within the RTC system is 1) The Deuce 2) SDX, both buses come every 15-25 minutes.

Michelle and I decided to get the 4 day monorail pass as part of our Allegiant package. We stumbled upon the monorail last time in 2009 and thought it would be an efficient way to travel on the Vegas Strip. Although faster, it wasn't more efficient because we had to walk great distances from the hotel to the monorail station. From Circus Circus it was a 10 minute walk to SLS Hotel and another 5 minute walk through the hotel to the monorail station. The monorail comes every 6-7 minutes and is probably the fastest mode of transportation in Vegas.

Since the monorail was so far and we needed to get to other parts of the city, we decided to get 2 - 24 hour bus passes. The Deuce is a double decker bus which only caters to people on the strip, it comes every 15 minutes and during the morning is very efficient. SDX is another bus and goes through the strip and downtown Vegas. Transportation during rush hour on the strip is terrible, it takes about 30 minutes to go 1/2 a mile. During peak hours, its better to walk.

All in all, you can get anywhere on the strip without renting a car. If we'd do it again, we would rent a hotel attached to a monorail station, that way the walk would be way easier. A car would have been expensive costing us around $350. The 4 day monorail pass + 2 - 24 hour transit passes cost us $136. The other option is walking, which we did a lot of ~ 50 miles in the 4.5 days.