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Comment by CydeWeys | Hacker News Reader

Definitely not true that you can walk the length of the entire strip in ten minutes. The strip is not super great for pedestrians because you have to keep walking up, around, and through various escalators/bridges/casino entryways. The strip would be much more pedestrian friendly if they closed the main street to cars and let you simply walk at ground level in a direct line.

Anyway, it takes over an hour to walk from one end of the strip to the other. You really do need to pick a nearby hotel, not any strip hotel. And no idea what you're talking about re: walking underground. That's not true for most strip hotels.

But yes, on your overall point, I agree that Las Vegas is a good spot for conventions.

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You're right that the strip is fairly long if you look at it from the airport to downtown, but the main part of it where conferences tend to be held is maybe a little over a mile long. So I should have said a 20 minute walk.

There's definitely an indoor walkway connecting the casinos that at times is underground, at least on the southern end. I remember pre-Covid staying at the Luxor (the pyramid looking one) and the conference was 3 or 4 casinos down and I never actually had to go outside. The underground walkway was full of stores and restaurants.

Most of the hotels there have convention centers. A convention could be anywhere. I've been to conventions in Caesars and Tropicana, which are not close to each other, nor are they that close to LVCC.

Also, good luck walking anywhere outside the strip. I tried to explore a bit like I do other cities - on foot - but sidewalks end a block away from the strip.

Yeah, sometimes it takes 15 minutes to just walk to the casino next door.

And sometimes it’s like walking in an oven.

And then another fifteen minutes to get through the casino to the conference area of the hotel. I went to reInvent once and thought I would just walk everywhere and I literally put holes in my shoes doing so.

It is a full mile from the entrance of the MGM Grand to the convention center. A full _mile_.

I agree that Las Vegas is a good convention city, but please don't suggest that it's easy to get around.

So a fifteen minute walk?

At least 20 minutes, given that it's through a casino. With you probably carrying a backpack full of conference swag.

And that's from the front entrance -- not counting getting from one hotel to another.

I've gone to dozens of conferences in Las Vegas -- so much so that I know the name and location of the meeting rooms in many of the hotels. I can compare that to attending several dozen conferences elsewhere, from Hanover to San Francisco to Orlando to ohgeez so many other places. Las Vegas has benefits, but the travel issues cause me to ALWAYS stay at the conference hotel whenever possible.

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