Downtown Las Vegas

Downtown Las Vegas is roughly bounded by Charleston Boulevard on the south, Main Street on the west, Maryland Parkway on the east and Stewart Avenue on the North. Parts of it may dribble beyond these points, but that's close enough for our purposes.

Las Vegas Boulevard, bends to the northeast just north Flamingo Road. Once it crosses Charleston, this bend takes the streets of downtown with it. Instead of running north-south and east-west, they run at a slight angle to all the other streets in the area. It doesn't affect driving around much, but you should be aware of it.

Otherwise, when you drive past Charleston on Las Vegas Boulevard, and turn right a few blocks later, you may be surprised to find yourself crossing Charleston again.

Besides housing the government organizations that collect your parking fines, or issue marriage licenses, downtown Las Vegas is home to some truly vintage Vegas.

Glitter Gulch - The Fremont Street Experience

Take Casino Center a few blocks south from the highway, and you will cross the section of Fremont Street known as Glitter Gulch. One of the more famous intersections in the world, it has four of the better known Old Vegas casinos.

Clockwise, from the northeast corner, they are The Fremont, The Four Queens, The Golden Nugget, and Binion's Horseshoe.

One other hotel you might want to see, is the Golden Gate at the corner of Fremont and Main. The oldest hotel in Las Vegas, it first opened to the public in 1906.

Glitter Gulch, now called "The Fremont Street Experience" for the fantastic light show, is one of the more historic areas of Las Vegas. Here are many great old casinos, some very good restaurants, and businesses offering a variety of goods and services (I'm not sure it's a great place to take the kids).

By the way, some years back, Fremont Street was closed to traffic for the Feemont Street Experience. This makes the area a great place to walk and people watch.

If you're patronizing a casino downtown, use their valet.

For other parking, there are several parking lots.

Downtown parking lot warning!

A word of caution about the downtown Las Vegas parking lots. We had reason to utilize one of them a while back, and we cut it close on time. When we returned to our car, there was about a minute left on the meter, and a nice lady with a ticket book waiting for time to run out.

You have been warned.


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