Las Vegas is known for it’s hotels, gambling, and shows. But it’s also a great place to book discount tours to the world’s most famous attractions.

Several conditions make Las Vegas ideal for the traveling sightseer:

• Air Fares – Las Vegas is a major international airport. In fact, McCarran International Airport is the 15th busiest airport in the world. The upshot for you? Cheap airline tickets.
• Location – Las Vegas sits at the nexus of Nevada, Arizona, Utah, and California. This means that most regional attractions can be reached by tour bus! Or, if you prefer to fly, expect to arrive at your destination in under an hour.
• Costs – Nearly 40 million people visit Las Vegas EACH year. It takes a lot of tour operators to service this many travelers. This means competition for your travel dollar is fierce. Expect to get great value at great price, but you MUST shop around.

In Las Vegas, you’ll be greeted by literally hundreds of travel offers. Many of them will be irresistible. The best deals will be food, drink, and entertainment. You’ll save even more if you come armed with a coupon booklet, but it won’t be substantial. The same can’t be said for tours. Book in advance online and you will net a considerable savings.

The key to understanding sightseeing in Las Vegas can be summed up in one word: Motorcoach. That’s right. The bus is your best friend, and it will get you to and from in style, economy, and comfort.

There are plenty of attractions to take in. Here are my top 5 Las Vegas tours:

• Grand Canyon South Rim – This is the part of the Canyon that made it famous. The gorge here drops down more than a mile. The width exceeds 10 miles. The vistas are endless. Grand Canyon Village, the landing point for most bus tours, is full of attractions (e.g. Mather Point, Yavapai Observation Tour, Hermit’s Rest) and facilities (gift shops, restaurants, Indian handicrafts).
• Grand Canyon West Rim – The furthest point west of the Canyon. This is Hualapai Indian territory. Include the Grand Canyon Skywalk option to your package. Other add-ons include raft trips or helicopter flights to Canyon bottom (intense!).
• Hoover Dam Mini Tours – 30 miles east lies the second largest dam in the U.S. Great sightseeing opportunities. Take the FREE guided tour and descend into the engine room. Enter the newly built observation deck and get spellbound by sweeping views of the Colorado River as it carves through Black Canyon.
• Lake Mead Cruise – Lake Mead is the largest man-made lake in the nation. If this body of water amazed you as you flew over it upon descent into Vegas, you’ll be blown away trolling it on the Desert Princess. It’s also the one-sure way to tell people you’ve been on the Colorado River! Most cruise packages include a pit stop at Hoover Dam.
• Las Vegas City Tour – Great way to get your bearings in Sin City. Day and night tours available. Sightseeing bus will take you past the most unique Las Vegas landmarks, including The Strip, Freemont Street, The Ethel M Chocolate Factory, celebrity mansions (Wayne Newton, Mike Tyson, etc.), and much more. This is guide-intensive – make sure you hit the streets with one who knows their Las Vegas history and lore.

It’s best to think of the tour bus as the foundation of your Las Vegas sightseeing adventure. It will safely get you to and from these Top 5 attractions. However, if you want to enhance your experience, you can, by adding a helicopter ride, plane flight, river raft…you name it, it can be arranged. Not all tour operators can pull this off. But one that can is Grayline Tours.

A Grayline Las Vegas tour is operated by one of the largest sightseeing companies in the world (they service 150 destinations, including Paris, London, New York, Cairo, Hong Kong, and more). Gray Line epitomizes safety, reliability, and value. They’re tour guides undergo rigorous training and are oftentimes more knowledgeable about, for example, Las Vegas than the locals. And, if you want to “supersize” your Las Vegas attraction’s tour by including helicopter or plane flight, they are people that can arrange it to perfection.

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If you are the kind of traveler who likes hitting the streets and seeing the sights at ground level, Gray Line tours is for you.

Gray Line is the largest operator of bus sightseeing tours in world. The company, formed some 90 years ago, conducts tours and excursions in more than 150 destinations across six continents.

The most popular international destinations include Sydney, Morocco, London, Paris, Egypt, Mexico City, and Hong Kong. Famous U.S. cities include San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle, and Hawaii.

Particularly relevant to this website, is Gray Line Las Vegas, which is part of Dallas-based Coach America, one of the nation’s leading providers of motorcoach services.

Gray Line Las Vegas’ bus tours include:

• The Las Vegas Strip
• Hoover Dam
• Grand Canyon South Rim
• Grand Canyon West Rim (with Hualapai Skywalk)
• Lake Mead boat cruises
• Colorado River rafting

The company specializes in all types of travelers, including groups and corporate trips. It also operates the most reliable and on-time airport transfer service in the City.

The Gray Line tour company was started in 1910 by Louis Bush, a young restaurateur, who refurbished a Mack Truck chassis, painted it the company’s signature blue and gray, and began offering sightseeing tours of Washington, D.C.

The company was an instant hit with travelers. By 1926, Gray Line had expanded into other key sightseeing markets, including New York, Chicago, Detroit, New Orleans, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. The first international offerings appeared on the scene, too, and included Toronto and Havana, Cuba.

Right after World War II, Gray Line was acquired by Harry J Dooley, a former employee, who helped re-establish Gray Line’s sightseeing offering in Chicago. His success in the Windy City let him take over the company’s helm as president. His leadership and innovation thereon let him cement his reputation as the father of the sightseeing industry.

The advent of jet travel in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s opened up new travel destinations. Gray Line set up operations in these new locales as well, including Canada, Mexico, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. The tour bus company continued to aggressively expand in the U.S. The result of this sudden popularity in motorcoach sightseeing is directly tied to Gray Line’s position as the leader in the sightseeing industry today.

Gray Line has evolved into more than just bus tours. It’s travel product offerings now include:

• Rail tours
• Cruises
• Escorted and guided tours
• Sightseeing vacation packages (air, hotel, bus, etc.)
• Multi-lingual tours
• Charters
• Custom group tours
• Airport transfers
• Convention services
• Corporate trips

Ready to discover new people? Explore different ways of life? Experience a world you never knew existed? There are many companies that can take you sightseeing by bus. But only Gray Line will make you feel like a local at whichever destination you choose.

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Located just outside Las Vegas, Nevada, sits a 700-foot-tall, arch-gravity Hoover Dam that for nearly 75 years has tamed the mighty Colorado River, converting its entire flow into hydro-electricity for three states. Exploring this National Historic Landmark is open to the public at large: Bus, helicopter, and plane sightseeing tours take you right into the heart of this engineering marvel, delivering an experience that will be remembered for a lifetime.

Hoover Dam bus tours are by the far the most popular and economical way to see the dam. Packages include hotel pick up and drop off. The standard route is to head east from Las Vegas, through Boulder City, and into the Lake Mead National Recreation Recreational Area. From here, you will descend slowly down into Black Canyon until you arrive at the dam.

En route, most tour buses feature either live or taped narration about the Henderson, NV, Boulder City, NV, the Dam’s construction, and Lake Mead. In case you miss something during the “real thing,” here are some essential Hoover Dam facts:

• Dam height: 726.4 feet, which makes it the second highest dam in the United States behind the Grand Coulee Dam based in Washington state.
• Dam length: 1,244 feet. The dam spans Black Canyon and the Colorado River and connects the states of Nevada and Arizona.
• Dam thickness: 660 feet. In addition to holding back the river, the structure features a two-lane road, which, before 2001, was frequently used by trucks to haul freight
• Traffic across the Dam: 13,000 to 16,000 per day
• Annual number of visitors: 8 to 10 million
• Named after Herbert Hoover, the 31’st president of the United States. He was the commerce secretary at the time of construction.
• Number of workers who died during construction: 112

Expect to spend about two hours at the Dam, either guided or self-guided. It is, however, recommended that you consider taking the Hoover Dam Discovery Tour, which is free and includes access to the Movie Room, Exhibit Rooms, and Observation Deck. Highly recommend is a visit to the Generator Room, which requires and additional small fee but should not be missed.

In addition to the guided tour, there’s plenty more to see and do, including:

• Strolling from the dam from Nevada to Arizona and back
• Photographing the “Winged Figures of the Republic,” a pair of bronze statutes placed on top of an astrological chart done in the Art Nouveaux style
• The Old Exhibit Building – Pristine architecture from the late 1940’s
• The Nevada Intake Tower: Get up-close to the mechanisms that convert water to electricity

For the ultimate Hoover Dam Tour, add on a helicopter ride, a plane flight, or boat trip. Flight times for both helicopter and plane are usually 20 minutes and provide one-of-a-kind views of Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, and tributaries of the Colorado River. Or take a leisurely cruise on Lake Mead, floating to close-up spot in front of the Dams river-water-intake structures.

Hoover Dam tours take an average of five hours. If you upgrade your bus tour with a flight or cruise, expect to add an additional 1.5 hours. Any way you cut it, Hoover Dam, which is one of the elite Modern Wonders of the World, is a must-see attraction when visiting Las Vegas.

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