Walking Tours

Las Vegas Shopping

Where you shop in Las Vegas will depend more on how much you want to spend - and how far you want to drive - than on what you're looking for. The Strip offers a shopping extravaganza. You'll find rows and rows of stores that sell Las Vegas souvenirs and sundries. At most of the Strip hotels you can buy expensive dresses, swimsuits, jewelry, and menswear; almost all the hotels have shops offering logo merchandise for the hotel or its latest show. A few hotels offer more than just the usual stores, but several properties take their themes to extremes: you can stroll along a Venice canal at the Venetian, traverse North African trade routes at the Aladdin, and enter a kingdom of upscale shops and talking statues at Caesars Palace.

Inside the casinos the gifts are elegant and expensive; outside, it's Tacky City. The endless gift shops along Las Vegas Boulevard all sell the same dice clocks, jack and queen playing-card earrings, decks of used casino cards, Vegas belt buckles, key chains, and bath towels. Some stores look so schlocky you'll be embarrassed to step inside. Shoppers looking for more practical items or for an excuse to drive around the greater metro area can head for neighborhood malls, supermarkets, shopping centers, and specialty stores. And those not averse to doing a bit of driving might find some of the same high-ticket items at lower prices at one of the town's factory outlet malls.

Boulevard Mall

Boulevard Mall has the greatest single concentration of retailers. Less expensive than its counterparts on the Strip, Boulevard Mall has 140 stores, anchored by the Macy's, Sears, Dillards, and JCPenney department stores; smaller shops include Wet Seal, Express, Nature Company, The Limited, B. Dalton, the Disney Store, and Sweet Factory.

Address: 3528 Maryland Pkwy., Las Vegas
Phone: 702/735-8268

Fashion Show

Even though it's twice as large as Caesars' retail fantasyland, this mall is tame by comparison. Centrally located on Las Vegas Boulevard South next to the Frontier,often crowded. The place is very well maintained, and not everything is overpriced. The two-story building contains 145 shops, anchored by department stores Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy's, Robinsons-May, and Dillards. Chin's Chinese restaurant offers upscale fare, while Steven Spielberg's imaginative Dive! is a Hollywood dining experience in Las Vegas. This is also the place for those who want to bring the casino experience back home by buying gaming tables, playing cards, dice, and the like. Waldenbooks, the only bookstore on the Strip, is also located here.

Address: 3200 Las Vegas Blvd. S, Las Vegas
Phone: 702/369-8382

Forum Shops at Caesars

This 70-store complex resembles an ancient Roman streetscape, with immense columns and arches, two central piazzas with fountains, and a cloud-filled, domed ceiling displaying a sky that changes from sunrise to sunset in the course of three hours. You'll find both familiar and unusual shops: Ann Taylor, Victoria's Secret, Louis Vuitton, Guess, and Gucci, along with a Warner Bros. Studio Store, the flagship F.A.O. Schwarz store, and a Caesars outlet. This is also one of the city's best dining destinations. You can glide into the Forum from the Strip on a moving sidewalk.

Address: Caesars Palace, 3500 Las Vegas Blvd. S, Las Vegas
Phone: 702/893-4800

Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian

The largest shopping complex on the Strip is laid out along walkways bordering indoor re-creations of Venice's Grand Canal and St. Mark's Square. Gondolas transport shoppers to reproduction storefronts that contain outposts of Davidoff, Lladro, Mikimoto, and other international luxury retailers. National fashion chains such as BCBG, Bebe, and Kenneth Cole are also represented, along with specialty retailers such as In Celebration of Golf, bath and body supplier Acca Kappa, and Houdini's Magic. Several art galleries and jewelry shops round out the collection.

Address: Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, 3355 Las Vegas Blvd. S, Las Vegas, NV, USA Phone: 702/733-5000

Bonanza "World's Largest Gift Shop"

Bonanza "World's Largest Gift Shop." Across the street from the Sahara Hotel and Casino, this is the best of the countless gift shops along Las Vegas Boulevard. It may not, in fact, be the world's largest, but it is the largest in town. And while it has most of the usual junk, it also sells some unusual junk. It's so huge that you won't feel trapped, as you might in some of the smaller shops. It's open until midnight.

Address: 2460 Las Vegas Blvd. S, Las Vegas
Phone: 702/385-7359

Merlin's Mystic Shop

A life-size figure of Merlin hunched over a selection of crystal figurines sets the tone for this gift shop in the Excalibur. The eclectic collection of merchandise includes glow-in-the-dark stickers, 3-D sand pictures, and a toilet-brush holder in the shape of a skull.

Address: Excalibur Hotel and Casino, 3850 Las Vegas Blvd. S, Las Vegas
Phone: 702/597-7251

Gamblers General Store

Here you'll find a big collection of gambling books as well as poker chips, green-felt layouts, slot and video poker machines - just about every item of gambling paraphernalia that you could imagine. It's eight blocks south of the Plaza Hotel on Main Street.

Address: 800 S. Main St., Las Vegas
Phone: 702/382-9903

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