How to get around the Strip without hiring a driver:We braved the summer heat to tell you about Vegas' shuttles, trams, and other ways to move around town.
Slapping slot machine screens, walking the Strip in flip-flops, subjecting stroller-age children to the debauchery of Fremont Street—there are a lot of things tourists do in Vegas that don’t make a lot of sense.
But the heartbreaker is seeing visitors shell out at airport car rental desks because they assume driving a car around Las Vegas will be convenient and affordable.
It isn’t. For one, free parking at just about every resort has been eliminated in the past few years, with only Treasure Island, Circus Circus, and Sahara as the Strip holdouts. Parking at the big casinos now costs as much as $40 a day. Getting in and out of those parking garages can be tedious, and out on the streets, Vegas drivers have a reputation for blowing red lights in “staggering” numbers, according to local officials. 2023 was one of the most deadly years for drivers in two decades, as reported by the Las Vegas Review Journal.
Even when Las Vegas drivers are on their best behavior, driving still sucks. Between the endless construction-related detours and the now-annual gridlock-inducing preparations for the Formula 1 Grand Prix, it’s almost never worth the hassle to drive a rented car on your Vegas vacation.
Truth is, unless you’re planning to drive for a day trip to Red Rock Canyon, you should consider these options for getting around Las Vegas:
Using RTC City Bus to get around Las Vegas
Vegas’ city buses are nicely air-conditioned, and they’re especially useful for trips to and from the airport, but the frustrating part is that you’ll be hard-pressed to know they even exist. There are ads and signs everywhere in town for limousines (tacky), rental cars (impractical), and strange electric carts called GoCars (tacky and impractical), but the humble and affordable bus sits tucked away at the airport like a hidden secret.
To take a bus upon arrival at Harry Reid International Airport, go to Terminal 1. Once there, follow the signs for ground transportation at level zero, walk outside and cross the waiting area for limos, and walk down to the RTC ticket vending machine where the frequent, 24-hr a day 109 Maryland Parkway bus will pull up and take you to the South Strip Transit Terminal, where you can transfer to a bus (likely a northbound Deuce, if you're going to the Strip) to your destination. Depending on where you’re trying to go, the 108 and Centennial Express routes, which also stop at the same spot, can also be an option. A single-ride at the All Access regular fare is just $4, and a 24-pass is only $8.
Bus passes are easy enough to buy with a card at the ticket machine, through the RideRTC App, or using exact change cash on the bus. There are no luggage racks, so be mindful if you use it. But if you were going to rent a car or hail a shared ride to sit in traffic anyway, you may as well save the $25–50.
RTC allows contactless Tap & GO payments, so you can forgo its official app or a physical pass in favor of paying for single rides using a credit/debit card, mobile wallet, or smart watch.
RTC’s app includes schedules we found to be pretty accurate (with only one deeply frustrating instance of a ghost bus). The app wasn’t more helpful than Google Maps for route planning, but it does supply travel times and special route announcements and detours. The free Citymapper app will also tell you the location of bus stops throughout the city and let you know when the next bus is expected.
Regular fare single-ride passes for routes to residential areas, which include the 108 and 109, cost $2. Two-hour passes are available for $3, and a 24-pass costs $5. Visitors around the Strip are charged more, though, on the tourist-focused The Deuce/SDX with the higher-priced Strip & All Access pass (see below).
The Deuce
The Deuce is the dolled-up, tourist-focused, double-decker RTC city bus that services the Strip up to the Fremont Street Experience, and the same pass you bought for the regular bus can be used here, too. If you’ve got kids with you, they’ll go nuts for the massive, front-facing upstairs view of the city. It would be nice if those views could also be enjoyed by passengers on the sides, who instead have to squint through advertising wraps, but with clear and audible stop announcements, big-text monitors, and the good geographic sense of the route, at least it’s hard to miss your stop.
One of the downsides of the bus is that not all stops have enough shade or shelter. Most touristy stops, especially along the Deuce route, have sufficient cover, but if you’re at an unlit stop at night, you might need to flag down your bus when it comes. RTC is also a city bus, with all the nuisances that come with them, but it contracts with a private security firm, whose agents—to their credit—do actually ride the bus, meaning any riders causing a genuine problem will promptly be escorted off.
The Deuce runs every 15 minutes from 7am to 1am, and every 20 minutes from 1am to 7am.
Single-ride passes for Strip & All Access routes, which include The Deuce and SDX, are $4. 2 hour passes are available for $6, and a 24 pass costs $8.
Free Downtown Loop
Not to be confused with a certain, more dubiously valued “Loop” (we’ll get into that in a minute), the Downtown Loop is a chic little pink free city-run shuttle bus that dots around a dozen Downtown stops north of the main resorts of the Strip, including Symphony Park, The Arts District, and the Mob Museum.
Effectively, it’s like an extension of The Deuce, with more local and lateral stops to different Downtown attractions. Riders will want to note the Loop’s limited hours (Sun–Thurs 11am–6pm, Fri–Sat 3pm–10pm) and how they vary on weekends, otherwise they may work up a sunburn doing laps around downtown trying to find it.
The drop off/pick up stops for the Loop aren’t always in the same locations as RTC buses, so look out specifically for the big pink poles or “Free Loop” circular signage. Sometimes Loop vehicles are white without branding, and it’s always smart to tell your driver your destination since the shuttle makes flag stops.
RTC Bike Rental
A reasonable question might be, “what kind of freak wants to bike around in Southern Nevada heat, anyway?”
A lot of people, actually, even during the hottest part of summer. We saw lots of folks cycling both in the unprotected green painted-lanes and on the sides of major streets, and it’s common to see bikes locked or propped up outside stores and bars.
Inside the Bonneville Transit Center (101 E. Bonneville Ave.), an air conditioned and staffed facility with charging stations, is the RTC Bike Center, which offers rentals, basic repairs, bike storage, and even showers.
To be clear: in and around the Strip, cyclists are out of luck. Las Vegas Boulevard is 6 lanes of vehicular grievances and chaos, and while it’s technically legal to bike it, it’s not worth the risk. It’s also illegal and impractical to ride on the pedestrian paths that weave in and out of properties.
Downtown, on the other hand, gives cyclists options, including the 25-station RTC Bike Share program. Similar to bike shares in cities around the world, it sells passes to ride heavy-duty cruisers between fixed-dock stations. Most visitors opt for the $5 Dasher Pass, which includes 24 hours of access to unlimited 30-minute rides, plus $4 per 30 minutes after the first 30 minutes.
The bikes, especially the electric-assist bikes ($1 extra), are great, with the following stipulations: Don’t bother fussing with the touchscreen kiosks, because they’re slow and prone to freezing, if they’re even on. Just download and use the RTC Bike app, which you’ll want to use anyway to confirm bike and dock availability.
Second, know your route before setting off. It would also not be neurotic or excessive to pack a helmet given the lack of protected lanes and the way people drive in Las Vegas. We also found the lights on RTC bikes to be dim for daytime use, so for added safety, bring some better ones if you have them.
Credit: RTC
Las Vegas Monorail
Now owned and operated by The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the Las Vegas Monorail, running since 2004, trundles on 3.9 miles of track along the east side of the Strip (so you’ll have to cross by foot to reach the west side of it). It serves from MGM Grand on the south end to Sahara at the north, with 5 casino resort stops in between: Horseshoe/Paris, Flamingo/Caesars Palace, Harrah’s/The LINQ, Las Vegas Convention Center, and Westgate. During times of truly apocalyptic Strip traffic, it can save your skin trying to get from the far north end to center Strip.
The monorail also serves as a punch line for locals. The warm-up comic at a taping of Penn & Teller Fool Us that we attended at the Rio asked the audience if anyone had recently ridden the Monorail and was met with the sound of crickets, but we’re happy to advocate for this thing for moderate tourist use. It’s clean, it’s safe, it’s prompt, and it puts Westgate and Sahara into play. A lot of people grumble that you have to walk through casino floors in order to access the stations, but you won’t find that burdensome in the summer heat.
Visitors usually buy a pass online and board using a bar code. We concede that the fares of $5.50 for a single ride $13.45 for a 24-hour pass is too high to be a bargain for mass transit. And it should have been extended to the airport years ago. But on the upside, kids under 5 ride free.
Aria Express & Excalibur-Luxor-Mandalay Bay People Movers
Vegas is now at a point of corporate conglomeration: Most of the Strip is owned by one of two companies: MGM and Caesars. With the Monorail’s past financial troubles and the general lack of seriousness of the Vegas Loop, it feels like there’s ample opportunity for the two biggest players in town to get in the action by running people movers, even if just among their own properties. After all, tourists aren’t spending money in casinos when they’re waiting for ride shares or sitting in traffic.
In that respect, MGM has been way ahead of the game. Since the ‘90s, the Excalibur-Luxor-Mandalay Bay Tram (daily 10am–midnight; mandalaybay.mgmresorts.com) has delivered free and easy transit between those three properties.
In 2009, MGM also opened the Aria Express Tram (daily 8am –2am; aria.mgmresorts.com, servicing Bellagio/Vdara, The Shops at Crystals/Aria/Waldorf Astoria, and Park MGM, all on the west side of the Strip. Honestly, the view of Aria from the Bellagio/Vdara station is so clean and futuristic that it looks like a computer-generated rendering. It’s not much more glamorous than the people mover at the airport, but it’s free and doesn’t involve a queue, so it feels V.I.P.
The Boring Company’s Vegas Loop, aka Tesla Tunnels
The Boring Company’s Vegas Loopis a 2.2-mile twin/solo track of private, single-lane roads sized for small sedans, operated by a fleet of human drivers.
To avoid being too much of a hater, let’s look at the good here: As originally promised, The Boring Company’s Vegas Loop will indeed take you from one part of the Las Vegas Convention Center to a different part of the Las Vegas Convention Center, saving you minutes of walking (unless the Loop is busy). For a $4.50 day pass, it’ll even take you from the Convention Center to Resorts World, the hotel directly across the street from the Convention Center.
But let’s call this what it is: Elon Musk’s product demo for Tesla Model Ys. The Vegas Loop is not a real means of public transportation. Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, whose fear of enclosed spaces and concerns about safety prevent her from riding it, hit the nail on the head when she called it “impractical.”
The last time we used it, our driver had to wait a few minutes for the tunnel to clear, because—impractically—both directions of travel operate on the same lane outside Resorts World. According to our driver, on busy days upwards of 80 drivers shuttle people, one to three at a time, back and forth in sedans. And the moment the system gets backed up, the supposed advantage of being underground becomes moot–it’s just more traffic, only subterranean and claustrophobic.
Hotel-run airport shuttles
Not to be confused with third-party shuttles, which aren’t all that cheap for how much of a hassle they can be, hotel-run shuttles incentivize travelers to stay at hotels they might otherwise not want to pay to schlep to and from.
For instance, El Cortez offers its hotel guests limited, reservation-based free airport drop off (no pick up) slots 7am–2pm every day.
We highly recommend locking down a spot upon check-in. South Point also offers a complimentary shuttle both to and from the airport, though the hotel stresses reservations cannot be made same-day and to “book your spot on the shuttle as soon as you have your flight information.”
Like cheap buffets and free parking, though, hotel-run complimentary shuttles are a vanishing breed of loss leader deals in Vegas, and outdated guides and listings can be deceiving, so ask prospective hotels directly if they offer the service before you pay for a room.
The Deuce (Credit: Dan Jakes)
