How to Spend A Week in Las Vegas: 7-Day Itinerary

This blog post is all about how to spend a week in Las Vegas, with a 7-day Vegas itinerary and how to spend a trip to Las Vegas with family.

Two weeks ago, I was waking up at 7am to sunshine, bright lights and the buzzing city of Las Vegas.

Better yet, I was waking up in America, something I was experiencing for the first time!

This trip to Las Vegas was my 21st birthday present, and where else better to celebrate being 21 than in Sin City?

I spent a week in Las Vegas with my parents, experience America for the very first time and I was so excited to finally travel to the US and travel my furthest distance.

After seeing Las Vegas on TV and in movies my whole life, I was so looking forward to spending a whole week here and experiencing American culture.

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To get a real feel for Las Vegas, I highly recommend checking out my Las Vegas Itinerary travel vlog over on YouTube which shows a recent trip to Las Vegas with my boyfriend for four days:

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Flying to Las Vegas

My week in Las Vegas didn’t get off to a great start. This was my longest flight ever and first time in America, and when I landed my face had taken a reaction to something and was swollen and covered in spots for the entire trip.

I did some research into airplane acne and wrote a blog post all about it, if you’d like to read about what happened.

There may not be as many photos of myself being in Las Vegas, but I have plenty of everything around me.

I fell in love with America and can’t wait to go back to explore so much more of it.

Last November I spent a week in Lanzarote, Spain and one year later I was off chasing the sun once again in Nevada.

If you’ve never been to Las Vegas let me give you a run-through of what I got up to, things to do and not to do, and places and things not to miss during a week in Las Vegas.

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Where to Eat Breakfast in Las Vegas

Y’all know how much I love my breakfasts, right? I’m not kidding when I say we ate at the same restaurant every morning for breakfast.

I did order something different each time, so no hate please.

We were staying at the Excalibur Hotel which looks like a giant castle, it’s quite a spectacle! The Excalibur was on the south side of the strip and Denny’s Diner was only a ten minute walk away, so we became regulars.

I’ve since stayed at The Excalibur Hotel again in 2025 during my West Coast Road Trip and our one night in Las Vegas.

You can see what we got up to during 24 hours, and a tour of our hotel room at The Excalibur in my most recent Las Vegas Itinerary YouTube vlog:

One thing I can say from being in America is that they like their huge portions. And most of the breakfasts on the menu came with a side of pancakes.

Yes, a side of pancakes.

And most of the breakfasts were around $8 (even with the side of pancakes). The coffee was refillable and I must say, it was very good coffee.

Each morning, we had to give our name to the concierge and wait for a free table as it was constantly packed, no matter what time of the morning you went.

The early mornings during our week in Las Vegas were my favourite. The sky was always so blue, the streets quiet and it was a great time to get a proper look at the place.

Waking up to sunshine and clear blue skies instantly puts me in a good mood, and to top it off there were two Starbucks in our hotel so my dad would go down and get me a mocha to have while I was getting ready.

God bless America and Starbucks.

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The Best Hotels to Visit in Las Vegas

All of the hotels and casinos are amazing to see on the strip.

I especially loved the New York, New York Hotel as it was built to look like the Empire State Building with other skyscrapers around, the Statue of Liberty and even a mini version of Brooklyn Bridge.

Our hotel room faced the New York, New York so I would go to sleep and wake up to flashing signs saying ‘New York, New York’ and if that isn’t a sign for me to book New York as my next trip, I don’t know what is.

Spoiler: I moved to New York a few years later!

Other casinos and hotels worth seeing during a week in Las Vegas are The Bellagio, The Venetian and Caesars Palace.

The Venetian was incredible with mini-rivers running through the hotel where you could even hop on a gondola inside or outside the hotel for half an hour.

The Bellagio is incredibly grand and somewhere I’d love to stay if I ever get to go back to Las Vegas.

The fountain show at Bellagio is something to see and the best way to see it is to grab a table outside the French restaurant Mon Ami Gabi across the street from Bellagio (part of the Paris Hotel), order a fancy cocktail (it’s pricey) and watch the fountain show every half hour while the sun goes down. It’s also a great spot to people watch.

It’s interesting to stand around and watch the roulette tables and craps tables, especially when walking through casinos at 8am and there are people that have been playing all night.

I have absolutely no clue when it comes to gambling but it’s fun to watch. We put a few dollars into the slot machines the night before we left but that’s as far as my gambling went during our week in Las Vegas.

Rubbish, I know.

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Where to Shop in Las Vegas

There’s two outlet malls in Las Vegas – one on the north end of the strip, and the other on the south side.

Both are very similar, but I found the north side mall to be the best. There’s huge Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Adidas, Michael Kors and Under Armour stores selling everything at a reduced rate.

I got a lot of new gym wear as well as a Tommy Hilfiger backpack that had been reduced to $35 from $160 – I mean?! I had seen the bag in the north side outlet but it was only reduced by $20, then I found it in the south side outlet for the above price. It helps to shop around!

On the way back from the north side outlet, stop off at the Welcome to Las Vegas sign for the most cliché photo ever.

Be prepared to queue though, but there is an organised system in place and a guy is there to take group photos for you.

There was even a bride and groom there when we queued for the optimal photo.

There’s tons of stores in the hotels like The Venetian and Caesars Palace but if you can’t afford the likes of Versace or Chanel like me, the Fashion Show Mall in the middle of the strip may be more your thing.

There’s a huge Forever 21 and a Macy’s (although I felt it was just an American version of Debenhams).

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Where to Eat Dinner in Las Vegas

As I mentioned earlier, we ate in Denny’s every single morning for breakfast. When you paid, your receipt contained a voucher for 20% off your next food bill. So our breakfasts only came to around $35 every day.

We varied our evening meals during our week in Las Vegas, and ate at Dick’s Last Resort which was a restaurant in The Excalibur Hotel and not for anyone that takes life too seriously or is easily embarrassed.

We also ate in Gordon Ramsay’s Burger in Planet Hollywood which was one of the best meals we had.

One night we headed to see the Fremont Street Experience in Downtown Las Vegas and looked for somewhere to eat, although it was dark and didn’t seem to be that many great places around.

We swiftly avoided the Heart Attack Grill which lets anyone over 350lbs eat for free which I couldn’t have been more against. I mean have you heard of the American obesity crisis?!

Instead we ate in a diner in Binion’s Casino which was the most American diner I’ve ever been in. The portions were huge and tables around us held hands and said Grace before eating which was nice.

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The Best Things to Do in Las Vegas

One of my highlights of our Las Vegas itinerary was visiting the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop – aka the pawn shop from the TV show Pawn Stars. 

Unfortunately we didn’t see anyone from the show, but it was so cool to be in the actual shop where they film.

We didn’t find out until later that Chumlee actually owns a sweet store down the road from the pawn store and he’s usually working in it, so if you’re in the area, make sure to check out the sweet shop!

The Fremont Street Experience is definitely an… experience. Take the bus and there’s four different drop off points around Fremont to get off at.

If you feel like it, zipline across the top of the ceiling and fly over everyone walking below. There’s light shows, music blasting from everywhere, people dancing, drinking, eating all around.

It’s a bit mad but something worth seeing and adding to your Las Vegas itinerary.

I enjoyed being on the bus and driving through residential areas of Las Vegas. I couldn’t imagine living there myself but it was interesting to see what the houses and streets were like.

Driving in Las Vegas looked quite easy. I think I could easily master driving on the opposite side of the road.

I would’ve liked to stop off in the Arts District where there’s tons of graffiti and really cool street art. But we were told it wasn’t very safe, and each time we drove through it, there weren’t many people about.

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Is Las Vegas Worth Visiting?

If I was with a group of girls for a birthday or hen party, then I’d love to go back. But otherwise I wouldn’t rush back as I think I saw almost everything there was to see.

Spoiler: I’ve been back to Las Vegas two more times!

We had five full days in Las Vegas (one was spent sleeping due to my face catastrophe) and the others were spent traveling.

I would love to see much more of America, and I definitely want to see the more rural parts, not just the big cities.

Las Vegas is somewhere I think everyone should see as it’s incredible what they’ve built. I’d definitely recommend it as every American we met was so friendly.

I’ve never received as many compliments before in my life. Even though they can be quite dramatic and hyper compared to us Western Europeans they’re great people.

One thing I was weirded out by was the smoking indoors. It’s weird to walk into a public indoor space and see someone lighting a cigarette. Or just sitting at a bar puffing away.

As it’s not illegal in America, it was weird to get used to. And I’m really glad we have that law here in the UK.

I’d love to live in America some day, so who knows? I could be back to Las Vegas in the very near future… If I move to New York… One can dream!

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