Origins

So as I was saying on the Home page, My wife and I have been visiting Las Vegas for many years. Over the course of these visits we had been nearly everwhere on The Strip. One thing we had never really tried, and which I quickly put on my Bucket List, was walk the entire length of The Strip in one shot.

My wife is a fairly healthy lady, and her daily workout routine typically sees her walking several miles. So of course she was in for it. In any case it would be more fun than walking on a treadmill indoors, staring at a TV. So on our 2012 visit, that's exactly what we did.

Unfortunately, what I'd had in mind was a leisurely tour through all of the casinos, stopping here and there, maybe for a drink or a snack. I figured we could make this take half the day.

But my wife clearly had other plans. Her plan was to essentially speed walk the entire thing, staying mostly on the sidewalk alongside Las Vegas Boulevard. Not only that, but she insisted we use stairs only, not those wimpy escalators, when traversing the many crossover bridges. So we did not stop anywhere, other than once for water at Walgreens. It was an ordeal!

It took us around two hours and thirty minutes, if I remember correctly. We began and ended at Paris, having walked all the way up to Stratosphere, and down to Mandalay Bay. And while my wife walks at a brutal pace, I was stunned at how little time it took us.

But still my mental Bucket List was telling me I wanted to walk into every casino in one shot. In April of 2013 my wife was sent to Vegas on business, so of course I had to tag along! I kept looking at her schedule and I noticed a three hour block of time where she would be stuck in meetings. I would have to find something to do during that time, before we were to meet for lunch. Was three hours enough time to step inside every casino on The Strip?

It was a big challenge. On our speed walk we made it with time to spare. But as anyone who's been to Las Vegas knows, there are very few direct ways to anything. Some of the entrances to the casinos are located quite far off of Las Vegas Boulevard. Factor in the time to get into and out of these facilities, and I wasn't really confident I would be meeting my wife in time. And I hadn't told her what I was up to either! But I ventured out anyway, at 8:43am.

I made it in time, but just barely. My total time was 2 hours and 50 minutes.

Could this time be beaten? My initial reaction was to say I doubt it; even without my wife pacing me I'm a fairly brisk walker, and conditions were quite favorable that day. But I made a major tactical error in making Riviera my starting point. The walk up to Stratosphere was nothing but wasted time, since Sahara had long been closed (I did this because I wanted to finish at Encore to meet my wife for lunch, as we were lucky to be staying at The Wynn). Also, my knees are not very good these days, so I limited myself to walking only.

A few months after that I was talking about my original Casino Walk with a co-worker, and he apparently thought it was just goofy enough that he wanted to give it a try. The number of open casinos would be the same, so the times would be directly comparable.

I got to thinking that maybe there were other Vegas afficionados who might be looking for something unique to do, that would offer some sort of challenge as well. And that's when I came about the idea for this site.