Online Hotels and discounts with Las Vegas Hotel Reservations

In the early 1950s, cartoonist Walt Disney conceived a theme park where his already hugely popular characters - Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and the rest - could come to life, to enchant children and make their Uncle Walt even richer. ANAHEIM was chosen as the location for Disneyland on the basis that these acres of orange groves, thirty miles southeast of downtown LA, would become Southern California's next major focus of population growth - which indeed they did. The whole area is now so completely overrun with shameless souvenir shops, chain hotels and fast-food restaurants that it's long since spun out of the control of the Disney grasp and makes for a surprisingly seedy environment (outside the park itself, of course). When Disney opened his next theme park, in Florida, he made sure he owned all the land, hotels and commercial properties, not making the same mistake he made here of only buying a few square miles. If you're not coming to visit Disneyland, or the similar spectacle of carnival rides and historical hokum, Knott's Berry Farm (8039 Beach Blvd; $40), you may as well give the town a miss: it hasn't an ounce of interest in itself.

Online Hotels and discounts with Las Vegas Hotel Reservations

The most beguiling city in the world, New York is an adrenaline-charged, history-laden place that holds immense romantic appeal for visitors. Wandering the streets here, you'll cut between buildings that are icons to the modern age - and whether gazing at the flickering lights of the midtown skyscrapers as you speed across the Queensboro bridge, experiencing the 4am half-life downtown, or just wasting the morning on the Staten Island ferry, you really would have to be made of stone not to be moved by it all. There's no place quite like it.

Online Hotels and discounts with Las Vegas Hotel Reservations

Until the Europeans came, HONOLULU was insignificant; soon so many foreign ships were frequenting its waters that it had become Kamehameha's capital, and it remains the economic center of the island. The city covers a long (if narrow) strip of...

Online Hotel bookings and Las Vegas Hotel Bookings

These days, after six decades of capitalism run riot, the Strip in Las Vegas is locked into a hyperactive craving for thrills and glamour. First-time visitors tend to expect Las Vegas to be a repository of kitsch , but the casino owners in Las Vegas Hotels are far too canny to be sentimental about the old days. Yes, there are a few Elvis impersonators around, but what characterizes Las Vegas far more is its endless quest for novelty . Long before they lose their sparkle, yesterday's showpieces are blasted into rubble, to make way for ever more extravagant replacements. The Disney model has now been discarded in favor of more adult themes, and Las Vegas demands nothing less than entire cities . Replicas of New York, Paris, Monte Carlo and Venice now jostle for space on the Strip.

The customer is king in Las Vegas. What the visitor wants, Las Vegas provides. If you come in search of the cheapest destination in America, you'll enjoy paying rock-bottom rates for accommodation and hunting out the best buffet bargains. If it's style and opulence you're after, by contrast, you can dine in the finest restaurants, shop in the most chic stores, and watch world-class entertainment; it'll cost you, but not as much as it would anywhere else. The same guidelines apply to gambling in Las Vegas. The Strip giants cater to those who want sophisticated high-roller heavens, where tuxedoed James Bond lookalikes toss insouciant bankrolls onto the roulette tables. Others prefer their casinos to be sinful and seedy, inhabited by hard-bitten heavy-smoking low-lifes; there is no shortage of that type of joint either, especially downtown.

On the face of it, Las Vegas is supremely