Vegas is engineered to take your money, yet almost everything worth seeing away from the casino floor costs nothing. Three days of desert land art, conservatory glasshouses, Spring Mountain Road noodle counters and sandstone canyons, on well under $50 a day.
Ugo Rondinone's seven stacks of fluorescent painted boulders rise 9m out of the Jean Dry Lake bed, 16km south of the Strip on Las Vegas Blvd. Open sunrise to sunset with no gate, no ticket and a free gravel lot for about 60 cars.
An open-air food and shopping yard built from 43 repurposed shipping containers at 707 Fremont St, guarded by a 12m steel praying mantis that shoots flames from its antennae. Entry, live music and the treehouse playground are all free.
A 1,300 sq m glasshouse behind the Bellagio lobby, torn down and replanted five times a year by 120 horticulturists for Chinese New Year, spring, summer, autumn and the winter display. Open 24 hours, never ticketed.
An animatronic fountain show where Atlas, Gaia and Poseidon fight over Atlantis in nine minutes of fire, smoke and water, running on the hour from 11:00. The 190,000-litre saltwater aquarium beside it is free to walk up to.
Southern Nevada's biggest weekly producers' market fills the piazza at Tivoli Village on Rampart Blvd on Sunday mornings — Pahrump honey, Amargosa Valley pistachios, breakfast tamales, empanadas and kettle corn from over 100 stalls.
The Tijuana-style taqueria at 3041 Las Vegas Blvd S where cooks shave adobada straight off a vertical trompo onto hand-pressed tortillas. You queue at the counter for the meat you want and pay per taco; open until 04:00 at weekends.
A 5km restaurant corridor west of I-15 anchored by Chinatown Plaza and its Xuanzang pilgrim statue, holding more than 150 Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Thai and Filipino kitchens where lunch specials run at half Strip prices.
A locals' casino one block east of the Strip on Koval Lane, serving an off-menu steak special — sirloin, salad, potato, green beans and a pint of house-brewed beer — that has been the cheapest sit-down steak in the city for decades.
A 21km one-way loop through Aztec sandstone cliffs 27km west of the Strip, with 13 pull-outs and trailheads including Calico Tanks and Ice Box Canyon. Timed entry is required between 08:00 and 17:00 from October through May.
A fee-free pocket of the conservation area off State Route 159 with a 1.2km boardwalk over a spring-fed meadow, shaded picnic ramadas and vertical red sandstone walls. No reservation, no entry fee, open 06:00 to 20:00.
The valley's largest park: 1,000 hectares of restored Las Vegas Wash marsh with 32km of trails, beaver ponds, cottonwood groves and a nature centre, only 15 minutes east of the Strip. Trails open from sunrise, centre 09:00-15:00.
A volcanic butte in the northwest suburbs with a steep 0.8km scramble from the park lot to a 360-degree summit view over the Strip skyline, Frenchman Mountain and the Spring Mountains. Free park, free parking, floodlit lower loop.