Here is something you should know about people who frequent Las Vegas: They all love to talk about how cheap a trip is, and how you will never find another city in the world where you can go and stay in beautiful hotels and eat fine dining, for even a fraction of the cost as Las Vegas.  Note that I said “they” and not “we”.  I used to be part of that group.  I used to love the idea of staying in a nice hotel that I was comped in, versus paying $150/night for some shitty motel in Anywhereelse USA.

But then something happened.  I started traveling outside the United States.  Guys, I have to tell you something.  The world outside of the United States is so much cheaper.  Sure there are lots of countries you can travel to where the cost is relatively the same, or even higher than travel in the States.  But then I went to Eastern Europe.  And China.  Suddenly, that “Wow, this is such a great bargain!” Las Vegas trip morphed into “Wow, for less than the cost of a two week trip to Vegas, I can spend six weeks in China!”

So I began vowing that every trip to Las Vegas would be my last.  But see, I didn’t tell anyone this, except for my cute little stuffed dog.  He doesn’t judge or hold me accountable for things I say, so I was free to break that vow at will.

Then I started to tell other people.  I swore up and down that last year was my last trip to Las Vegas, as I was wanting to instead, focus on seeing the rest of the entire planet.

Well that didn’t exactly go as planned.

Last December, I took what I had planned on being my last big trip:  Good bye Las Vegas!  But I ended up leaving dissatisfied.  My trip was only nine days.  While most people love to chime in with “Nine days?  That’s too long!  I am ready to go home after five!,” I don’t really have those kinds of trips.  I have the kind of trips where I do things like visit casinos off Strip and live like a local.  I don’t drink, I don’t go nutso, I don’t do any of the things that make people wish to make it STOP ALREADY after a mere five days.

With only nine days, I felt like I did nothing but travel around and I didn’t really see or do anything.  I was armed with my new fancy camera and got to take zero pictures of the Strip, despite actually staying on it for five days.  I actually got annoyed with myself for having gone degenerate gambling on night one and then spent the rest of the trip frugal gambling instead of going to the ATM.  This should be a “score one for me!” item, but it left me without doing the thing I go to Vegas to do: GAMBLE.

So when I got home, I decided to do one more trip.  For Thanksgiving.  Airfare was only $303, which is the lowest I have paid in many years.  Booked and done.

Then my mind started doing that thing again.  Where whenever I fly to California, I end up checking flights home from Vegas, since I am already going to be on the West Coast.  I decided that fine, I could do this.  I could allow myself 37 hours in Las Vegas en route home from San Francisco.

Then I realized this was never going to end.  My Thanksgiving trip is only five nights.  If nine was not enough for me to get it out of my system, five were not going to be.  Nor were five + an additional 37 hours.  So I started booking a three week trip to Las Vegas, which I leave for on December 23.  That one will be the final one.  For real this time.

Since rebooking my airfare for November would cost more than the entire flight, I am keeping that trip.  And I indeed went to Las Vegas for 37 hours last weekend.  Up next will be that trip report.