We left the UK on 22/02/19 to head out on a three month round the world trip.
Our itinerary:
- Las Vegas
- LA
- Japan
- South Korea
- Thailand
- Burma
- India
As I write this we are five days into the trip; having a throughly good time in the USA (as always).
The primary reason for coming to Las Vegas was to get married which we did on 24/02/19. We had a drive-thru wedding at the ‘Vegas Wedding Chapel‘ in downtown Las Vegas. We drove in, said our vows, exchanged rings and ten minutes later headed off into the Nevada desert as husband and wife. I’ll come back to that later.
I shot the above video on my new iPhone XS (what a piece of kit that is!) and edited it on Adobe Rush. I’ll be writing a blog covering my tech approach to this trip soon.
In a nutshell, I was filming and editing on the plane. By the time we landed all of the plane footage was in the can. I edited the rest on the iPhone XS in the hotel and published it to YouTube the next day. It’s a revelation I can tell you.
Trip date
22/02/19
We flew from Gatwick Airport with Norwegian Airlines and what a pleasurable experience that was. The planes are great, plenty of legroom, the food was nice, the in-flight entertainment was varied and actually worked and the aircrew were very professional and helpful. I would fly with Norwegian Airlines again without hesitation.
Flights were roughly £200 each which was an absolute bargain. 20kg allowance for checked-in luggage and 10kg for carry on.
The duration of the very smooth flight was about 9 hours. Unfortunately, we got seats right on top of the wing which obscured my view so that was a bit annoying but never mind.
Where we stayed
When we arrived in Vegas we picked up a taxi right outside the airport to our hotel – The Signature at MGM Grand. Including tip the taxi cost $20 and took about 20 minutes to get to our destination.
It was a fantastic place to stay. Read my review here.
We paid £337.50 for three nights which was a bargain for a suite in a central Las Vegas hotel just off the strip.
The very nice man on reception who checked us in gave us a $50 dollar voucher to spend on food and drink because we told him we had come all the way to Vegas to get married.
To be honest we’ve been laying on the marriage thing a bit thick wherever we’ve been going. So far we’ve had a $50 food & drink voucher, a free GPS with our car rental and some free clown noses, a free postcard and a free Twix from the lovely lady at the Clown Hotel in Tonopa.
We checked in and hit the strip. We were knackered and hungry so we got a few bits from Walgreens and went back to the room to shovel them down our throats.
We’ve both been suffering from jet lag on this trip. We’ve been getting up about 4.30 am (but we have been going to bed early – coz we are old fogies nowadays.)
We were happy to be on the road again and back in the USA.
That was it for day one.
Please check out my video above if you haven’t already and don’t forget to Like, Share & Subscribe – Cheers!
JV’s Top Tips
- Always book flights well in advance as they will be much cheaper than last-minute bookings
- London Gatwick Airport now has free papers available near the boarding gates of long-haul flights – so don’t buy one before you get there!
- If you are coming to Vegas to get married LET EVERYONE KNOW! Especially at hotels, car rentals, restaurants etc. You’ll be surprised with how well this is received and the sort of gifts and discounts you get
- Download Uber / Lyft App’s if you are travelling to the US, you’ll be glad you did
- Make sure you have roaming data bundles set up on your phone, Wi-Fi is generally available these days but if you are out in the styx and can’t get free Wi-Fi you might find yourself wandering around for ages trying to find free Wi-Fi before you can hail an Uber