Las Vegas

For playing hard and partying harder, there’s no other city in the world like it. One of the fastest-growing urban areas in the country, Las Vegas is virtually synonymous with vice and overkill, but there’s far more to it than the decadence of the Strip. Regardless of your definition of excess, you’ll find it here: cutting-edge entertainment, high-stakes gaming and thrills of all kinds. You’ll also find everything from gut-wrenching midway rides to decidedly more illicit activities to pushing the limits of your athletic endurance as a runner, climber or cyclist on some of the most spectacular terrain in the continental United States.

Despite the expression of “what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” there are some exceptions: losing your life’s savings on a hunch, getting married to someone you just met, with whom all you have in common is matching blood-alcohol levels, or getting a criminal record. It may seem like anything goes in this town, but Vegas cops take the same dim view toward drunken belligerence as cops do in your hometown.