The deep red color of this 200,000-acre conservation area is astounding (hence the name). Now entrances are timed, so to guarantee you’ll gain entrance to the park, reserve a spot on the Conservation Area’s website. It used to be that you could just wander into the conservation area, buy a day pass, and explore at will.

Much of the west side is devoted to Summerlin, which comprises 20 villages, 310 parks, and a series of hiking and biking trails.

Today, you can drive due west of the Strip through Chinatown, up into the European-style mixed-use Tivoli Village and the restaurants of the neighboring Boca Park, farther west into Summerlin and its booming Downtown district, all the way to the prime hiking and mountain biking of Red Rock. The area just west of the Las Vegas Strip on Spring Mountain Road, known as Las Vegas’ Chinatown, is a relative newcomer, too, opening its first pagoda-style dining and retail district in the early 1990s. The land wouldn’t be developed until the late 1980s and early 90s when it became Summerlin, which at that time was the largest master-planned community in the US. Case in point: the film producer and billionaire mogul Howard Hughes bought 22,500 acres along the western rim of the valley in 1952 and became the valley’s largest landowner. In fact, the west side of Las Vegas has been expanding since the city was incorporated in 1911, but it wasn’t until decades later that residential neighborhoods, golf courses, restaurants, and a few resorts spread all the way west toward Red Rock. Of the millions of people that visit Las Vegas every year, more and more are venturing west for at least part of their trip. But there’s an entire swathe of land west of the Strip to explore containing the city’s booming Chinatown, and further west, the toney mixed-use Tivoli Village, Summerlin and its Downtown Summerlin district, all the way west to the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area. After all, that’s how the resorts were designed-as self-contained cities. GameSense is a registered trademark of British Columbia Lottery Corporation, used under license by MGM Resorts International.It would be easy to come to Las Vegas and stay only on the Strip-or even never leave your hotel room.

Red rock casino resort spa to strip