The Nevada Travel Network
Featured Attraction Laughlin
Nevada's Southernmost City
Laughlin: Wonderland on the Colorado
Laughlin is purely for fun — no-one goes there for business unless they are in the fun business. We go for the food, the drink, the easy-going atmosphere, the gambling, the fishing, and the golf in the unique Colorado River setting.
Laughlin is a miniature Las Vegas — resorts instead of megaresorts — all the luxury and razamataz of the big casino hotels without the traffic jams. There are ten of these palaces now, nine clustered along the Colorado River near Don Laughlin's original Riverside and the tenth, The Avi, 16 miles south on the Fort Mohave Tribal Reservation.
Laughlin's
Resort Hotels
Aquarius Casino Resort 702-298-5111
800-352-6464
Swimming pool and spa; tennis courts; exercise room; massage service; business center; river tour boat. Avi Resort & Casino 800-AVI-2-WIN
The largest beach and lagoon on the river; sports book, keno lounge and the biggest bingo hall in Laughlin. Colorado Belle 702-298-4000
800-477-4837
Fashioned after a 19th-century Mississippi riverboat; two pools, spa and poolside bar; exercise room; video arcade. Riverside Resort 702-298-2535
800-227-3849
Classic car exhibits; movie theater; bowling alley; supervised, children's play center; video arcade; two swimming pools and spa; massage service; river tour boat; pet rooms available. Edgewater Hotel & Casino 702-298-2453
800-677-4837
Pool and spa; video arcade room; beauty salon; river tour boat. Golden Nugget Laughlin 702-298-7111
800-950-7700
Pool and spa. Harrah's Laughlin Casino and Hotel 702-298-4600
800-427-7247
Two pools and spa; private, soft sand beach; exercise room; massage service; full-service beauty salon; business center. Pioneer Hotel & Gambling Hall 702-298-2442
800-634-3469
Pool and spa; pet rooms available. Ramada Express Hotel Casino 702-298-4200
800-243-6846
Pool and spa; free, 27 acre property train ride; American Heroes Museum and "On The Wings of Eagles" free multimedia tribute; video arcade. River Palms Resort Casino 702-298-2242
800-835-7904
Pool and spa; soft-sand beach; exercise room; massage and spa services; full-service beauty salon; video arcade; river tour boat.
2700 S. Casino Dr.
Apart from the casinos, Laughlin's main attraction is the Colorado River. On a recent visit in late August, afternoon temperature 112°, the river was a busy playground, with swimmers, sunbathers and babies
Powerboat racing is a highlight of River Days each June
playing patty-cake at the Harrah's beach, little water-skeeters zipping up and down the river, water taxis buzzing from one hotel to another, water-skiers bouncing behind sleek boats, sending up rooster-tails, the Little Belle and the USS Riverside gliding grandly past on a sight-seeing cruise. For many visitors, the trout fishing is as great a lure as the gambling games, and many of Laughlin's visitors bunk up in their RVs, enjoy the fishing and the mild winter temperatures, and only enter the casinos for an early breakfast before heading off to catch lunch and dinner.
The view from Arizona
In 1966 an enterprising fellow named Don Laughlin paid $250,000 for a boarded up motel on 6.5 acres of riverfront property across the Colorado River from Bullhead City, Arizona. He persuaded the post office to open a substation at his isolated outpost, and set to work. Fifteen years later the Wall Street Journal described his property: "Mr. Laughlin's red brick, colonial-style casino is the biggest in town, with some 700 slot machines and 28 gaming tables." In 1982 his gambling operations grossed more than $20 million.
This miniature choo-choo is the rapid transit system at the Ramada express
By then, "town" was seven casinos lining the bank of the river, five of them with hotels totaling 600 rooms. There were 3,200 employees dealing the cards, mixing the drinks and making the beds, but only 92 of them could find places to live in Laughlin. Most of the rest rode to work on the water taxis flitting constantly back and forth across the river from Bullhead City. The customers they served came mostly from southern California (via Needles or Nipton) and from Arizona. The Arizonans drive to Bullhead City from the interior of the state and then park their cars and RVs on one of the great asphalt pads on the Arizona side of the river to catch water taxis to the casinos on the Nevada side.
The Colorado Belle glows invitingly at the river's edge.
But that was 1982, deep in the ancient past as time as measured in Laughlin. At the beginning of the 21st century, ten major casino resorts offer more than 9,000 rooms for guests. A succession of new residential projects began with the construction of Laughlin's first house in 1985, and now Laughlin has 7,500 residents of its own. Bullhead City is still a favored suburb on the Arizona side. Laughlin doesn't have a cemetery yet — no-one's had time to die — but it has its own supermarket-anchored shopping center, pizza places and Chinese cafe. Gnat's Landing, in another little shopping plaza, was the first non-casino bar in town.
While in Laughlin . . .
Visit the amusingly conceived Loser's Lounge at the Riverside and go night-clubbing at Tarzan's at The Golden Nugget . . . have a superb supper at The Steak House at the Ramada Express, Madeline's at River Palms, or the new The Ranch at Harrah's.
Rent a boat, ride a water taxi, take a cruise, wade in up to your ankles from the beach at Harrah's — One way or another ya gotta get out on the water . . . There's a good workout facility at Harrah's, smaller ones at the Colorado Belle and River Palms.
Almost all the attributes of a mainstream American town, in other words, except that everything is brand new. There has certainly never been a neater, cleaner boom town in Nevada; I didn't see a single car rusting in a single back yard, probably because everyone just got here and they're still driving around in the cars they came in.
The golf is great too.
For a fascinating half-hour driving tour, take the main boulevard downriver from the casinos. You'll pass the long, skinny Emerald River Golf Course and, looming like a ghost above the sparkling waters of the Colorado, a haunting monument to greed and bad judgment: the skeleton of the 4,000-room Emerald River Casino Hotel, financed with junk bonds and abandoned before completion. Turn right at the Needles Highway to tour the residential part of town and return to the casinos. Or go left and visit the newest and most surprising casino attraction on the River -- the Avi, an enterprise of the Mohave Tribe adding to the prosperity of far southern Nevada.
The Factory Outlet Stores are a good source of impulse purchases.
Be sure to visit the strange and wonderful state of Arizona, directly across the river and accessible by water taxi, the 6-mile scenic route via Davis Dam, or directly across on the new bridge. This bridge, with the river flowing slowly and serenely beneath it, and the profoundly barren mountains reared up against the sky above, is the supreme symbol of Laughlin. A bridge was long overdue to relieve both the car traffic forced to take the long-way-around via the dam and the too-heavy pressure on the water-taxi system, but neither Nevada nor Arizona could afford to build it. Even if they could, the process might take years. So the ever-enterprising Don Laughlin, who still makes a daily helicopter patrol of his domain, built the $3 million bridge himself and donated it to the states.
The countryside around Laughlin is inviting to the backroad explorer; temperatures are most comfortable from late fall through early spring, and in March and April the wildflowers make a brilliant display.
The best moment of my most recent visit came at breakfast at the Ramada Express when the waitress burst into song as she served her customers. "Button up Your Overcoat," she trilled, despite the warm and rising temperatures outside, and "You're the top, you're the Eiffel Tower!" It was a uniquely cheery way to begin the day.
But even if you're not an outdoorsman, even if you are blase about gambling, make a point of visiting Laughlin just because it is so incredible a phenomenon, a brilliant boomtown in the great Nevada tradition. As you stand on a warm evening in the light of the neon, watch the endless stream of cars cruising back and forth between Nevada and Arizona and pay tribute to Don Laughlin's pioneering spirit. Wretched excess? Of course, it's a Nevada specialty. But what do you want? A bait shack with six stools and a beer cooler?
Laughlin is purely for fun — no-one goes there for business unless they are in the fun business. We go for the food, the drink, the easy-going atmosphere, the gambling, the fishing, and the golf in the unique Colorado River setting.
