Ford Suitcase Weights

Outlets where you can shop til you drop

GO SHOPPING  : On a whirlwind tour of Las Vegas, ROSEMARY MAC CABE  tries her luck at the biggest gamble of all, outlet shopping, while BERNICE HARRISON  checks out the value in retail villages near Paris and Barcelona

IT OCCURS to me several times on my two-day whirlwind trip to Las Vegas, that I may be the only tourist who has brought jeans. At the airport, for example, everyone’s dressed in linen “pants”, as the Americans would say; in the hotel, residents mill around in summer dresses and cut-offs, bikinis and trunks; in shopping malls, families carrying Banana Republic and Juicy Couture bags wear matching cotton separates.

It’s only when I go outside that I realise why I’m the only jeans-wearer in the village: Vegas is roasting. The temperature is a “mild 42 degrees”, as one resident puts it. Then again,it doesn’t matter because I’m here to shop, and I have a world of choice at my fingertips. Or at the end of a transaction involving my fingertips, a credit card and a biro.

The first thing that strikes you when you touch down is that there are slot machines in the airport, before  you collect your baggage. But gambling ain’t what I’m here for, so I head straight for the Tropicana hotel to check in and get some kip after my 14-hour journey.

The hotel is almost at the end of the strip, between the MGM Grand and the Mandalay Bay and, when I get to my room after a satisfyingly speedy check-in, I spend about 10 minutes at the window gazing at the lights.

It’s kind of surreal, looking at neon signs that seem so familiar from their omnipresence on TV and in film, and yet are entirely new. And it’s hugely overwhelming: a tourist’s Vegas may be just one street, but man, is it a long one.

When I wake the next morning, bright and breezy thanks to air conditioning and blinds, I realise that my favourite thing, possibly in the world, is room service breakfast (French toast with cinnamon and maple syrup? Don’t mind if I do), and that my second favourite is the smell of vanilla, which the Tropicana has somehow had piped through its air-con system so that everything smells, well, tropical.

I head to my first destination, Las Vegas Premium Outlets North, at 10am, thinking I’ll beat the crowds. Not so: the place is teeming with enthusiastic shoppers – and on a Sunday!