Nevada

Las Vegas keeps different hours from the rest of Nevada. Restaurants, shops and casinos stay open through the night, and the pace is faster and looser than anywhere else in the state. Beyond the city, Nevada is mostly empty desert and small towns. The name Silver State comes from the 1800s, when thousands of people arrived to mine silver here. Some of the towns they built, like Virginia City, still stand.

In the north, Basque families settled generations ago to raise sheep. The Basque people come from the mountains on the border between France and Spain, and their restaurants in Nevada still serve the way they always have: long shared tables, big platters, everyone eating together. You will not find this anywhere else in the country.

Just outside the Las Vegas Strip, the road of casinos and hotels the city is famous for, the desert begins. Red Rock Canyon and Valley of Fire have huge red and orange rock formations, and carvings cut into the stone by Native peoples two thousand years ago.