The High Roller at The LINQ and the STRAT Tower at the north end of the Strip are the two ways to see Las Vegas from above, and they could hardly be further apart. One is a 550-foot observation wheel that turns a single slow circle in thirty minutes inside an air-conditioned glass cabin. The other is a 1,149-foot tower, the building plenty of people still call the Stratosphere, with an open-air deck and a ride that fires you up the spire. Take the wheel for the view and the company, the tower for the height and the adrenaline, or do both in one evening, because they barely overlap.
The High Roller: Thirty Minutes in a Glass Cabin Over the Strip
The High Roller makes one unhurried turn over the center of the Strip, and half an hour is exactly long enough to watch the city rearrange itself beneath you. Twenty-eight glass cabins carry up to forty people each, the motion is smooth enough that you forget you're moving, and at the top you're 550 feet up, higher than both the London Eye and the Singapore Flyer. It held the record as the world's tallest wheel from its 2014 opening until 2021. There are no age, height or weight limits, it stops to board wheelchairs, and the Happy Half Hour cabin adds an open bar for guests of drinking age, which turns the same rotation into a party with a view. Go at dusk and you get the daytime Strip on the way up and the lit one on the way down.
Where: The LINQ Promenade, center Strip. Height: 550 feet at the top of the wheel. Time: about thirty minutes, one full rotation. Best for: couples, small children and anyone who wants the view without the drop.
The STRAT Tower: Twice the Height, and You Can Step Outside
The STRAT Tower gives you the one thing no cabin on the Strip can: open air at the top of the tallest freestanding observation tower in the country. The indoor deck sits at 857 feet and the outdoor deck at 869, where the wind is real and the Strip, downtown and the desert beyond them lie flat to the horizon. Plan on about two hours up there. Above the decks, Big Shot fires riders 160 feet up the spire from a 921-foot platform at 45 miles an hour, topping out at 1,081 feet. X-Scream, the car that tips you over the edge, is listed as closed with no reopening date, and SkyJump, the controlled free-fall from the tower, is its own ticket. Stay for dinner and Top of the World, more than 800 feet up, turns a full circle every 80 minutes, so the Strip lights come round to your table on their own. It has a dress code, so leave the hoodie in the room.
Where: The STRAT, north end of the Strip. Height: 869-foot outdoor deck on a 1,149-foot tower. Time: about two hours with the decks and a ride. Best for: height, open air and anyone who wants to ride.
Which One to Book
Want the view with the person next to you: the High Roller, and time it for dusk. Want height you can feel in your stomach: the STRAT, and add Big Shot. Want both: ride the wheel in the late afternoon, then take a short cab north and reach the STRAT's outdoor deck as the Strip lights come on. They don't repeat each other at all, which is why the pair makes a better evening than either one twice. If the rides are the real draw, every thrill ride in town is compared in Las Vegas thrill rides, ranked. For a third view, the Eiffel Tower Viewing Deck at Paris looks straight across at the Bellagio fountains, and it's one half of our most romantic things to do in Las Vegas. And on New Year's Eve the STRAT sits north of the Strip road closure, which is a big part of why it tops our guide to where to stay when the Strip shuts.
