As far as commercial or charity displays are concerned, the only one we know of that you can get a free shuttle to is the Mystic Falls Holiday Wonderland display at Sam's Town. You can catch the shuttle from Harrah's or the Riviera; here's a link to the map and schedule in our "Free Shuttle" section. Other major annual displays include those at Springs Preserve, the Gift of Lights at Sunset Park, and the Ethel M Holiday Cactus Garden, but none of these operate shuttles. You should be able to take a bus, however. Here's a link to the CAT Bus routes and schedules. You can find details for all these displays, plus others, and all the other holiday events and activities, from skating rinks and carriage rides to concerts and caroling on horseback, in our Christmas Special Events feature.
As to the residential displays, in the past there have been a good number of neighborhoods that really go to town, as we covered in the QoD for 12/11/2005. Our information source for these has always been the Las Vegas Review-Journal's annual Holiday Home Tour, where each year residents were invited to write in with listings of their own of their neighbor's impressive light displays, the best of which were listed in the paper.
However, we don't recall seeing this feature last year and can't find it in the R-J achives, so the most recent listing we have is from 2007 (see previous link). If it comes out this year, it'll likely be next weekend, and we'll post it in the "Today's News" column. With the big shake-up in the housing market here, and the massive number of foreclosures, it's hard to say how many of the regular displays will be in effect this year. We wouldn't recommend a special trip without your own transport, or you could find yourself making some complicated bus journeys for nothing.
