If you’re staying at a Hilton …

Here’s a handy guide to using the online Las Vegas guidebooks written by yours truly — sort of a tourist’s extension of S&G, available through all Hilton-branded hotels and timeshares. Since these only concentrate on carefully selected highlights of Sin City, there are merely supplemental to the truly comprehensive coverage provided by LasVegasAdvisor.com, but they can be taken as endorsements, not purely informational tidbits. You start by clicking on the green “Las Vegas” tab in the upper-right corner, which takes you to …

… a mix of recommendations (“Around Town”) and current events (“Local News”). Click on “Around Town” and — voila! — there is …

… the Las Vegas Strip, right at your cyber-feet. Scroll further down and the path forks between …

… Downtown and the Strip. Once you’ve chosen between them, various categories (“Dining,” “Nightlife”) present themselves for your inspection:

Of course, there’s also “Shopping,” “Arts & Culture,” “Local Scene” and “Only In.” The last of these showcases an attraction unique to Vegas.

It’s the same story for the Strip, whose landing page is aptly crowned by Bellagio and its fountains, still unsurpassed as an icon almost 15 years since it opened.

The categories are much the same …

… although some of the highlighted selections might surprise you, such as Chinatown being the “hot neighborhood.” (CityCenter might be somebody’s idea of a neighborhood but it’s downright frosty by comparison.)

As you can see, recommended restaurants, etc., are also listed side-by-side with a handy map interface.

Click on the reference point for further details. John Curtas may have proclaimed Bacchanal at Caesars Palace to be the best buffet in town, but he doesn’t like buffets as a rule and I stand behind my Wicked Spoon recommendation.

Finally! A compelling reason to go to Circus Circus, even if you still think clowns are scary motherfuckers.

And the “Hot Neighborhood” pages come with their own subdirectories, enabling one to navigate Fremont East like a native.