Las Vegas: Enhance your Las Vegas experience! Visit GRAND CANYON

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I get an awful lot of e-mails asking about things to do and see and as this is Las Vegas, where can I start? I thought today I'd give you an inside look, so to speak, of a tour company that can make your visit here one to remember.

The company's called Look Tours, even though owner Steve Bell likes to call it www.LOOKTOURS.com, as it's an online tour company that he started some 3 years ago.

Steve and I shared a bagel and some cream cheese the other day while he told me how it all came about. Originally from Manchester, England, Steve came to the U.S. to Florida to work as a representative for a vacation package company. "My job was to assist travelers by providing sightseeing needs, hotels, that kind of thing."

He soon moved up the ladder and was transferred to Los Angeles to set up a program there before joining the British-based Virgin Airways.

With Virgin, Steve was sent to San Francisco to establish a sightseeing program and then to Las Vegas to do the same thing, which consisted of "setting up an office, and getting local staff to do the airport meet-and-greet."

During his 10 years at Virgin he says he developed a deep knowledge and keen understanding of what people wanted and how they wanted to be treated. He also worked closely with many of the Las Vegas hotels and was offered a position as sales director for the Sahara Hotel & Casino.

"I soon saw that many companies were doing well selling hotel rooms on the Internet, but I also saw this real hole in the market. Airfare, car rentals and hotel rooms were being provided via the Internet, but not the things to do once you got here. This, to me, wasn't being provided in a thorough manner on the Internet."

That was 14 months ago. Steve remembers it well. "I told my wife, Toni, what I wanted to do and she thought I was crazy." But Steve had always had that entrepreneurial blood running through his veins. As a kid in Manchester, he used to make ginger beer in his bathtub at home, then take four bottles of his product, which was stamped "Bell's Finest Ginger Beer", to school each day and sell them to his classmates.

So Steve quit his job and started LookTours.com from his home. I told my wife, "Leave me alone for a month so I can create a Web site and get the business started. You take the kids to and from school, and generally take care of the household. My plan was to have an Internet-based company, so I needed a Web site and I was determined to design it myself." This he did, while at the same time contracting sightseeing tours with the major companies in Las Vegas.

At the end of the month, LookTours.com was on its way and hasn't looked back. Even Steve's wife, who had thought he was nuts, now runs the operational side of the business.

Steve attributes several things for the success of his company. "Many people like to make their plans before arriving at their destination. With us, they can book a tour online, prepay it, and receive confirmation within 24 hours, with an itinerary and all the details. It's fast, simple, and they've already budgeted for it.

"The other thing is that our prices are all inclusive, so there's no surprise tax, insurance or any other kind of fees that the customer has to pay when they get here. Our Web site includes lots of information, so they can see exactly what's offered, how much it's going to cost them and there are phone and fax numbers if they want to talk to us directly."

Steve also believes that people like selection, "so we provide a nice mix for them to choose from. For instance, we offer the standard bus, helicopter and plane tours, but we also have adventure tours."

And take it from me, folks, when he says adventure, that's exactly what he means.

I don't know where to start, but how about a glider flight out at Jean (some 40 miles south of Las Vegas) and a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon, which includes a 22-mile off-road drive through the Mojave Desert to Hoover Dam in a Hummer?

If you really want to put in a full day of adventure, try Look Tour's package that includes a helicopter flight to the Grand Canyon, with a champagne picnic when you set down on the floor of the Canyon. But there's more. You then fly back out to Boulder City where you board a Hummer for your desert drive to Hoover Dam, then go jet skiing on Lake Mead. I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but what a great tour. This tour, says Steve, is very popular with the Europeans and the British, as well as some of the Asian markets. But hey, Americans, let's show them that we like excitement too.

Here's the one I love. If you like white-water rafting, listen to this. There are two options from which you can choose. You can go by air-conditioned van to the western rim of the Grand Canyon, which is the Hualapai Indian territory, to an area called Beach Springs. The Hualapais have 8 to 10 motorized rafts there which take you down the river through anywhere from size three to size six rapids (10 being the ultimate). It's awesome.

You're going along this smooth water surface for about a mile and then, up ahead, you see these roaring rapids in front of you. How scary is that? They should call this white-knuckle rafting instead of white-water.

And instantly, it seems, you're there, riding those rapids. I gotta tell you, there's nothing more exhilarating than 50,000 gallons of water being poured over your head to bring everybody down to the same level.

Not one to be complacent, Steve has added something new. "People can now book a tour whereby they fly out to the Grand Canyon by fixed wing airplane to the same area (Beach Springs), raft down river in the Hualapai rafts, where a helicopter awaits to heli-airlift passengers 4,000 feet up to the rim, where they board a bus for a short scenic tour of the rim, enjoy a barbecue meal with the Hualapai Indians and then fly back to Las Vegas in the airplane. It's a wonderful adventure." Take note, dear readers, these particular tours are only available April through October.

LookTours.com will soon be adding kayak rides from the Hoover Dam down the Colorado River. And for all you landlubbers, there are horseback tours available to Red Rock Canyon.

Tours in the six-passenger luxury jet helicopters have been increasing steadily, Steve says. "You can fly over Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, the Grand Wash Cliffs and land 4,000 feet down in the Canyon. This is Indian country in the West Rim of the Canyon.

"Most people have never experienced such extreme quietness. It's hard to express in words what it's like. Then you have a champagne picnic before returning to Las Vegas. All of this in three-and-a-half hours, hotel to hotel. An air-conditioned van picks them up at their hotel, takes them to airport and returns them to the hotel. So it hardly cuts into a visitor's time here, yet provides a great experience for them."

Prices range from $22 for a basic Hoover Dam bus tour, up to $550 for a complete combination package. But let's face it folks, it's an experience you'll never forget, and that's what Las Vegas is all about.

I see my producer giving me the old hand across the throat signal to say I'm out of time, so we'll catch up on a bunch of stuff next column.

Good luck, and I'll see you on the Strip.