Tru by Hilton Las Vegas Airport

★★★★☆

A six-level, no-frills building in two tones of beige (with a few blue-and-yellow highlights). About the only thing that stands out is a diagonal at one end that makes it look sort of like a Jawa sand crawler from Star Wars, if a sand crawler had more windows. An overhang shades a plain sliding-door entrance, and you can see two rows of parking spaces in front of it. Just a hotel, nothing fancy. Clean rooms (if a bit small), comfortable beds, free WiFi and plenty of sockets for charging your devices, decent breakfast, friendly staff, free parking. Again, just a hotel - not a casino, not a resort, no theater, no bar, not even a pool. Just a place to park your luggage for the day, stay overnight and have breakfast in the morning. Which is exactly what we wanted.

Waaaay off the Strip (OK, not as far as South Point, but out there) near the airport and the 215 freeway on a corner with two other Hilton hotels (a Spark and a Homewood Suites). It appears to have opened late in 2017, which fits the 5-to-10-year guess I made based on its design, decor and condition.

The hotel room. Two plain white queen-sized beds against a dark blue wall with brown headboards. There's just enough room to walk between the beds and a narrow shelf on which a flat-screen TV is perched. At the far end, light spills from a plain rectangular window, with a white shade mostly drawn down. Below it are a wall-unit air conditioner and a luggage stand. The floor is paneled in dark zig-zag planks that look like they might be wood, and a couple of bags and a pair of shoes are strewn about.

There isn’t much to do within walking distance (unless a 35-minute walk past an empty lot in 100-degree heat sounds good to you), but it’s easy enough to drive a few blocks to the usual suburban fast food places. There’s also an airport shuttle, and a bus stop across the street. You’ll probably want a taxi or equivalent to get to the Strip (You aren’t planning on driving on the Strip, right?), but keep the hotel address handy in case your driver doesn’t recognize it by name.

Downsides: Air conditioner in the room sounded like it had been running continuously for the past decade. Earplugs helped. Extremely minimal desk/table space, no closet or drawers to speak of. No EV charging stations. Water’s too soft to rinse off the soap (though I think that’s just Las Vegas’ water supply).

More info at Tru by Hilton Las Vegas Airport.

Located at 6862 Gilespie Street – Las Vegas, NV 89119 US

View on OpenStreetMap.