Sometimes I have to travel to places I wouldn’t choose to visit. This was the case recently, when I was asked to speak in Las Vegas. Full disclosure; I hate Las Vegas. I just forgot how much until I got there. And it’s not just me who thinks it’s just too close for comfort to the biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. What do you think they mean when community boosters say, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”?

But I’m a traveler constantly espousing the philosophy that a great trip begins in the head, so with a quick attitude adjustment I’m determined to bring out the highlights of otherwise unfortunate destinations with this list of things I love in places I don’t.

Let’s start in Sin City.

THE LAS VEGAS MONORAIL

Hotels here take swimming pools seriously and so do I. But I also love transit. What’s better then, than relaxing by a beautiful, cool swimming pool and watching the Las Vegas monorail slide silently by above you. The monorail is a quiet, air conditioned way to get to many strip-specific destinations in Las Vegas including more pools!

In a delightful, albeit disappointingly inconsistent offer, guests at any of the properties in the Caesars chain are invited to visit all of pools of its sister hotels. I say inconsistent because my Ballys room key did not get me past the bouncer at the Flamingo Hotel, who turned me away claiming he knew of no such all-pools offer, even though I displayed the promotional article left in my room.

Ah well, there were no guards at the Paris Hotel pool or the Grecian inspired Caesars Palace pool where I sat half-submerged at the bar drinking a Bloody Mary while reading the frightening and chilling book, Mirage Man by David Willman. Yep, I know there’s a casino by that name. This book doesn’t take place in Vegas. It takes place in DC, that other city where people roll the dice and gamble with the future.  ‘Nuff said?

My last night in Vegas, I grinned like an idiot watching the amazing indoor and outdoor fountain displays at Bellagio. Produced by appropriately named, WET Design of Los Angeles, the outdoor show pictured here was described by one Las Vegas tourist as, ”the classiest show on the Strip,” in a 1999 interview with Vern Kopytoff for The New York Times.  She’s right.

THE FOUNTAIN AT DUBAI MALL

In the summer, when it regularly gets hotter than 100 degrees Fahrenheit in the United Arab Emirates, people flock to shopping malls where they can stroll, kids can run around and everything is air conditioned. Only something absolutely spectacular pries folks outdoors and that would be the WET Design fountain at Dubai Mall.

Throughout the evening, in a choreography of light, music and water, thousands stand transfixed by the display. Who knew water could be made to perform that way? Beneath the glassy surface of the 900 foot pool in the valley of Dubai’s skyscrapers there are pressure triggers, electrical relays, and scores of lights and nozzles.

In a city that has shaken off authenticity like desert sand from ones shoes, the Dubai Fountain is the perfect marriage of the natural and the artificial.  Okay, I know Dubai is a long plane flight for many people, but in my opinion this fountain is worth the trip.

Keep in mind, I love to fly. Which is why it’s so coincidental that at my next not-favorite-destination, there’s yet another WET Design fountain. And a monorail. What’s up with that?

THE LIGHT TUNNEL AT DETROIT AIRPORT

Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport spent the last decade turning its airport into an international gateway, helped in part by the merger of Delta Air Lines and Northwest. The finished product is just about as gleaming and hospitable as an airport gets. The adorable red tram runs from one sparkling end of McNamara Concourse A to the other. From the elevation of the monorail or at ground level, a fountain appropriately sized to this interior space, does its quirky little number for the road weary.

Individual streams of water pulse from a smooth marble base, evocative of airline passengers shooting from one plane to another and I wonder if that was what the designers had in mind.

But the grand payoff in Detroit isn’t the monorail or the fountain, its the psychedelic tunnel through which departing travelers pass on their way to gates in Concourses B and C.

Is it just me or is this just gorgeous? And what you can’t see is the textured stucco-like pattern on the frosted glass walls.  At risk of missing your plane, you’ll be tempted to linger for the slow-moving change of colors sliding down the walls of the tunnel. Detroit may not be on too many bucket lists – it wasn’t on mine – but I’ve got to give the Motor City credit for saying farewell to its visitors, even the reluctant ones,  in such a becoming way.

Christine Negroni

Author of The New York Times bestseller, The Crash Detectives, I am also a journalist, public speaker and broadcaster specializing in aviation and travel.