pbrewer+FollowMy Visit to Vegas Made Me Understand How Manufactured Happiness Can Feel Vegas is loud, glittery, exciting — but only if you stay on the Strip. I wandered off the tourist path and instantly felt the shift: no neon, no music, just regular families struggling to survive while tourists throw away more money in a night than locals earn in a week. A rideshare driver told me, “People come here to escape reality, not to see ours.” And maybe that’s exactly the problem: Vegas sells fantasy so aggressively that everyone forgets a real city exists underneath it — one dealing with poverty, heat, and some of the worst housing issues in the country. Traveling there made me realize happiness can be staged, but suffering can’t. #Travel #LasVegas #TwoCities10Share