Location Specific Research

I'm in the earliest stages of starting a story that for reasons would be funniest if it was in Las Vegas.
This raises a problem for me, because the only access I have to Las Vegas is the movies, but I don't want to land a plane full of prisoners on the Strip.

Visiting Las Vegas isn't an option obviously, even if I did want to budget that in. Googling my way through the place works somewhat, but streetview is limited still.
Practical example: A lot of it would take place in a fictional hotel, "just south of The Strip". Yeah, but how far is too far? Or too close. Or did I put it in a landfill? The kind of stuff you usually have no problem determining if you actually walk around there.
I was wondering how some of you would get around this issue.

And writing about places I do know isn't an option. I know places in the Netherlands and they're... too Dutch.
Creating a fictional "Las Venturas" sounds to me like the wrong way to go. I already have one fictional town (too rural for Vegas) in that universe and that's enough.

 

Problem number one: "The Strip" is South Las Vegas Boulevard, and it runs north-south for the major portion of "the strip," and then takes a slight bend to run north-northeast up past the Circus-Circus hotel, which is (I think) generally regarded as the northerly end of "the strip."

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Las+Vegas,+NV/@36.1184007,-115.1688167,14.5z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x80beb782a4f57dd1:0x3accd5e6d5b379a3!8m2!3d36.1699412!4d-115.1398296

So you can't place your fictional hotel south of the strip. It has to be east or west. Interstate 15 is just west of the strip, and it also runs north-south in the downtown area. There are a few hotels to the west of the Interstate, so I would consider making that your location. On the other hand, there are a number of second- and third-tier ("fleabag") motels in the vicinity of McCarran Airport, which is located immediately to the east of the strip.