Many people have Las Vegas on the top of their list of places they'd like to visit one day.  Unfortunately, sin city can seem out of price range for the average couple – and who wants to go to the land of casino's if you spend your entire travel budget on your hotel room and don't have anything left over to try your luck in one of the casinos?!

Lucky for you, you can follow 7 steps and find an affordable hotel room for just about any traveler's budget, if you “play your cards right”!

Step 1:  Check for convention events in Las Vegas.  The city hosts several events around the year, which makes it unaffordable for the average traveler and near impossible to find an available room.  A few conventions to watch out for include the Consumer Electronics Show, Men's Apparel Guild in California, NASCAR, National Association of Broadcasters, MAGIC, Softbank Comdex and the National Finals Rodeo.  These conventions may draw an additional 50,000 tourists to Las Vegas, which increases the prices of hotels and makes it difficult to find vacancies.

Step 2:  Plan to take your Las Vegas trip midweek, as hotel prices are always more expensive over weekends and holidays.  Be as flexible as possible about your travel dates, and when checking hotel rates, be sure to see if changing your arrival date changes the quoted room prices.

Step 3:  See if you can find a special offer from a hotel based on the length of your stay.  Many hotels will offer a 2-night or 4-night package deal that gives you a room discount and includes complimentary breakfast.  To save money and avoid car hire or taxi fares, look for hotels that offer complimentary shuttles to and from the airport and casinos.

Step 4:  Start your search at hotels that are slightly off the main “strip” in Las Vegas.  Hotels that are slightly downtown will almost always give lower rates than casinos and hotels located within the main strip of activity.

Step 5: Use the internet to investigate and compare prices.  Not only can you research many hotels in a short amount of time, but many online tools let you save your results for easy comparison.  Websites may offer special “web-only” discounts and coupons that will save you money.

Step 6:  Compare the travel website deals with those published on the casino websites.  Sometimes, a casino operated hotel will run a special discounted rate to fill their rooms if it's a slow period and you may be able to stay in the casino for less money than you could stay in a downtown hotel.

Step 7: If you are flying into Las Vegas, make sure you look into package prices for booking the airfare and hotel at the same time.  You can often get a discounted rate for bundling your travel needs together, using websites like Cheapflights.ca to find airline tickets and holiday packages.

Travelling on a tight budget makes any trip more difficult; but it is possible to find cheap hotels in Vegas if you follow the above steps and take the time to compare results.