Rick Garman was 14 when he first visited Las Vegas. He vividly remembers standing behind his mother as she played a slot machine at Circus Circus, when an intimidating casino attendant leaned down from her perch above the slot carousel and said, “You can’t be here, little man!” Those who know him will verify that he doesn’t take well to being told what he can and cannot do. Once Rick turned 21 and could no longer be denied access to the slots, he returned to Vegas to make up for lost time and has been in love with the city ever since.
Travel writing happened almost by accident. Although he had written a couple of award-winning plays, Rick had never dreamed that he could transfer his adoration of Las Vegas to any type of a career. But then a good friend of his received an assignment to write a major Las Vegas guidebook. Knowing Rick spent way too much time there, she signed him up to help (blackmail may have been involved) and the co-written Frommer’s Las Vegas was published in 1997. The following year Rick wrote The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Vegas and his travel writing career was solidified.
He segued into the wonderful world of the Internet in 1998, launching Vegas4Visitors.com, a travel planning site that has become one of the most respected resources for Las Vegas information on the web.
Rick is based in Los Angeles where he is currently writing for film and television, but still spends entirely too much time in Las Vegas at the slot machines.