Planning Your Sports Vacation - Part 1: The Destination
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This is the first installment of our 6 Part “Planning Your Sports Vacation” Series, in which we give you advice and tips on how to plan and prepare for a sports vacation. Our goal: help eliminate some of the stress that comes with planning the trip and let you actually get to the fun of the trip. Also check out, Part 2: The Crew.
If you have ever been interested in going on a sports road trip or taking a vacation that revolves around sports, we give you the 6 part series, “Planning Your Sports Vacation” to help you in preparation for your trip. Today, choosing the right destination.
The first step in planning your own sports vacation trip is deciding to go, but then after that you’ve got to try to figure out where you would like to go.
Washington D.C.? Chicago? Boston? Dallas? New York? Detroit? Los Angeles? There are several historic sports cities you could potentially choose.
Our goal through the usage of this 6 part “Planning Your Sports Vacation” series is to help you get the most out of your sports vacation!!
And choosing the right destination is the first step. While this may seem like the easiest choice in your trip planning, there are actually several things to consider.
What is the Main Attraction for Your Sports Vacation?
While each city may have its own perks, ultimately the decision is going to come down to your sports preferences (i.e.: If you are a huge professional football fan, Los Angeles just isn’t going to have as much attraction as Kansas City or even a small city like Green Bay.).
For The Blue Workhorse’s trip this year, it was a simple choice.
Yankee Stadium is a historic relic of the long since past golden days of Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle, and so many others who graced the hallowed grounds with their presence. Along with Chi-town’s Wrigley Field and Beantown’s Fenway Park, Yankee Stadium is one of the last remaining remnants of the early roots of our national pastime, and this is the final season the Yanks will play in the “House that Ruth Built” before the pinstripes move into their new $1 billion stadium just across the street.
Like I said, simple choice.
2009 for The Blue Workhorse?
Next year, when we make our annual summer trip, we will have a tougher decision. Being a diverse group of baseball fans, we won’t be necessarily picking a destination based on the teams playing. I, however, will likely look to see what stadiums are in their final seasons, but that is because I would like to visit as many MLB stadiums as possible during my lifetime.
If there are no stadiums in their final seasons, we will likely revert back to one of the other two previously mentioned historic fields still in operation.
Your Sports Vacation?
Your goals may vary from ours. Some possible goals for your destination:
- You live in a different area than your favorite team so a road trip to see them play at their home stadium may be a treat
- Maybe you will decide to test your mettle as the only Cowboys fans in Philadelphia or some other rival’s home turf
- You may want to see every team in the league play
- Maybe you want to see a team in your geographical region play before they depart the area (ala the Seattle Supersonics departing the Northwest for OKCity)
- Or maybe you want to see a new player acquisition (i.e.: You live in south Georgia and have never seen your favorite player, Brett Favre, so plan to go to Miami when the Dolphins host divisional river New York.)
Flexibility & Options
It is best to have 2 or 3 cities of interest to look into when you begin researching the trip. With the flexibility of multiple cities, you can become a comparative shopper, which is very useful if you are on a budget. You can even create a comparative grid or matrix where you would rank each city in the components you believe are important. Then just tally up each of the scores, and magically, you have the best option for yourself.
What Components To Use?
There are three key components that should be compared in all vacation plannings:
- Availability - While it may not be hard to get 4, 8, or even 32 tickets to see the Pirates play in September near the end of of the MLB season, getting 8 or just 4 tickets to see the Steelers play in Pittsburgh against New England in November or December near the end of the NFL season could prove quite difficult and expensive. It’s also going to be easier to get hotel reservations in September rather than in the midst of the holiday season.
- Distance - Distance is causative of cost in that the farther the distance almost always will ensure a higher cost. In the Travel section of this series, we’ll discuss the various options, but as a general rule: greater distance = greater cost.
- Cost - When deciding where to go, you can get a very basic and general estimate (a caveman’s idea as I like to call it) of the cost to help you rank your possible destinations for your matrix.
Sounds simple right?
The X-FACTOR
Well, there is one large X-FACTOR that could easily sway your decision on the destination: What else is there to do? Again, it is our goal for you to get the most out of your trip.
While you may want to look into the bar/club scene, landmarks, available museums, the golf courses, or various other non-sports related entertainments, I’m referring to other sporting events.
No sports season runs incongruous of other sports, so look and see if there are other games taking place in the destination cities on the date(s) you are looking into. And don’t be afraid to give something new to try. If you are going for a midseason baseball trip see if there is an Arena League football game you could take in.
If a destination city supports more than one franchise, check to see if the two teams ever play at home during the same week or weekend. (With Shea Stadium closing down this season also, I put the Mets and Yankees schedules side-by-side to compare when there would be a weekend when they both were at home. Unfortunately, Major League Baseball has made sure the teams don’t compete for spectators on the same day.)
On the Way
Another possible option to help you get the most from your sports vacation is to see what cities you will pass on the way to your destination (if you choose to drive). For our trip, we all met (from west TN, far east TN, GA & IN) in Knoxville, TN (at least an hour drive for everyone but near our alma mater), so I looked into the possibility of catching a Tennessee Smokies’ (Chicago Cubs’ AA affiliate) minor league game the night prior to our early-early in the morning departure. Once again, however, my efforts thwarted by the team being on the road.
If I would have been more conscious of it and thought it through more thoroughly (which is why I’m telling you to do it), I would have checked the various routes available from Tennessee to New York that weren’t much longer and I would have seen what other minor and major league cities were possibilities for us to stop in and check out a game (Kingsport, TN; Bristol, VA; Princeton, WV; Salem, VA; Lynchburg, VA; Washington D.C.; Frederick, MD; Philadelphia, PA; among several others).
An extra MLB or NBA game could be a great addition to your trip, but if you are on a budget, minor league or NBDL games can be a great bargain. For instance, $5 in Princeton gets you a seat anywhere in the park where you can watch the Princeton Devil Rays and #1 overall draft pick Tim Beckham flash his stuff. Plus, minor league parks often have interesting and fun giveaways, mascots, and unique fans.
These are all things to consider when deciding your destination, and once you have chosen your destination, you can finalize The Crew, which is what we will discuss in Part 2 of “Planning Your Sports Vacation.”
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