Tag: baseball

Some of our best travel adventures were conjured up around a campfire. I love sitting around a campfire with friends sharing past and future travel tales. More times than not, those discussions lead to great ideas centered around RVing. We recently had a fun get together with folks that are huge Cubs Fans which lead to more RVing ideas; combining two passions.

For many people around the country, few things are more appealing than a summer ballpark tour. Baseball may have declined somewhat in popularity, but it remains America’s pastime, and its ties to the summer season are unbreakable for many. And for that reason, it occurred to us that this same idea of a ballpark tour might just make for the perfect RV trip for a lot of families and individuals alike.

For the true baseball fanatics out there, it may be appealing to take this idea all the way and visit every single big-league stadium in the country over the course of a summer. My sister and one of her sons are attempting to do this. That’s awfully ambitious for most people though, so perhaps a cross-country itinerary featuring five beautiful and significant parks might be more feasible.

1. Oracle Park – San Francisco, California

Consistently ranked among the best ballparks in America, Oracle Park is tough to beat. The stadium (formerly known as AT&T Park) sits right on the edge of the San Francisco Bay and may be best known to a lot of baseball fans as the place where Barry Bonds once rained home runs into “McCovey Cove” over the right-field stands. Fans used to cluster in the bay in kayaks in the hopes of retrieving one of his legendary blasts. Even now though it’s a beautiful, fun place to watch a game, and it helps that the home team Giants tend to be very competitive.

2. Coors Field – Denver, Colorado

The drive from San Francisco to Denver is no joke, but you can spread it out over a few days and enjoy some lovely sights in Nevada and Utah along the way. For that matter, once you get into Colorado, you can even take some time to tour the delightful mountain towns that I’ve written about before. But to continue the ballpark tour, you should ultimately end up in Denver, where you can watch the Rockies at Coors Field. There’s just something special about seeing baseball in such a laid-back beautiful city. And for many, it also won’t hurt that Denver’s famous craft beer scene has pumped some excellent options into the stadium concessions (even if the venue is named after a big-name beer).

3. Wrigley Field – Chicago, Illinois

From Denver, it’s about a two-day drive to Chicago, and it’s not the most eventful of drives. However, stops in Lincoln, Nebraska and Iowa City, Iowa – both lovely towns – can break up the drive before you eventually reach the Windy City. There, you’ll be treated to a game at the most historic, and perhaps most beloved stadium in Major League Baseball: the Cubs’ Wrigley Field. Known for exuding a palpable sense of the past, as well as for its unique, ivy-covered outfield wall, Wrigley is a place even casual sports fans should strive to visit at least once in life.

As long as you’re in town, you may as well visit Guaranteed Rate Field, the home of the Chicago White Sox. It doesn’t have the charm or history of Wrigley, and lately, the Cubs have been the better team, but it’s a comfortable modern stadium, and perfectly pleasant on a nice day.

4. PNC Park – Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

With the right timing, you can drive on to Pittsburgh in either one long single day – or if you’d prefer, you can always make a stop in Michigan or Ohio along Lake Erie (or stop in to see the Cleveland Indians as you pass through!). Either way, Pittsburgh’s PNC Park is a great next stop for a few reasons. One is that Pennsylvania is one of just a few states to have recently legalized online sports betting, which adds a whole new type of fun to see a game. You can find MLB game odds online and place a bet on a Pirates game, and even a tiny amount can give you a feeling most American sports fans have never had. The other reason to consider PNC Park though, whether or not you’re interested in the betting angle, is that it’s simply one of the prettiest stadiums, in any sport, in America.

5. Fenway Park – Boston, Massachusetts

If you’re all about the baseball and you’re enjoying the trip at this point, there’s something to be said for passing through a number of East Coast cities at the tail end of the tour. From Pittsburgh, you can drive just four hours to Baltimore to enjoy a game at the low-key but pleasant Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Then you can pass back through Pennsylvania, seeing the Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park, before hitting both New York destinations – Citi Field in Queens for the Mets, and Yankee Stadium in the Bronx for the Yankees (though keep in mind having an RV in some of these East Coast cities won’t be easy). Whether or not you take this multi-city detour though, you should wrap up your trip at Fenway Park, where the Red Sox play. It’s not the most comfortable of stadiums, but it’s the only one that might match Wrigley Field for history, meaning there are few better places to toast America’s pastime.

RV Park ideas in Chicago and Denver

When visiting Chicago, we usually stay about an hours drive outside of the city and then take the train into Chicago. The Paul Wolff Campground is a relaxing spot to return to after a day of fun in the big city.

Denver – We’ve stayed at a bunch of places around Denver and anyone of them would make a great home base to explore and take in a baseball game … Chatfield State Park, Cherry Creek State Park, Bear Creek Lake Regional Park, Dakota Ridge RV Park.