I hope everyone is having a good long weekend. Personally, I’m planning on grilling hamburgers and hot dogs and watching baseball. Baseball season is in full swing and my favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, is off to a great start.
Every year around this time, I’m reminded of my dream to take a few weeks off and travel around the United States visiting as many baseball stadiums as possible. I’m not a big on geography, but it seems like from Ohio you can get to a number of stadiums.
I had hoped to do the road trip with a friend in my early 20’s, but we could never work it out. Now that we’ve each gotten married and started families it’s much harder. So rather than do it with my friend, I’m thinking about doing it with my family.
It’s tempting to say, “Hey, you’ve had the dream for nearly 20 years, make it happen!”, but my boys are aged 2 and 3. They simply don’t enjoy baseball, yet. (I’m hoping that “yet” is a appropriate and that it is just a matter of time.) However, maybe when they are 10 and 11 it will make more sense.
One thing I’ve been thinking about is how would I travel the United States on such a trip?
Here are a few options that have bounced around my head:
- SUV and Hotels – Last year we drove to Pennsylvania, but stopped in New Jersey and stayed at a hotel there. If we plan the trip well, we could do the same at each stop. I’m not sure how expensive it would be. It would vary greatly on what kind of hotel we’d get. This could work if we planned something that was just a couple of weeks. However, if it went on longer, hotel prices for a month could get pricey.
- Recreational Vehicle (RVs) – I’ve had some blogger friends get RVs and travel the United States for a long time. This would be an option if we decided to go for something like the whole summer.
- Trailer – I’ll start off by saying that I’m not the camping type and I’m not sure if this is even feasible. However, maybe we could hitch a trailer to our SUV. We’d put everything we’d need inside and camp out of that. (I learned the other day that in Europe and Australia they are called caravans.)
One Final Opportunity (or Obstacle?)
We live in a resort town where the population in the summer seems to triple with all the tourism. The prices for people willing to rent their houses out are crazy. We’d probably be able to get $5000 a month. If we were to travel for an extended period of time, it might make sense to put everything in storage.
On the other hand, the idea of putting all the stuff in my house in storage is very, very daunting. If not for that problem, it would be a no-brainer way to finance our trip (and probably make extra money).
I guess I have 7 or 8 years to figure it out, right?
Hi lazy.
If you decide to come to ohio it’s a great base to see a real ball parks. I min Cleveland area. We are 2 hrs from Pittsburgh. 2 1/2 hours from Detroit. 5 hours from Toronto. 6 hrs from Chicago 5 hours from Cincinnati. All beautiful ballparks. A little further out is Minnesota and St. Louis. (12 hours from here but 6-7 hours from Chicago.). I might be a season ticket holder again when you can do this trip.
I’m not into sports but I’ve too had dreamof going on a summer long, cross country road trip. 10-11 seems about the right age – old enough to remember and appreciate the experience, young enough to want to spend the summer with their parents. My oldest is a couple years older than yours so I guess I’ll figure it out and let you know.
I like baseball, but I might get outvoted by the wife and kids in several years. I think I’d enjoy other things on a cross-country road trip so the idea is the same.
I’d appreciate your thoughts when you get there. Thanks for being a trailblazer.
Do it! We’re doing a 3.5 week road trip this summer (interestingly enough through Ohio!) with 3 kids age 4-11. I doubt we’ll hit any baseball stadiums along the way but it’ll be fun nonetheless. I bet your kids will have a blast, but probably in a few years when they are a little older.
I keep dreaming of a cross country road trip to California from North Carolina. It’s something like 2,000 miles along Interstate 40 to get there in one straight shot, but we would probably take it slow and stop many places along the way. Maybe do an Airbnb for a week at a time to break up the journey.
I saw the road trip posts… and made a note that you haven’t come up through Rhode Island and New England yet ;-). Maybe in 2017?
I’ve done two cross country trips, MA to CA and back again, but we were rushed as the military only gave us 10 days to get across.