Sports Then and Now

The Babe Ruth Museum in Baltimore is one of many cool sports destinations for a sports themes vacation.

If you’re a devoted sports fan, there’s a good chance you grab every opportunity to watch your favorites on television, and with very few sports not getting airtime on one of the hundreds of channels available, that’s a lot of sport! Watching on TV is great, but how often do you get to see sports played live? There’s nothing quite like the atmosphere of a sporting arena, being able to see what goes down as it happens while you’re surrounded by thousands of other passionate devotees of your team or country.

The problem is it’s not a cheap day out in many cases, especially for the more popular sports, and it can be hard to justify spending hundreds of dollars on watching a ball game you could have stayed at home and watched for considerably less. One answer to the problem is to combine your love of sports with your annual vacation, or even a weekend away with the family. Everyone gets to enjoy the activities they’re interested in, and you get to breathe in the atmosphere of some of the most exciting and interesting sports grounds and sports-related tourist attractions, all as part of the cost of a vacation you’d have taken anyway.

Why you should take a sports-themed vacation

The chance to see and experience these places and events is something you’ll remember forever, so it’s worth making an effort to organize a few tours and attend a live event.

If you’re managing on a restricted budget, you obviously don’t want to overstretch yourself financially. However, there are still options out, therefore, you, as you can consider looking into personal loans for bad credit that can actually improve your credit ratings if you make sure the repayments are always made on time. It does you good to have memorable experiences, and may well be more rewarding than most other possessions and activities you spend your money on, so don’t let money stand in the way of living life to the full.

Baseball

Cooperstown, New York, is a must visit place for baseball fans, as you can tour The National Baseball Hall of Fame, and see where the game was invented at Doubleday Field. There’s also the Heroes of Baseball Wax Museum, where you can see eerily lifelike wax models of all your baseball heroes.

The movie Field of Dreams is a baseball-themed legend, and you can see what it feels like to play on the Iowa baseball diamond; a real treat for a family day out. Wrigley Park is a few hours to the east, where there are guided tours of one of the country’s most famous ballparks.

Louisville, Kentucky, may be best known for its horse racing and as being the birthplace of Muhammad Ali, but there are plenty of other sporting attractions, and baseball fans can watch a fascinating demonstration of bat-making as part of the Louisville Slugger Museum and Factory.

Further north in Boston, is another legendary stadium. Take a tour around Fenway Park and get to the heart of what it feels like to play on this iconic ballpark.

Babe Ruth has to be one of the best-known names in baseball, and you can visit the Babe Ruth Birthplace and Museum in Baltimore, Maryland. If you’re more of a Ty Cobb fan, then his museum is a bit further south, in Royston, Atlanta.

Football

Canton, Northeast Ohio, is home to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, which as well as being a fascinating museum filled with American Football memorabilia, has interactive games that among other things allow you to play at being referee.

Fans of four-time Super Bowl-winning legends the Green Bay Packers can visit their home ground at Lambeau Field, Wisconsin, and the Walk of Legends historical team tribute.

Whether they’re your team or not, you have to have respect for the Dallas Cowboys. Arena tours are an unforgettable experience, because everything Texan is big, especially the Cowboys’ stadium and video screen.

Motorsports

Indianapolis is a gear head’s mecca, famed for its IndyCar racing at the Brickyard circuit. What you might not know is that in addition to planning a vacation that coincides with one of the live events, you can also experience the thrill for yourself by driving around the circuit on an experience day.

If you tell the kids you’re taking them to Orlando; they’ll go crazy with excitement about visiting the home of Disney. While you’re there, you can have a go at being a high-speed NASCAR driver at the Richard Petty Driving Experience, and then have a motorsports themed meal at the NASCAR Sports Grille afterward.

North Carolina is another top spot for NASCAR fans, who can visit the NASCAR Hall of Fame and the Richard Petty Museum, as well as taking a tour around the NASCAR headquarters and seeing all the team exhibits.

Basketball

Indianapolis is not only famed for motorsports, but basketball, most notably the Milan Miracle of 1954. You can visit both the Hinkle Fieldhouse where the game was played, and explore the history around the event at the Milan ’54 Hoosiers Museum.

In Massachusetts, Springfield is home to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, which features around three hundred basketball legends.

These examples are only a few of thousands of sports-related destinations and experiences you can choose from. If you want to combine your family vacation with a trip to a live game or a visit to one of the many sports museums and exhibits, it needs to be part of an agreed itinerary, where everyone else gets to do the things they most enjoy as well. If you’re fortunate enough to have a family that shares your interests, you could plan your whole vacation around a series of sports related activities and events.

Don’t settle for being a couch sports fan – get out and feel the adrenaline rush for yourself. There’s a unique quality to live sports events, and a special feeling being in the presence of such a rich history, so grab the chance while you can and take a trip to some of the sporting hot spots across the United States.