The Great American Ballpark Tour: Day 5: Philadelphia, PA

We will get up early today in order to get the 2 hour drive from NYC to the 'City of Brotherly Love' out of the way and arrive in Philadelphia for around 10:00 AM.
With so much American history coming out of this city, and only one day to see it, we will drop our things at our hotel and head out to determine what makes Philadelphia so great.

Tourists come to Philadelphia mainly for its sports and for "America's most historic square mile", referring to Independence National Historic Park. This "park" hosts Independent Hall, Liberty Bell Centre, Declaration House and Christ Church Burial Ground all of which tell a great story of the American Revolution. Other than that, there is not much else to see in the city so we will try a traditional 'Philly Cheesesteak' and get ready for the game.

Citizen's Bank Park: Philadelphia Phillies vs. San Diego Padres

With every seat in the stadium supposedly considered a good seat, we went with the cheapest tickets we could find, at $26. Fans of any sport in Philadelphia are known to be quite rough, and from what I have heard, they don't let up when it comes to their Phillies. Watching a World Series caliber team (they won in 2008), in one of the newer stadiums in baseball (opened in 2004 to replace their old Veteran's Stadium) to a capacity crowd of 43, 647 with the amount of facilities that are incorporated within it, it will be magnificent. We will not leave the stadium until we have devoured something along the lines of a soft pretzel (Philly's best snack), a hot dog (Dollar Dog Nights) or anything else that is part of Food Network 2007's award for "Best Ballpark Food".

Why?

Experiencing a baseball stadium tour around the United States is something that I have always dreamed of doing, since I have loved baseball (which has been always). I have grown up to adore the game of baseball mainly due to my father and brothers. Each one of us like the game more than the next.

When I was around 5 years old, my family went to both Fenway Park in Boston and Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia but I hardly remember anything remotely close to the wonders of a beautiful baseball stadium.

To this day, the only baseball stadium that I have a recollection of is the Rogers Centre in Toronto. While Toronto, is one of the cooler cities to live in, the ballpark where the Blue Jays play is, to me, nothing but a concrete, ugly box. I want to smell grass! I want to see the seats packed! I also would love to try some real American ballpark snacks!

Along the way of my tour, I hope to explore the cities that I visit, and not just the ballparks to see their different natures of tourism

When?

The trip that I have planned out will take place in the summer time (as that is when baseball is played) shortly after my friends and I finish our fourth year a university. This is the best time to go as we will not have the pressures of school on us, we will all be 21 (the legal age in the U.S.), driving many hours will be easier, and we will have enough money as we will be working the next year as opposed to going back to school.

For the purposes of planning out a vacation such as this, I have taken the schedule of the 2010 MLB season and have based the itinerary of the trip on June 1-15, 2010. This displays the type of planning needed for a trip such as this, as home teams may not always be at home when we desire, but it can always be worked out!

Who?

Selecting people to join me on this trip is a very important decision, as these are people that I will spending a total of 50+ hours with inside of a car. For the purposes of the trip I will be going to with my 2 good friends (only two as to have enough room in the car), Ari and Kyle.

These boys are just as big baseball fans as I am and have been dreaming to experience something like this since they were young as well. I live with them regularly so I could handle the long days and hours that will be constantly seeing each other. Having them with me doesn't change the fact that I have set out the itinerary and they are following every move that I made, after all, this is MY dream vacation!

Costs?

A trip such as this can either be extremely expensive, or extremely cheap. I decided that the only way for this to be a dream of mine is if it is done expensively.

Each day we will incur different costs as some days we will be doing and see less then others.

Below is a budget created by me, taking into account the cheap, and expensive hotels that we will stay in, gas money, baseball tickets and day-to-day expenses!

Hotels

The Drake Chicago: $100/night X 4 nights = $400

Trump International Hotel and Tower: $278/night X 3 nights = $834

Other Hotels: $50/night X 8 nights = $400

Total hotel expenses: $1,634

*prices per person

Gas

In the U.S. it is give or take $1.80/gallon

If the Mazda 3 that we will drive uses about 1 gallon every 41 miles, filling up 11 gallons every time and traveling approximately 2, 784 miles then:

We would travel 451 miles before every gas fill up, meaning we would fill up around (2,784/451) 7 times throughout the trip, but to call it safe, about 10 times throughout.

10 X (1.80 X 11) = $200

Ballparks

Adding up all the ticket costs from the 10 games that we see comes to:

$500 for tickets

The amount that we eat and drink will vary, along with the prices at each stadium so to approximate:

$60 (avg.) per game x 10 = $600

Other Expenses

Touring cities when not going to baseball games will cost money too, between lunches, dinners, shopping and site-seeing we will come up with a alloted budget for each day (not including gas, baseball tickets and hotels)

$150 per day (food, shopping etc.)

Totals:

$1,634 (hotel) + $200 (gas) + $1,100 (tickets and food) + $150 (daily expenses)

= $ 3, 084 total expensese

The Great American Ballpark Tour

Day 5: Philadelphia, PA

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