The Great American Ballpark Tour: Day 11: Chicago, IL

After what will be a late night mingling with the locals and university crowds we will give ourselves a sleep in until about 11 AM. This will leave us enough time to shop in the amazing and raved about Niketown, which produces amazing sporting apparel amongst other items. After a couple hours of shopping we will have worked up an appetite and we will journey to Giordano's for some world-renowned Chicago Deep Dish pizza, a signature of the city and a must try from what I have heard! We will then spend an hour or so checking out the yearly, free Chicago Music Festival to get some more culture out of the trip before heading back to the hotel.

Wrigley Field: Chicago Cubs vs. Chicago White Sox
Built in 1914, and used by the Cubs since 1916 this stadium has had many different names before settling on Wrigley. Seating 42, 000 people its ivy covered outfield walls are what is it most recognized for and is a huge part of the aura that this stadium is said to produce. While we could sit in the rooftop seats that look over the stadium from the outfield as a neat local experience, we decided to pay $54 for sub-par tickets in what will be a sold-out stadium. During the game we will dine on their signature Italian Beef Sandwiches and wash them down with Wrigley's 'Old-Style Beer'.

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 11: Chicago, IL

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