• Mike and I have been dreaming of our “bucket-list” vacation for a few years now. 

When Mike finally made a decision in 2019 to retire before May 2023 we knew we had to start the planning process.  We started to navigate and research many different areas of the US we want to visit during our dream retirement trip.

The main reason for this trip was to visit as many baseball stadiums as we could that fit into our schedule. 

BASEBALL IS A FAMILY THING

Here’s a little tidbit about our background on loving the sport of baseball, however we are a family of sport maniacs to say the least.

When our boys were young, we visited many states throughout the east coast for over 17 years watching them play their favorite sport, baseball.  This included travel baseball, college baseball, and even both coaching at the college level for a few years after their baseball careers were over.  Along that journey Mike coached for many years and I helped with planning tournament schedules and organizing teams.  It was the best decision for me to quit my school job so I could work fulltime at a well-known baseball facility here in South Jersey, which enabled me to be there for the boys as much as possible.  We both continued to work, while squeezing those most important weekends traveling with the boys playing. Mike worked for Fedex fulltime throughout those years while I worked fulltime at the facility. Some weekends, or even weeklong events, we couldn’t be in two places at the same time so Mike and I had to split our time making as many games/tournaments as we could even if that meant Mike with one son and me with the other(sometimes in completely different states). 

PLANNING PROCESS

The first thing we planned was an Alaskan Cruise which will be almost mid-way through our journey.  We had nothing else planned but we knew we wanted to do an Alaskan cruise in the process.  July 2021 we booked the cruise and the trip was born!  Many other family members jumped at the chance to join us in cruising Alaska, which will make it even more special for us. During the pre-planning process we went back and forth about buying a trailer and driving cross-country but we decided against it because for us most of our time will be spent in cities.  With that being said we now have many hotels, airbnb, VRBO & some Bed/Breakfast’s confirmed throughout the trip.

Once the MLB schedule was released to the public (August-September of 2022) we started full on planning! Some people thought we were nuts to start this soon, but believe me it helped us figure out exactly what we wanted to do.  By this time Mike decided to work until the end of March 2023 and we would enjoy a month in Florida (April 2023) before leaving for our trip.  When I lost my job a few years ago I decided to become a travel agent because I love planning vacations, this has helped us so much with the planning process.

This trip has taken over 6 months to plan.  Many hours on a computer, mapping and coordinating cities/stadium games was the hardest part of the process. We finalized everything just 2 weeks before Mike’s official retirement (March 31^st).

DETAILS

We will embark on this trip that will take 108 days over 11,000+ miles traveled while visiting 18 baseball stadiums(games) and a few College World Series Games in Omaha, NE (weather permitting).  There are many days marked on the calendar to just enjoy the country too.  We have visited almost all east coast stadiums over the years so we decided to start at a Stadium we haven’t been.

• We hope everyone will follow us on our “bucket list” trip of a lifetime.  As often as I can I will be posting “blog” like posts and uploading pictures along the way.

Mike and I have dreamt of this day and it’s finally coming true!  We will be starting our journey from New Jersey on Sunday, May 21^st – 1^st stop Cincinnati, Ohio!!!!