Spring training travel tips

[justBLAZE]

My first year I stayed near Glendale.. consider that a mistake, like others said, stay in the Mesa/Tempe/Scottsdale area for outside of game activities and proximity to other parks. 

[ron883]

On 1/6/2019 at 9:28 PM, chitownsportsfan said:

Some good advice.  I'm a triple vet spring training now so I feel I can offer some advice:

1) stay in Tempe.   Being able to walk to shit at night and have good food and night life was so much fun last time I went.  We had an airbnb about 1 mile from the main strip and we had bikes that we just rode (we are 30 something single folks) to Mill every night after we got back from the games.  Tempe is a neat town.  Explore it, mingle.  Climb that hill they got by the FB field and admire the scenery of uh, all types.  There's a good mixed crowd in Tempe it's not all just kids, plenty of young urban people in their 30s and 40s as well.

2) Get a rental car. Seriously.  Driving in the Valley of the Sun is fun.  If you like driving, you'll enjoy it.  Flat, straight fucking roads and you don't want to rely on Uber.  The one time we used Uber it sucked and we ended up wasting 30 minutes of quality drinking pre-game.

3) Hit up a bunch of different parks. This ties in to having the rental car.  Last time we went, in 2017, we went to Talking Stick (wow!), Camelback and Peoria Sports Complex.  If you have kids, (or not) Talking Stick is awesome.  We enjoyed the great amenities (booze...) but they have some family oriented stuff (like free instruction) that is awesome.

4) Go early.  You'll see more stars, the sun isn't as oppressive, and the vibe is better.  1st or 2nd week of march is ideal.

Spring training in AZ is awesome man.  It's such a great time.  Especially if you're coming from a long ass winter up north.  The weather is pretty much perfect, mid 70s early march and sunny during the day, maybe at worst mid 50s at night but almost all the bars have little propane heaters and mid 50s at night after winter in the north is nothing.

Get your airbnb as soon as you can.  Spring training is getting even more popular down there.  A great restaurant for breakfast is "N Counter" in Tempe.  We'd hit up that spot, then usually (depending on hangover) relax for a bit or do a in city hike (we did Camelback, it's a cool little hike, can be a bit hard if you're not in shape but it's not that long so don't worry if you're not just keep pushing on) and it has a great view of the area at the top.  If you can make the top in under 30 minutes congrats you're in shape.  Also recoomend "Pedal Haus" for micro-brews and for a fancy dinner out among the local bougie crowd I'd recommend "Sumo Maya" in Scottsdale.  There is so much great food in this area and coming from Chicago or most other urban cities everything is CHEAP.

Enjoy the trip whoever goes, you'll have a great time.  As far as tickets: just get lawn.  The ushers don't GAF, especially at camelback in my experience.  YOu can move right behind home plate usually by the time the 2nd or 3rd inning rolls around.

Thank you very much. This answered basically everything I need to know. Sounds like a similar group to what I'm going with. 

 

Thanks to all for the help. Maybe I'll run into some folks from here at spring training. I'll be wearing an Abreu jersey.