How We’re Planning a Spring Training Vacation in Phoenix, Arizona

This spring, my family is going to the Colorado Rockies spring training events held in the Phoenix, Arizona area. Phoenix is a wonderful place to be in late February and March; it is warm (not yet hot), there are spring training baseball games going on just about every day, and the outdoor hotel pools are there for you to enjoy when you are tired of Phoenix traffic and the games. We went to spring training four years ago with our two year old and two dogs. This year, we will do the trip with our six year old, three year old, and a dog. Like our last trip, we will travel to Phoenix from Denver in an RV.

Our travel costs consist of gas, food, and lodging. Our entertainment costs consist of game tickets and admission into other Phoenix area attractions. Our total vacation is planned to take eight days; we will meander to Phoenix within two days, spend four days and nights enjoying spring training and the Phoenix area, and then spend another two days traveling home. Our vacation budget is $1500.

We had such a good experience at the Destiny RV Resort in Goodyear, Arizona the last time we visited Phoenix so we will stay there again. It is clean and safe, it allows dogs, it has an outdoor pool, it is within ten minutes of both kid and dog parks, it is within 30 minutes of our stadium destinations, it is within 15 minutes of our grandparents, and it is reasonably priced at $38 per day. Thus our lodging is budgeted at $160.

We will keep our vacation budget under control by taking most of our food with us in the RV and cooking as if we were home. We will budget to eat out four times while we are on vacation and hope to keep restaurant costs to $150. We won’t include the meals that are cooked in our RV in our vacation budget because those meals would be cooked regardless if we were traveling or at home.

Gas is the most expensive part of our trip and unfortunately our RV needs a lot of it; especially when it is toting the small car we will use to get around Phoenix. We have budgeted for a gar rate of $4.00 per gallon. This results in $850 being needed for a round trip from Denver to Phoenix.

We will go to two spring training games. Although the Rockies have their own spring training field that they share with the Arizona Diamond backs, we attend games that are closer to our RV campground. We especially like the Surprise Stadium in Sun City West and Maryvale Park in Phoenix. Traffic is not heavy around them, they are nestled in safe, suburbia areas, and they are smaller stadiums that have lawn seating areas which work great with kids. Lawn area tickets are generally $8 per person thus we have budgeted $64 for watching games.

Although we are only attending two baseball games, we will be hard pressed to do all the other must-do activities in the time we spend in Phoenix. Swimming at the RV park will be a daily activity, visiting with the grandparents another. We’ll spend one full day at the Wildlife World Zoo and Aquarium. While this is a $70 expenditure for our family, it is a must-see destination for animal lovers and travelers with young kids.


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