The Joy of Travelling to Follow Sport

I’ve read many articles about combining travel with other interests. I myself have travelled to Florence to visit her art museums, to New York for the restaurants, to Scotland to play golf and to France and Napa for their wines. I have friends that travel for cooking, surfing, bird watching, photography, and to build homes for Habitat for Humanity. It’s lovely to combine the adventure of travel with something else that one is passionate about. To that end, my favourite interest to partner with travel is watching sport.

I must admit, I’ve been a sport addict my whole life. This makes a trip to watch a sporting event almost perfection for me. I adore baseball, basketball, golf, rugby, tennis and many more. I’ve seen the MLB Allstar game in Chicago, the Dallas Cowboys play at Texas Stadium, glorious Wimbledon, the Open Championship in Scotland, and Kobe shoot 61 at Madison Square Garden. My sport of choice though is cricket. I’ve written about my passion for cricket, and the joys of seeing other countries through its citizens eyes while watching this gorgeous game on their home pitch. I’ve also written for WisdenCricketer about what I think my fellow Americans and I have missed out on by not playing the world sports at a highly competitive level. It seems yet another reason that many Americans choose not to travel abroad is that we don’t have this added incentive. I think more Americans would travel the world if their preferred team played in other countries consistently. Can you imagine Pittsburgh Steeler fans NOT travelling to watch their team play an AFC Champioship game in London, for instance? Or Yankee fans not travelling to Barcelona to see their team in the World Series? Americans are some of the greatest fans of sport in the world, and we’d be a travel force to be reckoned with if this were to ever happen. I’m amazed at the number of international fans that do travel to matches every time I attend a country versus country event in sports, like rugby or cricket. A major event like the World Cup in South Africa next year will draw an estimated 4 million fans from around the world, and I know people that have been planning and saving for years to be able to see it in person. These fans will get the thrill of seeing their sport, but they’ll also make lifelong memories of the host country, its people, its traditions, its food, its wine, its amazing golf courses and its natural beauty.

I believe I’ve found the perfect sport to follow around the world in cricket, though. Its an obsession in India and the West Indies, and close to the national religion in Australia. It’s also a sport that follows the summer. Cricket is played in the Southern Hemisphere during its summer, then the teams travel to the Northern Hemisphere to enjoy the very next summer there. A sport I love, played year round with no off season, and always where its warm. Heaven. The memories I have from my travels are brilliant, too. I’ve watched Shaun Pollock bid farewell to his test career in front of his home crowd in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. I’ve seen the natural grace and power of Chris Gayle in Barbados, and I’ve watched Andrew Flintoff’s final Ashes at Lords. While I was visiting those countries, I also saw the beauty of Cape Town and her harbour, experienced the wonderful sea and friendly people in the West Indies, and enjoyed several West End productions in London. Travelling for sport has introduced me to some of the most wonderful experiences in the world.

Travelling for sport has brought me a whole new group of like-minded friends, too. The world seems a much smaller place, when you realize how many people love to travel for sport just as much as you do. The stories I’ve heard of their favourite sport memories have had me enthralled. I’ve also learned as much about cricket from other fans as I have from watching the game myself. The most entertaining part about the people I’ve met has been the (mostly) friendly banter between countries, though. Even though I wrote “I Want to be English…or Australian” during the Ashes, I think I enjoyed being an outside observer of their antics even more.

For all of these reasons, I now can’t imagine life without travelling to follow sport. I look forward to seeing cricket in India, Australia and New Zealand. I have trips planned to return to both South Africa and Barbados to watch cricket, too. I know I’ll enjoy the sport, but I also know I’ll discover even more through the wonderful countries I visit, and the people I meet. I can’t wait for the next adventure to begin, or the next memory to be made!

What’s your favourite memory of travelling to watch sport? I look forward to reading about it in the comment section below.

My own photo~St George’s Cricket Ground, Port Elizabeth, South Africa