If you are an athletic supporter, and your A-team gets a spot at regionals, you don’t just want to watch from the comfort of your couch. You want to go! Here are some tips to get you there:
Tip 1.
Does traveling to regionals seem too pricey or too far away? Yeah, it is. But the best way to share the trip and the cost is to get a bunch of your teammates together to share the burden. Our strategy to to get there to see our All Stars play was to really go for it, so we used a combination of rental car points, calculating gas, food and toll costs for fair division, plus a little bit of aggressive discount hunting.
Tip 2.
Start early to avoid traffic and share the driving. If three can drive, it makes a 15 hour trip more manageable. Bonus tip: It helps to be generous with listening to other’s music coices.
Tip 3.
BYO- everything. We brought sandwich fixings, a loaf of bread and even condiments to minimize stops, crabbiness, and expensive road food. This also works for bringing your own entertainment, your own drinks, pillow and your own music.
Tip 4.
Car games! One of our players is a transfer from the UK team in Bristol, England. Her car game was new to the rest of us, but it is a good one; Animal Cricket. This is a version of pub cricket (something else we Americans don’t play) adapted for car travel. The players count the animals on their side of the car and try to make a century which is 100 points. Animals have specific scores, tweakable according to your location – for example there are large parts of Scotland in which the game will end in a hot second unless sheep are entirely ruled out. Horses, for some reason, traditionally have a negative score, and a cat looking out of a window is always an immediate 100. Another fun one is Yellow Car. Call out if you see a yellow car. This is not as easy to win at as it seems! We had been through 5 states for a total of 13 hours in the car and have seen only three yellow cars. School buses and utility vehicles don’t count.
Tip 5.
Bring your signs, your best cheering warrior cry, and a car full of team spirit!
Contributed by Scaristotle
