To lift my spirits from the cold gray days of winter, I start to focus on baseball season. With spring training starting next month my family and I decided it would be fun this year to plan some trips around Phillies baseball games in other cities. Our trips to Baltimore, Washington D.C., Miami and Phoenix are all in different planning stages. Both Baltimore and D.C. are driving distance from our home, so I have booked a couple of rooms in each city and I plan to watch the hotel rates as the dates get closer.

Our flights to Phoenix are booked. While trying to find hotels close to Chase Field, I came across the website Stadium Hotel Network. It works better for some ballparks than others. The results show up on a map, but does not include the distance from each hotel to the local ballpark. The website helped me to find both a Sheraton and Hyatt near the ballpark in Phoenix. Let me know if you find it helpful or not for planning your baseball travel this season.

My sons have the job of getting tickets to each of the games in the different cities. Hopefully they will be successful, especially since the Nationals are not interested in selling their tickets to Phillies fans at this time. Any help from my readers living in D.C., Maryland or Virginia will be greatly appreciated!