Top 10 Sports Road Trip Destinations in Southern California
"Road trippin', road trippin', we're not happy unless we're road trippin'."
The above should be the official anthem for any adventurous sports fanatic.
Spectating at games locally is a delight, but there's a whole nation out there, filled with wildly entertaining and historically significant venues that dot the landscape from coast to coast and everywhere in-between.
So, get out there and find them, but before departure, use the following as your guide.
There are any number of great sports road trip destinations that await you, but we had to draw the line somewhere.
For us, 100 seemed like a nice, round number, including 10 apiece from 10 distinct regions around the U.S.
This particular slideshow is dedicated to sunny Southern California, where the world's most scenic landscapes serve as backdrops to championship banners galore.
10. Qualcomm Stadium
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Qualcomm is the first and only stadium to have hosted the Super Bowl and World Series in the same year. That occurred in 1998, when the hometown San Diego Padres and New York Yankees dueled some nine months after the Denver Broncos defeated the Green Bay Packers in Super Bowl XXXII.
Since then, Qualcomm has welcomed many other large-scale events, but its days as both the home of the San Diego Chargers and a stop on the Super Bowl site rotation could be numbered. Amid speculation that a move to Los Angeles could be forthcoming for the Chargers, who can choose to leave San Diego if they pay off the bonds used to renovate Qualcomm in 1997, the NFL could skip over the city in favor of choosing areas with more modern stadiums in which to hold the Super Bowl.
9. Riviera Country Club
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Traverse a block south of Sunset Boulevard and you’ll discover a lush, inviting landscape void of the superficial Hollywood façade that otherwise rules the immediate area. Riviera Country Club, located just below the Santa Monica Mountains. Opened in 1926, prospered in ‘30s and '40s as a hotbed for equestrian activity, and has since hosted four major professional tournaments, in addition to the annual Northern Trust Open, as one of Southern California’s best courses.
Past members at Riviera include Humphrey Bogart, Dean Martin, Gregory Peck, and Walt Disney, and it is the site of Tiger Woods’ first PGA Tour event, in which he missed the cut as a high school sophomore in 1992.
8. Angel Stadium
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Though it trades natural wonders for man-made beauty, Angel Stadium of Anaheim is still one the most scenic places to take in a game. It does not share the rolling mountainside backdrop of Dodger Stadium, which is roughly a 40-minute drive away, but improvements over the years have transformed the Angels’ home from just another early-1960s design monstrosity, to a place where fans can feel relaxed.
Among the best changes made upon the stadium’s move to a baseball-only facility 15 years ago: a collection of artificial rocks and real trees that cascade down a hill overlooking left-center field, built when The Walt Disney Company seized control of the team in the late ‘90s.
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7. Torrey Pines
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The sight of Tiger Woods’ one-legged triumph in 2008, Torrey Pines is a 7,600-yard monster capable of showing no mercy to even the most-solid of ball-strikers. Like Pebble Beach, though, it is graciously available to the hacker in you and me.
The North Course, the shorter of the two at Torrey Pines, is recommended for us novices, but beware the caveat. Rare like the indigenous tree after which the course was named, so too are the lengths to which you’ll have to go about obtaining a tee-time. Reservations are made on a first-come, first-serve basis prior to 7:30 a.m. each morning.
6. Dodger Stadium
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Between the 1988 and 1999 seasons, the Los Angeles Dodgers played 856 consecutive home games without being rained out, a major league record. That’s what happens when you play your ball in the next best thing to paradise, set against an enviable combination of natural wonders that include tree-studded Elysian hills, the San Gabriel Mountains and, of course, Chavez Ravine.
Eternally kissed by the warm, Southern California sunshine, Dodger Stadium, now the third-oldest ballpark in baseball, has for years been one of the sporting world’s most popular postcards and signifies a pin in the map of any fan making his or her own West Coast swing.
5. Staples Center
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Jack Nicholson is a mainstay, but venture courtside at Staples on any given night and you’re bound to find any given celebrity, each emotionally unattached from the action that plays out before them.
The atmosphere is quintessentially Hollywood, but the hardwood domination is commonplace, seamlessly transferred over from the old Forum by the Lakers, the Staples Center’s most noteworthy tenant.
4. Petco Park
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Breezy passageways and bountiful unobstructed sightlines dot the home of the Padres, but Petco Park is loaded with modern amenities, the best of which will hardly crack the bank.
The Western Metal Supply Co. building, which was retained to house offices, luxury suites, and a restaurant down the line in left field, somehow fits perfectly, but the neatest aspect of Petco is also its cheapest.
Just beyond the centerfield wall is Park at the Park, essentially a sloped grass hill that is accessible to fans for $5 during games and free to residents when the Padres are on the road.
3. Los Angeles Coliseum
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The Coliseum is a hodge-podge of esteemed awesomeness.
Not just the only stadium in the world two have hosted two Olympics (1932, ’84), the Coliseum is the only Olympic venue to have also hosted Super Bowls and a World Series. The Summer X Games have played out under the watch of the Coliseum's iconic archways. Its field has been the home base of more than one USC Trojan football empire.
The U.S. Government named the Coliseum a National Historic Landmark in 1984, but its rustic nature lives on, complete with the iconic Olympic rings and torch adorned on the east-facing peristyle.
2. Pauley Pavilion
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Hands-down one of the preeminent structures in all of college basketball, if all of sport.
The home playground to UCLA basketball since 1965, Pauley Pavilion flaunts from its rafters an intimidating number of the school’s some 105-plus national championships. 10 of those were captured in bewilderingly easy fashion from 1964-75, under the deft tutelage and mentorship of legendary coach John Wooden, who passed away last year.
1. Rose Bowl
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The Rose Bowl’s rich history goes way beyond, well, the Rose Bowl, a game which the venue has hosted every year since 1942.
The UCLA Bruins call the building home. Two Summer Olympics have been staged, as have five Super Bowls. FIFA gave us soccer at the Rose Bowl, first in 1994 with the men; in 1999, it was the women’s turn.
Seemingly destined to be smothered in warm Southern California sunshine for all eternity, the Rose Bowl has welcomed millions of fans through its turnstiles over the years, making it one of the most nostalgic stages of sport in the world.
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