Which city has the best pre-game atmosphere?

Watching the game is the ultimate goal of your football trip, but getting to, and around, the city is the first part. What city do you like best for pre-game activities? Cities that have the stadiums close to resturants, bars, public transportation, hotels, and tailgating, are on the top of our list. We have the best time when we get to a city and stay in a hotel right near the stadium with plenty of activities to keep us busy the day before and morning of a game. Which city is the best, in your opinion?

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Arizona Cardinals – Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe

Has anyone experienced the old home of the Arizona Cardinals? Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe was the home of the Cardinals before they moved into their new stadium in Glendale.

Our first visit to Sun Devil Stadium coincided with a nice little heat wave. The temperature was about 110 degrees. That sounds bad enough, but as anyone who has been to a game there will certainly remember, they have aluminum bench seats. It was definitely an adventure to try to sit on those seats in that heat. Luckily the Cardinals had misters in all walkways so we could escape the heat and cool down a bit.

Besides the weather, Sun Devil Stadium is actually a great place to see a game. The stadium is built between 2 mountains so the views are unbelievable. Add to that the surrounding desert and you get a truly unique game day experience for an NFL game.

Trivia Note: On October 27, 2003, Sun Devil Stadium hosted the Miami Dolphins and San Diego Chargers after the game was moved to Arizona due to the massive wildfires in San Diego. The Chargers’ home, Qualcomm Stadium, was being used as an evacuation site.

San Diego – Qualcomm Stadium

If you’ve ever been to Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego, the first thing you notice (besides the perfect weather) is the round parking lot. This is one of the few stadiums in the NFL that has parking on all sides of the stadium. During game day, people can walk completely around the stadium, making it easy to find friend and tailgates.

Speaking of tailgates, San Diego has some of the best in the country. The players and coaches drive in right through the tailgaters – if you’re lucky some of the players will even stop and say Hi. And the “inner ring” tailgaters are literally feet from the stadium’s main gate. If you go, make sure to stop by our tailgate at D2. Just look for the 4 yellow flagpoles and you’ll find us…

Wherever you tailgate at Qualcomm Stadium, you’re sure to smell the food the locals bring. Some of the favorites to fire up on the grill are fajitas (carne asada is the best), pizzas (yes, on the grill…), tri-tips, and fresh fish caught right off the Southern California coast.

But whatever you’re tailgate plans are, get there early. The parking lot usually closes about 3 hours before kickoff.

Number of Pro Football Stadiums Visited

Traveling to various stadiums and cities is a fun experience, which is why we started VenRoo. We started out visiting a different football stadium within driving distance in the midwest, and one year when there wasn’t a location in the area with the teams we wanted to see, we decided to take to the air and fly to our first stadium: Denver.

In fact, that year, we thought it would be fun to see the football game on Sunday and stay over Monday to catch a baseball game on Monday night. That was a long weekend that wore us out. We probably won’t try that again anytime soon. Three days over a weekend for one football game is enough to keep us busy.

How many different cities have you visited to watch a pro football game?

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Which football stadiums are shown on the poster

There are a lot of stadiums within the professional football and many have been replaced by newer ones over the years. Which stadiums are shown on the VenRoo poster for professional football? The current poster for 2010, displays the current stadiums, as of the 2010-2011 season. New York is new for the year, Indianapolis was new in 2008 and others were replaced several years back.

The concept of VenRoo, is tracking where you’ve been, so we decided to include the current stadiums. You can still show a date on the stadium even though you haven’t been to a newer one. Unless you want to track the actual stadium, which is just fine too. We may offer stickers, in the future, of all the older stadiums, if you want to see the image of those past stadiums.

What is VenRoo?

VenRoo is all about tracking the various venues you’ve visited. Just as a kangaroo hops from one place to the next, you visit a variety of venues. Venues could be stadiums, arenas, sporting events, amusement parks, concerts, or anything else that you visit.

People like to keep track of the places they’ve been and we are trying to make it fun and interesting to present those travels in a geographical format.

So, with the combination of Venue and Kangaroo, VenRoo was born.

Dallas Stadium

The new stadium in Dallas is over the top! This is by far the best stadium experience we’ve seen. There’s not much around the stadium as it’s next door to a Wal-mart, and among residential houses. However, once you’re through the outside gate there’s plenty of entertainment before the game.

You’ll be impressed once you’re inside the stadium. The first thing we noticed was the huge bathrooms with plenty of room. Of course we realized why they had those, when the beer sales continued through the 4th quarter and after the game with music and dancing. Concession stands are everywhere with no lines and getting to your seat, is as easy as catching an elevator to your level and only walking a few rows up, rather than hiking a mountain for 40 rows or so.

Of course the huge video screen is fantastic, but it does kinda take away from actually watching the field.

What do you think of this new stadium? Leave some comments and answer the poll questions.

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VenRoo

Tracking the venues you've visited – Poster of the NFL Stadiums on a Map of the United States

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