How much should you travel... in Travel Ball?

Oh the question I've heard that's been debated with much fervor. How much should you really travel in travel ball? And what do you consider traveling?

Being in Southern California, travel means to be having to commute to a city that is more than an hour and a half away by car. Lucky for us, there is so much travel softball talent right here in our own backyard, we don't have to travel far. 

So how much traveling should a travel ball team be doing? That's entirely dependent on what that team wants to achieve. Do you want to play the best teams out there and don't live in Southern California? Then travel as much as your pockets are deep. Do you want to get your team name out there and recognizable nationally? Go ahead and travel to different state tournaments where a lot of eyes will be on this Southern California team playing in our local tournament. Do you have girls that are of the recruitable age and want to get collegiate visibility? PLEASE DO travel and get some eyes looking at your talented girls.

As far as I’m concerned, those are the main reasons to travel. Again, being based here in Southern California, we are fortunate that we don’t have to travel far to play the best teams out there. I would gladly drive to Vegas, San Francisco, and Arizona if I felt my girls became stagnant because we were playing the same ‘ol So Cal teams again and again. I would go out of our area to face some new teams.

But for all the parents out there that think they need to be flying to play games beyond National Championship events, ya’ll are just kidding yourselves and are digging financial holes that are really unnecessary. If your kid really is top notch, the coaches will fly to wherever she is playing. Make them come to you instead of chasing them down.