All-Star Always Having To Travel

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Jan 31, 2011
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So I grew up in a cheer environment where I was fortunate enough to live somewhere where we had many local competitions and even more in state competitions. If we leave the state to compete, it's by choice, not necessity.

But then I realized that might not be the case for everyone. That some people might not have any "local" competitions and might have to drive an hour plus away to the other end of their state to get to a comp. Or have to go out of state for every competition. Can anyone attest to what that's like? What does it do to the cost of this sport? Do you go to less events?


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This year thanks to my daughter being on 2 teams and coach 2 we are gone 5 weeks in a row from middle of Jan. to Cheersport weekend. (Providence, 2 AC, and Hartford) Thanks god I booked early employee discounts at Hampton Inns and Marriot for 3 of those. without this I would not be able to do it. Hubby does not go to most so I can split it also. I bring meals that I can microwave or toss together and also snacks. My daughter knows just because we are out of town does not mean going to restaurants every day.
 
most of the competitions I went to last year were 4.5 hours away. we had 1 local.
we only went to 4 comps. (one local 3 out of town) so less then most people go to. one was 2 days but all of the rest were only day
I think it makes it a lot more expensive because of the gas to drive there and back and having to book a hotel.
 
We had one competition this season that was just a 30 minutes drive. Everything else was 2+ hours, one comp was friday till monday morning.

We are trying to put as many 1 day (being back home saturday evening) competitions in our plan as possible, but the good ones are 6+ hours.


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We're so fortunate to live in the Baltimore area because there are a ton of good competitions in our local area. Epic, Coastal, Cheersport and CXE are all offering 1 and 2 days within 1.5 hours from us. With so many gyms in the area, we're also almost always guaranteed a good turn out team-wise. I guess I never realized how lucky we are!
 
We're so fortunate to live in the Baltimore area because there are a ton of good competitions in our local area. Epic, Coastal, Cheersport and CXE are all offering 1 and 2 days within 1.5 hours from us. With so many gyms in the area, we're also almost always guaranteed a good turn out team-wise. I guess I never realized how lucky we are!
I know! I never really thought about it before. VAs so populated with gyms that there's usually a pretty good pick of events


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All of ours are at least 2 hours away. We go to one big comp (2 day) that's farther away, but most of ours are in state, within 4ish hours. If we wanted to go to the really big nationals they'd be pretty long trips - Indy and Chicago comps not so much (6-7 hours in the car) but Dallas and Orlando are plane rides


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My least favorite part of cheerleading for sure!! Having to travel is a pain, but keep in mind that if you're able to finance the trips, you are better off than most people. It's a financial burden and takes time out of your schedule to travel, but some cheerleaders would do anything for the opportunity to go to big national events.

If you're in an area saturated with competitions, count your blessings! I went to college to be in a more "cheer-friendly" town. Some people commute hours to the gym, to compete on the same team as you. Most of us are in the USA. Go through the international boards & see what those athletes don't have that we take for granted.

Also--- parents, I know most of you are working overtime/two jobs/stressing out to book hotel rooms and spending your free time driving your kid to and from the gym and competitions. Chances are you haven't been thanked and your dedication to your athlete goes unappreciated by them. TRUST ME, the second your kid goes off to college and realizes all you did for them to keep them in a safe, healthy environment during their high school years they will be thankful beyond measure. It's hard work spending all of this time in a sport that doesn't have competitions on every corner of the map. Thank you guys for all that you do for your kids and this sport!!
 
My least favorite part of cheerleading for sure!! Having to travel is a pain, but keep in mind that if you're able to finance the trips, you are better off than most people. It's a financial burden and takes time out of your schedule to travel, but some cheerleaders would do anything for the opportunity to go to big national events.

If you're in an area saturated with competitions, count your blessings! I went to college to be in a more "cheer-friendly" town. Some people commute hours to the gym, to compete on the same team as you. Most of us are in the USA. Go through the international boards & see what those athletes don't have that we take for granted.

Also--- parents, I know most of you are working overtime/two jobs/stressing out to book hotel rooms and spending your free time driving your kid to and from the gym and competitions. Chances are you haven't been thanked and your dedication to your athlete goes unappreciated by them. TRUST ME, the second your kid goes off to college and realizes all you did for them to keep them in a safe, healthy environment during their high school years they will be thankful beyond measure. It's hard work spending all of this time in a sport that doesn't have competitions on every corner of the map. Thank you guys for all that you do for your kids and this sport!!



I love you!!! She's a FB kid all grown up now....literally.
 
I know! I never really thought about it before. VAs so populated with gyms that there's usually a pretty good pick of events


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We had the opposite of most people. Our commute to practice was 2+ hours, 6 days a week. But most comps here are either in Chicago or just outside (usually Schaumburg) so our comp travel time was only about 30 minutes for most comps. I loved comp days because I got to listen to everyone say how far they had to drive and I was like "Really...hm. Imagine that!" :rolleyes::p

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Our local comps (30min - 1 hr) are really small with only a couple of gyms attending. We usually end up traveling out of state anywhere from 3 1/2 - 8 hrs to get quality comps with really good competition.

Our biggest problem is we get tired of going to the same comps in the same city with most of the same teams. Even though they are very good gyms and we don't always beat them we would just like to compete against different teams now and then.


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My least favorite part of cheerleading for sure!! Having to travel is a pain, but keep in mind that if you're able to finance the trips, you are better off than most people. It's a financial burden and takes time out of your schedule to travel, but some cheerleaders would do anything for the opportunity to go to big national events.

If you're in an area saturated with competitions, count your blessings! I went to college to be in a more "cheer-friendly" town. Some people commute hours to the gym, to compete on the same team as you. Most of us are in the USA. Go through the international boards & see what those athletes don't have that we take for granted.

Also--- parents, I know most of you are working overtime/two jobs/stressing out to book hotel rooms and spending your free time driving your kid to and from the gym and competitions. Chances are you haven't been thanked and your dedication to your athlete goes unappreciated by them. TRUST ME, the second your kid goes off to college and realizes all you did for them to keep them in a safe, healthy environment during their high school years they will be thankful beyond measure. It's hard work spending all of this time in a sport that doesn't have competitions on every corner of the map. Thank you guys for all that you do for your kids and this sport!!

As soon as I went off to college, I realized how appreciative I was for my mom sacrificing a lot to let me cheer! As soon as I started meeting other people, I realized many people weren't as blessed as I was to travel the country, and see many different states because of cheerleading.
 
We go to 10 events, we travel quite a bit and its a struggle to make it all happen but I enjoy it. We're in San Antonio. We go to 3 SA comps. Which are fairly big comps with alot of teams BUT they are the same teams we see all year long. Austin Cheer Factory, Pinnacle, some teams from the Valley and so on. We don't want to compete against the same teams, so we travel.


We go to Dallas for NCA (5 hrs)

Ft Worth about the same distance for ACA.

We go to those comps because of the level of competition and the big gym teams that bring all their levels. Spirit of Texas, Woodlands, Spirit Xtreme, Prodigy, Pro Spirit, Texas Lonestar!!

We also go to Houston (4 hrs) for the NCA classic which was what I believe was the largest 1 day comp last year..
Pretty much all the same high caliber teams listed above!


We like to mix it up this past season we added WSA Nationals in Louisiana, it was so far lol. It was a cool competition so many teams but I liked it because its teams we would never see otherwise. Ellenwood Allstars, ACE, CTR, and just a bunch of different quality teams! Even one of my favorite coach on the boards gym was there :)

We also like UCA Orlando (thats going to cause us to fly) because its big name gyms so its a change of scenery because we see big name gyms all the time just usually all the Texas ones.

We also go to another Houston comp (4 hrs) ASC.. And this past year it was Woodlands and Stars all over the place!

And some teams go to the Summit a few weeks after UCA- it just depends on the bids we get so some will do Orlando twice! They went to Summitt last year and it was a great experience.


So we do travel but I know a lot of people have it worse then we do! I love the travel comps because me and my daughter can just be together and have fun and really enjoy ourselves!

It would be nice to save some money and be in the same place as all the great comps but no matter how many great ones you go to you may only see most of the same teams if they are in the same area.


It does get frustrating because all of our nationals are on top of each other .

We had cheerpower nationals then we were off a week, traveled to New Orleans for a 2day nationals, my daughters birthday was the next day, then right after New Orleans with no break we had NCA in Dallas another big travel comp.

UCA follows but this year I think we will get a week break between those 2 but its just such an experience and when that month is over its like I want to take a weekend break and go right back at it! Lol


I live for times like those. I seem to thrive on struggling and living on the edge. Lol


Short story: when I turned 18 I thought it would be cool to move to Chicago in the month of December and have no place to stay and no planned job in Chicago. I took my last pay check in Tennessee and drove to Chicago with $236 and lived in my car for a while. Best experience of my life and I would do It again in a heart beat!


Lol - very similar to us moving to Texas. I sold everything I owned. Furniture and everything and just up and moved to Texas with a very small idea of a plan but a huge sense/belief that it will all work out! I just wanted my daughter to cheer for Stars Vipers lol


I don't really care what it takes to make my daughter happy, I'll do it!


The reason I probably enjoy all the moving and rift raft and running all over the place is because I don't have a family, it's just me and Jaylen! I do think it would be much harder if I had a husband and other kids at home that needed me! I know people always praise single mothers for making it work, but I praise all these people juggling families, kids, spouses outside of the cheer trips and costs because you truly are making it work! To have to divide your time, and money between them to keep everyone happy it would be much harder! So kudos to everyone for doing that!
 
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