Traveling for Club Volleyball (518)

One of my favorite things that come along with playing club volleyball is all the travel. Traveling to different cities every other weekend is exciting and something I miss during the off season. Even going to the places I've been before is fun because I remember the city from the previous year and can explore different areas I haven't visited before.
Some people don't like travel; they don't like the stress taking work with them, packing and unpacking, being away from home, or long trips. Planning these events, booking hotels, and interrupting home life can be stressful, and missing things while your gone can put you behind. The bigger tournaments are usually three days long, so I miss some school for them. As a student, I get all my assignments that I will miss ahead of time so I can do them during any down time I have, if any, which is usually during the car or plane ride to and from our destination. I like car rides, even though a lot of people don't; I like listening to music, sleeping, and having long conversations. Most of the time any free time we have during the evening at our hotel is used for team bonding.
Team bonding is another big part of travel. When we're traveling we team bond by hanging out at the hotel, going swimming, going out to eat, going to see city attractions, and more. One of my favorite things we did was go to Downtown Disney in Orlando, Florida, last year during nationals. The weather was beautiful, in the 90s! Another one of the most fun things I have done was go to the City Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. It is called the City Museum, but it is the furthest thing from a museum. Check it out! - http://www.citymuseum.org
Some people may ask, why travel that far just for a tournament? The reason is that these tournaments are very big and highly competitive. Most of them are held in convention centers with 100 or more courts in them, and anywhere from 500 to 1000 teams playing. A lot of these tournaments offer a bid to nationals for the first place team, or in the best division the top three teams, that hundreds of teams come to try and win. It is also a good exposure for recruiting. At one tournament there might be over 300 college coaches watching and recruiting.
For me, just the chance to play at a high, competitive level would be enough to get me to travel. I also think it prepares you for later in life by getting you used to travel and being away from home. It would also give you a sense for if you like the city life or being away from home for college, because if you can't handle being gone for one weekend, then you might want to consider staying close to home for college! I love the travel; I could stay for a long time and not get homesick, so I might not need to worry about staying close to home for college.