Taking Our ND Son to Milwaukee — Here’s How We’re Planning It Differently 💛
We have been taking Lance to Reds road trips for a while now.
And somewhere along the way, something shifted. We stopped planning trips and hoping he’d come along for the ride — and started planning trips that were actually built for him.
Here’s the part I didn’t expect: we ended up loving them more too.
Why Sports and Music Trips Work for Us
We started doing sports and music trips specifically because Lance enjoys them. The structure of a game or a concert gives the whole trip an anchor. There’s a thing we’re going to. There’s a time it starts. There’s a reason we’re in this city.
For a neurodiverse traveler, that kind of built-in structure is genuinely useful. But what surprised me is how much Jamie and I benefit from it too. When the trip has a center of gravity, everything else just falls into place around it.
And the other thing — the thing I wasn’t expecting — is that we’ve started genuinely enjoying the parts of the trip we originally planned for Lance. Not just tolerating them. Actually loving them.
Turns out planning for someone else’s joy has a way of sneaking up on you.
The Hotel: Predictable on Purpose
We booked the Hilton Garden Inn Milwaukee Downtown. Walkable, central, familiar brand.
I know some people chase the most interesting boutique hotel in every city. And I get it — I really do. But for us, the Hilton family of hotels has a consistency that actually matters. Lance knows roughly what to expect when we walk through the door. That’s not a boring choice. That’s a smart one.
Downtown location means once we park, we’re done driving. That alone removes a whole layer of logistical stress.
The Food Strategy: This Is the One People Skip
We scope out two things before every Reds trip: what’s near the stadium, and what’s near where we’re staying.
Near Great American Ball Park, we have our go-to spots — the Cincinnati Lager House, the Yard House. Places we’ve been enough times that we know exactly what we’re getting. But some of our favorite meals happen away from the ballpark entirely, in the neighborhoods near our hotel. In Cincinnati, the streetcar line opens up so many great options it’s almost not fair.
We apply that same approach everywhere we go. Before Milwaukee, I’m already looking at what’s walkable from the Hilton Garden Inn downtown and what we can get to easily from there. Milwaukee actually has its own streetcar — The Hop — so we’re already planning to use it.
Here’s why all of this matters more than it sounds.
Lance needs a schedule. Breakfast at a reasonable hour, dinner at an expected time. When we don’t plan this out, we end up stuffed from a big ballpark lunch at 1pm, and by the time dinner rolls around nobody wants the amazing restaurant we had bookmarked — so we end up with takeout in the hotel room. Which is fine. But it’s not a memory.
Breakfast is actually the easiest part. We always look for hotels with complimentary breakfast — it’s one of the reasons we love Hampton Inns — because it solves the whole morning scheduling problem in one move. Lance gets breakfast at a consistent time, we’re not making decisions before we’ve had coffee, and nobody starts the day stressed.
Dinner we actually plan ahead. We know where we’re going before we get there. Not a rigid reservation-for-everything situation — just a real answer when someone asks “where are we eating tonight” that isn’t “I don’t know, let’s figure it out.”
And then there’s the pizza rule.
Local pizza is always somewhere in the plan. In Cincinnati, that means LaRosa’s delivered to the hotel room — especially if we’re staying two nights and need an easy night-before or post-game option. In every other city, we find whoever does it best there. It’s predictable enough that nobody panics, but you still get to try something new. Lance is in. Jamie is in. I am very in. Finding the local pizza is now just a thing we do on Road trips, and I fully support this tradition.
The Game Day Plan
What time are we arriving? Which gate? Where are we sitting? What’s the food situation inside the park?
I used to kind of wing these things. Now I have answers before we leave the house. Knowing the plan ahead of time means Lance isn’t getting information for the first time while we’re standing in a parking lot. That small shift makes the whole day run differently.
For this one we chose to sit in section 222. The photos from the seats look great and a good view of our team.
We Still Sprinkle In What We Want
Planning for Lance first doesn’t mean Jamie and I don’t get a trip. It means we figure out what works for him — and then build the rest around that foundation.
And in this case, it’s hard to go wrong. This is our first time in Milwaukee. We are excited about everything. The food, the city, the ballpark, whatever we stumble into on the way from the hotel. First-timer energy is genuinely one of my favorite things about road trips — you don’t know enough yet to have expectations, so everything is just a discovery.
That’s a good feeling. I’m not taking it for granted.
What I’d Tell Other Families
You don’t have to overhaul your whole approach to travel. You just have to plan one layer deeper.
Know the food situation before you arrive. Have the hotel figured out. Build in structure where it helps — and breathing room everywhere else.
And if you’re traveling with someone who needs a predictable rhythm to the day, try anchoring the trip around something they genuinely love. You might be surprised how much you end up loving it too.
If you want a tool that helps you track all of this — the logistics, the meal planning, the game-day details — that’s exactly what the Away Game Planner is for.
If you travel with a neurodiverse person and you’ve found something that actually works — drop it in the comments. I’m still figuring this out too. We all are.
Other articles that you may like.
How We’re Choosing Our Next Reds Road Trip
We Went to a Reds Game With Braves Fans. The Waiter Saw It Coming.
We walked into The Alcove for brunch — me and Jamie in full Reds gear, our friends in full Braves gear — and our waiter took one look at our table and said, "Well, I hope you all have fun at the game today."
Then he pointed at us.
"And I hope you two have more fun."
Sir. We have never felt so seen and so threatened at the same time.
That moment set the tone for the whole day. Which is honestly the best thing I can say about a baseball trip — that it had a tone. That it felt like something. That by the time we walked into Great American Ball Park that evening, we were already having the kind of day you tell people about later.
The Reds still lost, for the record.
But we had a really good time getting there.
How We Did Cincinnati
This is the part where I tell you that Cincinnati is a full city with great food and a beautiful riverfront and you should stop flying past it on your way somewhere else.
We started at The Alcove for brunch, and it was exactly what a pre-game brunch should be — pretty, relaxed, the kind of place where you linger a little longer than you planned because the atmosphere earns it. There are better ways to start a game day. I haven't found them.
(This is also where the waiter incident happened, and I will be telling that story forever.)
From there we made our way to Sam Adams Brewery for drinks — because if you're going to spend an afternoon with people rooting for the wrong team, you might as well do it with a beer in hand. Good call on our part.
Then dinner at Cincinnati Lager House, which had a full dining room and a view of the Ohio River that genuinely stopped conversation for a second when we sat down. Busy the way a good restaurant is busy — alive, not chaotic. And if you go, look for the base plaque by the host stand. It's one of those details that reminds you the whole city is in on this.
View from rooftop of Cincinnati Lager House
The Game
Great American Ball Park is one of the most underrated stadiums in baseball. I will say this every time until people believe me.
The Reds lost. Our friends were delighted. Jamie and I were dignified about it, mostly.
What I will say is this: there is something genuinely fun about watching a game with people who are rooting against your team — as long as those people are people you actually like. The banter is better. The stakes feel lighter. You stop watching the scoreboard so much and start watching everything else.
The river. The skyline. The very serious man somewhere nearby who definitely had a scoring notebook.
That's the trip.
The Comeback That Mattered
Here is the part I need the Braves fans to read carefully.
The Reds won the next day.
Not swept. We were not swept. Whatever hopes our friends had of a clean series sweep evaporated, and Jamie and I were completely gracious about it.
We said nothing.
(This blog post is the only thing we're saying.)
Great American Ballpark. View from section 528.
Why This Kind of Trip Works
I started the Baseball City Trip series because I believe the game is the excuse, not the destination.
The destination is brunch with a waiter who takes one look at your table and already knows how your day is going to go. It's drinks at a brewery with people you don't get to see enough. It's a river view at dinner and a base plaque that makes you smile before you even sit down.
The Reds may break your heart. The city won't.
Want to Plan Your Own Cincinnati Trip?
I've got a full guide — where to stay, how to build the day, what to do beyond the game.
👉How to Plan a Cincinnati Reds Weekend Trip
And if you want something to take with you — a planner built specifically for baseball travel, with space for every city you visit — I made that too.
👉 The Away Game Planner — $14.99
👉 Join the interest list for future Reds road trips
The waiter at The Alcove was right. I hope you have more fun.
Tracy is a travel agent and the founder of Harmony Horizon 360, a travel brand built around slower, more intentional trips for real people. She grew up in Cincinnati and has feelings about the Reds that she considers completely reasonable.