Every February, the Phoenix metro area turns into the center of the baseball universe. Fifteen Major League teams pack into ten ballparks across the Valley for Cactus League Spring Training, and fans get a chance to see stars up close in ballparks small enough that you can hear cleats on the dirt. For 2027, the schedule is officially set: MLB has announced that Spring Training begins on Friday, February 19, 2027, with all 30 clubs in action across Arizona's Cactus League and Florida's Grapefruit League on opening day. If you are planning a trip to catch games in Arizona, this guide focuses on the part most previews skip: the logistics of flying into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, choosing a hotel base, and getting between ballparks that can sit 30 minutes to over an hour apart in spring traffic—all without committing to a rental car you may not need.
2027 Cactus League: The Scale of the Season
Per the official Cactus League site (cactusleague.com), the 2027 Arizona schedule features 229 games from February into March across 10 ballparks and 15 Major League teams, all in the Phoenix metro area. That density is the whole appeal. Nowhere else in the country can you see this many big-league clubs in such a concentrated footprint, and no other spring training market puts this many stadiums within a morning's drive of each other.
A few verified anchor points for your calendar planning:
- Opening day: Friday, February 19, 2027, with all 30 MLB clubs playing that day across both leagues' spring sites.
- Los Angeles Dodgers: open Friday, February 19, 2027 against the Chicago White Sox at Camelback Ranch-Glendale.
- San Diego Padres: first home game Saturday, February 20, 2027 against the Arizona Diamondbacks at the Peoria Sports Complex.
- Milwaukee Brewers: open February 19, 2027 against the Angels at American Family Fields of Phoenix.
- Athletics: play at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa.
Those five data points alone span the Valley—from Glendale on the west side to Mesa on the east—and they hint at the planning challenge ahead. A fan who wants to see the Dodgers one day and the Athletics the next is looking at a cross-metro trip, not a quick hop.
The Real Problem: Ballpark-to-Ballpark Distance
Spring training marketing often makes the Valley sound compact, and in raw miles it is. But the Cactus League's ten ballparks are spread across an enormous metropolitan area with a freeway system that was not designed around thousands of out-of-town fans all driving to first pitches at the same time. In practice, stadium-to-stadium driving between ballparks in spring traffic routinely runs 30 minutes to over an hour.
Consider a common two-game day. You catch a morning game at a west-side park near Glendale or Peoria, then want an evening game in Scottsdale or Mesa on the other side of the Valley. That is a coast-to-coast crossing of metro Phoenix during the late-afternoon buildup, when Loop 101, Loop 202, and I-10 all thicken. Add parking at the second ballpark—spring training lots fill fast on popular matchups, and general parking can involve a walk—and your "quick" transfer can consume a meaningful chunk of the day.
This is the single biggest surprise for first-time Cactus League visitors. On paper, you can see two games in one day. In practice, whether you can pull it off comfortably depends almost entirely on how you handle the drive between them.
Choosing a Hotel Base Across the Valley
Because the ballparks ring the Valley rather than cluster in one district, your hotel choice matters as much as your ticket choices. Most fans fly into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and stay across the Valley in areas like Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, downtown Phoenix, Glendale, or Peoria. Each base has trade-offs:
- Scottsdale: close to the east-side ballparks and the spring training hub feel around Old Town, with a deep bench of restaurants and nightlife. Farther from Peoria and Glendale.
- Tempe and Mesa: convenient to Hohokam Stadium and the southeast cluster, and close to Sky Harbor.
- Downtown and central Phoenix: a middle-of-the-map option that keeps most ballparks within a reasonable drive in any direction.
- Glendale and Peoria: ideal if your priority teams are the Dodgers and Padres, but a longer haul to the east-side parks.
A smart approach is to pick one base and build your schedule around it, saving cross-town game pairings for the days when the matchups genuinely justify them. That keeps your longest drives to a minimum—which matters whether you rent a car or not.
February Weekdays vs. March Weekends
Not all 229 games are created equal. Early-season February weekday games are the easy ones: lighter crowds, easier parking, simpler restaurant reservations, and thinner traffic on the freeways. If your schedule allows it, front-loading your trip into late February is the single best logistics decision you can make. You can move between ballparks faster, arrive later and still get a good seat, and generally treat the Valley like the relaxed baseball festival it is supposed to be.
March is a different animal. As rosters sharpen and Opening Day approaches, weekend games—especially marquee matchups—draw heavy crowds, and the freeways feel it. Parking lots that emptied easily in February fill an hour before first pitch in March. If your trip includes March weekends, build in extra buffer time for every ballpark transfer, eat early or late, and think hard before stacking a west-side morning game with an east-side evening game on the same Saturday.
The pattern is simple: February weekdays are the easy ones; March weekends are the hard ones. Plan your itinerary—and your transportation—accordingly.
Rental Car vs. Pre-Booked Private Shuttle: The Honest Comparison
For decades, the default Cactus League answer was "rent a car at Sky Harbor." For some trips—a full week with a family, day trips to Sedona or Flagstaff, a lot of gear—that is still a reasonable choice. But for the typical spring training trip, where you fly in, stay at a hotel or rental, and move between ballparks, hotels, and restaurants, a rental car comes with hidden costs that have nothing to do with the daily rate:
- Parking at every stop. Ten ballparks means ten parking situations, plus hotel parking and restaurant parking in busy districts.
- The designated-driver problem. Spring training pairs naturally with patio time, and someone in your group always ends up as the sober navigator.
- Navigation stress in unfamiliar traffic. Visitors from out of state driving rental cars across metro Phoenix at 5 p.m. in March is exactly what it sounds like.
- The airport shuffle. Shuttle to the rental facility, counter lines, the car, then reversing it all on departure day.
A pre-booked private, door-to-door shuttle solves each of those problems directly. This is the model we run at Airport Shuttle of Phoenix: private rides only—no shared rides, no waiting for other passengers—booked 24/7, with flight tracking on airport legs so a delayed arrival into Sky Harbor does not turn into a missed pickup. Your driver handles the freeway, the ballpark drop-off, and the pickup afterward, and you step out at the gate instead of circling a lot.
On cost, the numbers can surprise people. Across our completed door-to-door trips, Sky Harbor to Scottsdale has run a median of $72.50 out and $73.43 back—about 21–22 miles each way. For a two-person party, that round trip is competitive with a single day of rental car plus parking, and it covers the airport leg that a rental car forces you through anyway. For solo travelers, the math favors rides more often; for larger groups splitting a private shuttle, it often strongly does.
There is also the surge problem to consider. On-demand rideshare pricing in Phoenix spikes around major events, and packed spring training weekends are exactly the kind of demand event that triggers it. A pre-booked private shuttle locks in your ride ahead of time, with no surge pricing, so the price you arrange when you book is the ride you get—whether it is a quiet Tuesday in February or a sold-out Saturday in March.
A Sample Two-Ballpark Day Without a Rental Car
Here is how a well-built spring training day looks when a private shuttle handles the driving:
- 8:00 a.m. Pickup at your Scottsdale hotel for the drive to a west-side ballpark. Your driver drops you at the entrance; no lot, no walk.
- 9:30 a.m. First pitch. Autographs along the railing, lunch at the concourse.
- 1:00 p.m. Game ends. Pre-arranged pickup outside the stadium—already scheduled, so there is no app-waiting in the sun.
- 2:00 p.m. A late lunch or a breather back near your hotel base while the afternoon traffic peak builds and fades.
- 5:30 p.m. Pickup for the evening game at an east-side park, timed to arrive comfortably before first pitch.
- 9:00 p.m. Door-to-door ride back to the hotel. Nobody draws the designated-driver straw.
That day is doable with a rental car, but it means two ballpark parkings, two freeway crossings, and a driver who watches the game through a windshield of logistics. Booked as private transfers, it becomes the vacation it was supposed to be.
Practical Planning Tips for Cactus League 2027
- Book lodging early. February and March are peak season Valley-wide, and rooms near popular baseball districts go first.
- Group games geographically. Batch your east-side teams into consecutive days and your west-side teams into other days, rather than zigzagging daily.
- Favor February. The opening stretch around Friday, February 19, 2027—when all 30 clubs are in action—is the friendliest window for crowds and traffic.
- Reserve rides in advance for game days. Pre-booking means your pickup exists before you need it, which matters most after a final out when 8,000 other fans are leaving the same lot.
- Build in a non-baseball day. Old Town Scottsdale, downtown Phoenix, Sedona, or a slow morning by the pool keep a week of doubleheaders from becoming a grind.
- Confirm the schedule before you fly. Game times for the 229-game 2027 slate are set and published; verify exact start times and matchups on the official Cactus League site when you lock your dates.
Plan Your Ride
Cactus League Spring Training is one of the easiest big-league experiences in sports to reach—and one of the easiest to overcomplicate. The 2027 season opens Friday, February 19, with all 30 clubs playing, and Arizona's share of it—229 games, 15 teams, 10 ballparks—will be spread across a metro area where ballpark-to-ballpark drives run 30 minutes to over an hour in spring traffic. Fly into Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, pick a hotel base that matches your favorite ballparks, and let the driving be someone else's problem. Airport Shuttle of Phoenix provides private, door-to-door shuttle service across Phoenix, the Phoenix metro, Tucson, Sedona, Flagstaff, and throughout Arizona, with 24/7 booking, flight tracking on airport legs, no shared rides, and no surge pricing. Book your airport pickup and your ballpark transfers before you land, and spend your Cactus League days worrying about lineups and sunflower seeds instead of parking lots and freeway exits.
Planning more of the trip? Scottsdale airport shuttle Sloan Park shuttle Camelback Ranch shuttle Salt River Fields shuttle Peoria Sports Complex shuttle Scottsdale Stadium shuttle.