Hi guys I currently play to a league / county standard in the UK and I would like to go somewhere on a badminton kinda holiday to experience badminton in another country such as the USA or Canada. I was wondering if there was anyone who currently plays badminton quite regular to a good standard who has a club who would welcome me along for some friendly games and also offer or point out accomodation for a week / 2 weeks? Planning to do this in either summer 2008 or 2009. cheers j
^^Which part of the U.S. and Canada??..^^ ...more infos & any help, hopefully, should be found here: http://www.badmintoncentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=6 *mods to re-direct this thread/inquiry??..
If you are in the US, you'll definitely want to check out California. They have a bunch of dedicated badminton gyms.
hi Joseph - Thanks for that. I currently live in England (UK) but im looking to come over on holiday and experience different badminton clubs in the USA. Just need advice on where to stay and clubs to invite me along for some games really.
The clubs are split into Northern California and Southern California areas. You can't really go wrong with either. If you stay in Northern California, you will probably want to stay in the Santa Clara, Milpitas, or San Jose areas. From within those areas, you'll be able to easily get to most of the badminton clubs within NorCal. You should definitely email the clubs to find out when a good drop in time would be. I'd say from one club to another is a good 15 min drive. I think the furthest club from the location I mentioned would be GGBC2 in Emeryville, but you can always go to their other location in Menlo Park. Near GGBC in Menlo Park would be BBC in Burlingame. You can find all this info in the USA West sub-forum along with links to their respective sites. As for Southern California, I'm not too sure here. I think somewhere in the LA area would be good, but LA traffic makes it a bit difficult to get to where you want to go. So you'd have to wait for someone from SoCal to chime in for places to stay. Hope some of this helps.
thanks a lot m8. very helpfull. which clubs are u at? so whats the standard of play like out in these areas? personally i'd say im a pretty good player - i compete here in the uk within the league system playing in top divisions. not sure how it works in the usa.
I don't really play as much anymore due to an injury. The standard of play varies depending on what clubs you go to. If you are a top divisions player, I can set you up with my friend who's really good. He usually plays with a bunch of high level players.
like what joseph said, cali would be the best place to go ... specifically SF bay area. it would be a long flight though coming from london. 7 hrs from london to NY ... another 5 hours from NY to SFO .... a direct flight would cut some of the airtime. enjoy.
did u ever make that trip yet? i agree that u should try to stay somewhere in "Central" California (southern Norcal) Most of the clubs I know are there and they have good players. Smashcity, United Badminton Club, Golden Gate Badminton Club 1&2, Bay Badminton Center, ...list goes on... but these are places i've played at before.