Here’s everything you need to know to travel to Super Bowl 52
Including how much it will cost you to see the Pats play in Minneapolis.
If you’re itching to watch the New England Patriots face off against the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LII at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, you have some planning to do. You’ll need tickets, transportation, and a place to stay. This 2018 Super Bowl travel guide aims to help.
All prices and availability were accurate at the time of this article’s publication.
How to nab tickets
Unless you are a very lucky season ticket holder who scores tickets through the lottery system, you won’t be able to get tickets at face value (which, according to TickPick, range from $950 to $5,000 anyway). Instead, you’ll need to get them on the secondary market. Right now on StubHub, you can grab a ticket for $3,550. Over at Ace Ticket, a seat will cost you between $4,212 and $11,777, depending on where the seat is located. The cheapest ticket on Ticketmaster’s Ticket Exchange is currently priced at $4,290.
How to fly to Minneapolis
You’ll be in the air for three and a half hours if you can snag a direct flight from Boston to Minneapolis. A round-trip flight to Minneapolis on Friday, Feb. 2 that returns Monday, Feb. 5, according to Orbitz, currently ranges in price from $643 for a two-stop Delta flight to $1,349 for a nonstop Delta flight.
Southwest, which does not take part in fare aggregator sites like Orbitz, can get you to Minneapolis on Friday, Feb. 2 for $317 or $321, but you’d better act fast because those are the only two flights remaining before the price climbs to $659 and above. If you can leave for Minneapolis on Thursday, Feb. 1, there are currently two flights available for $347, after which the flights increase to at least $562. Southwest can get you home to Boston on Monday, Feb. 5 for $659, but there are just two flights left at that price.
How to drive there
If an epic road trip is your preferred method of getting to the game, you’re going to have to drive about 1,400 miles — which will take more than 21 hours — to get from Boston to U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, according to Google Maps. The gas will cost about $356 for a car that gets 20 miles per gallon based on AAA’s current $2.543 average price of gas.
You can share a room in this Minneapolis house and walk to the stadium.
Where to stay
Some of us have close friends and family in Minneapolis with comfy couches or guests rooms. Most of us do not. A search of hotels.com shows that many Minneapolis hotels are already booked. However, there are still rooms available if you search. The Key Inn in Roseville, which is about 8 miles from the stadium, currently has rooms for $460 per night. If you don’t mind staying farther from the stadium, you can get a room for $291 per night at AmericInn Forest Lake in Forest Lake, which is 25 miles from Minneapolis.
If you’d rather rent an apartment or house, Airbnb has several options, including a studio condo about one mile from the stadium for $1,000 a night, a two-bedroom house that’s 3.5 miles from the stadium for $550 a night, and a shared room in a Minneapolis house that’s walking distance from the stadium for $350 a night.
The “Spoonbridge and Cherry” sculpture at the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
What to do in the city
If you have time during your stay to explore Minneapolis, consider checking out the Minneapolis Skyway System, where you can visit 80 city blocks of Minneapolis full of bars, restaurants, hotels, retail stores, and more via enclosed pedestrian footbridges. Or take a look around the popular and historic St. Anthony Main, home to restaurants, a movie theater, green spaces, and a panoramic view of the Minneapolis skyline over the Mississippi River. At one end of the street, you’ll find the beginning of the very Instagrammable, 2,100-foot-long Stone Arch Bridge, which was built in 1883 and includes 23 arches.
When hunger strikes, this list of TripAdvisor’s highest ranked Minneapolis restaurants is a good place to start. The top five, which all received TripAdvisor certificates of excellence, are steakhouse Capital Grille, pizza place Pizzeria Lola, American spots 112 Eatery and Spoon and Stable, and Italian fare-filled Bar La Grassa.
If you’re looking to see art in your downtime, the Minneapolis Institute of Art will debut a new exhibit, “Power and Beauty in China’s Last Dynasty,” on Feb. 3. Or head over to the Walker Art Center, a contemporary art museum with a free sculpture garden outside. The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, billed as the largest urban sculpture garden in the country, showcases more than 40 sculptures — including the famous Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture — on an 11-acre park beside the center.
