The Best NFL Cities for a Football Weekend

There’s watching an NFL game, and then there’s building an entire weekend around one.

The best NFL road trips start long before kickoff. You fly or drive into town on Friday, find the neighborhood where everyone is already wearing jerseys, eat something the city is famous for, spend Saturday exploring and arguing about Sunday’s matchup, and wake up on game day surrounded by thousands of people who have been thinking about the exact same thing.

Some NFL cities are simply better at this than others.

A great stadium helps, but that’s only part of the equation. For this list, we’re looking at the entire weekend: atmosphere, tailgating, food, bars, stadium experience, things to do and that intangible feeling that football actually matters there.

Here are the best NFL cities for a football weekend.

1. Green Bay, Wisconsin

Team: Green Bay Packers
Stadium: Lambeau Field
Best for: The ultimate football pilgrimage

If you're going to make one NFL pilgrimage in your lifetime, Green Bay has a pretty strong argument for being the one.

This isn't a giant city that happens to have an NFL team. Green Bay feels like a football town that had a city built around it.

Lambeau Field is the centerpiece. Walking toward the stadium on a cold Sunday surrounded by Packers fans feels different from arriving at a modern stadium complex in a major metropolitan area. The history is everywhere.

Make time to explore the area around Lambeau and the Packers Hall of Fame, and don't rush out immediately after the game.

And if the forecast calls for freezing temperatures?

Even better.

Perfect weekend: Arrive Friday, explore Green Bay Saturday, spend Sunday around Lambeau and fly home Monday with considerably more Packers merchandise than you intended to buy.

2. New Orleans, Louisiana

Team: New Orleans Saints
Stadium: Caesars Superdome
Best for: Football plus nightlife

New Orleans almost feels unfair in a ranking like this.

You already have one of America's best weekend-trip cities. Add an NFL game in the middle of it and you've created one ridiculous 72-hour itinerary.

Stay somewhere around the French Quarter or Central Business District and you can spend Friday and Saturday bouncing between restaurants, live music and bars before walking toward the Superdome on Sunday.

That's one of New Orleans' biggest advantages as an NFL destination: you don't have to build the weekend around a remote stadium surrounded by parking lots.

The city itself is the tailgate.

Grab beignets in the morning. Find some gumbo or a po'boy. Wander through the French Quarter. Then follow the jerseys toward the dome.

A Saints game also gives you something many football destinations can't guarantee: weather isn't going to ruin your seat.

Perfect weekend: French Quarter Friday night, ridiculous food all day Saturday, Saints game Sunday.

3. Nashville, Tennessee

Team: Tennessee Titans
Best for: A guys' trip with football attached

If someone said, "Pick an NFL city for eight friends in their 30s to spend a long weekend," Nashville would be near the top of the list before you even mentioned football.

That's what makes a Titans weekend so easy.

Broadway provides your built-in Friday and Saturday night plans. There are seemingly endless places to eat, drink and listen to live music, and downtown Nashville is compact enough that you don't need to spend the entire weekend coordinating rides across town.

Then you add football.

It's the kind of destination where even the people in your group who aren't obsessive NFL fans are going to have a great weekend.

The only real danger is treating Saturday night like the Super Bowl and realizing Sunday morning that you still have an actual football game to attend.

Pace yourself.

Perfect weekend: Live music Friday, hot chicken and Broadway Saturday, football Sunday.

4. Kansas City, Missouri

Team: Kansas City Chiefs
Stadium: Arrowhead Stadium
Best for: Tailgating and barbecue

Kansas City is what happens when two of America's great traditions—football and smoked meat—join forces.

Arrowhead has long had a reputation as one of the NFL's loudest and most intimidating places to play. But for a visiting fan, the experience outside the stadium can be just as memorable.

This is a destination where you should absolutely plan to tailgate.

Show up early. Walk around. Talk football. Eat something that's been smoking since an hour when reasonable people were still asleep.

Then spend the rest of the weekend working your way through Kansas City's barbecue scene.

You could legitimately build a three-day itinerary around nothing but football and brisket and come home completely satisfied.

Perfect weekend: Barbecue tour Saturday, massive Arrowhead tailgate Sunday, promise yourself you'll eat vegetables again on Monday.

5. Chicago, Illinois

Team: Chicago Bears
Best for: A classic big-city football weekend

Chicago gives you something Green Bay and Kansas City can't: one of America's great cities surrounding your football game.

You can turn a Bears game into almost any type of weekend you want.

Deep-dish pizza and sports bars? Easy.

Steakhouses and cocktails? Done.

Museums and sightseeing with the family? Absolutely.

A late-season Bears game also delivers the type of football weather that looks perfect on television when you're sitting on your couch.

In person, you'll quickly discover why everyone owns enormous coats.

But that's part of the experience.

There's something right about seeing your breath in the air while watching football in Chicago.

Perfect weekend: Downtown Chicago Friday, food and sightseeing Saturday, bundle up for football Sunday.

6. Buffalo, New York

Team: Buffalo Bills
Best for: Experiencing a fan base that has completely lost its mind

Buffalo isn't the NFL trip you take because you're looking for luxury.

You go because you want football.

Bills fans have turned tailgating into its own subculture, and a Sunday in Buffalo feels like you've stumbled into a gigantic family reunion where everyone owns the same blue jacket.

Get there early.

Eat wings.

Walk around the tailgates.

Take in the chaos.

And if you're attending a December game while snow is falling, congratulations: you've essentially entered the NFL Films universe.

Buffalo is particularly fun for visiting fans who appreciate passionate fan bases. You may be wearing the wrong jersey, but you'll have no doubt you're in a city that cares deeply about its team.

Perfect weekend: Wings Saturday night, early tailgate Sunday, football in weather your mother would advise you not to stand outside in.

7. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Team: Philadelphia Eagles
Stadium: Lincoln Financial Field
Best for: Maximum football intensity

Philadelphia does not approach football casually.

That is precisely why you should go.

An Eagles weekend gives you great food, a walkable historic city and one of the NFL's most passionate fan environments.

Spend Saturday exploring Center City and Old City. Get a cheesesteak. See Independence Hall. Find a neighborhood bar.

Then get ready for Sunday.

The Philadelphia sports complex creates a huge concentration of fans around the stadium, which gives game day a completely different energy than stadiums tucked into downtown neighborhoods.

Visiting fans should expect some friendly—or occasionally not-so-friendly—trash talk.

Consider it part of the admission price.

Perfect weekend: Explore Philly Saturday, cheesesteak somewhere along the way, tailgate early Sunday and prepare your best comeback before anyone notices your opposing jersey.

8. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Team: Pittsburgh Steelers
Stadium: Acrisure Stadium
Best for: Old-school football atmosphere

Few franchises feel as intertwined with their city as the Steelers.

You see black and gold everywhere.

Pittsburgh is also underrated as a weekend destination. The rivers, bridges and hills give the city one of the most recognizable landscapes in the country, and the neighborhoods offer plenty of breweries, restaurants and bars to fill the time between arrival and kickoff.

Then there's the stadium setting.

Football beside the river in Pittsburgh just looks right, especially during a gray late-season afternoon when the entire crowd is waving Terrible Towels.

It's gritty, loud and unmistakably Pittsburgh.

Exactly what you want from an NFL road trip.

9. Cincinnati, Ohio

Team: Cincinnati Bengals
Best for: An underrated football weekend

Cincinnati doesn't always appear near the top of NFL travel lists.

It should.

The biggest advantage is how easily you can combine football with the rest of downtown. Stay in or near downtown Cincinnati and you've got restaurants, breweries, bars and the riverfront within easy reach.

Cross the river into Northern Kentucky and the weekend gets even better.

The Bengals' rise has also injected a ton of energy into game days. When Cincinnati is playing a major AFC opponent, downtown feels like it has been waiting all week for kickoff.

And yes, you should try Cincinnati chili.

Whether you decide it's brilliant or deeply confusing is between you and your plate.

Perfect weekend: Brewery Friday, explore Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky Saturday, Bengals Sunday.

10. Seattle, Washington

Team: Seattle Seahawks
Best for: Football plus a full destination vacation

Seattle is one of the easiest cities on this list to justify visiting even if your team loses by 30.

You've got Pike Place Market, great seafood, breweries, coffee, waterfront views and easy access to the outdoors.

Then there's Seahawks football.

Seattle's reputation for crowd noise is well deserved, and the stadium's location makes it easy to combine game day with exploring the city.

This is also an excellent destination for couples where only one person is truly obsessed with football.

One person gets an NFL road game.

The other gets a weekend in Seattle.

Everybody wins.

Unless your team actually loses by 30.

Honorable Mentions

Baltimore, Maryland

Great stadium location, passionate Ravens fans and an easy weekend when combined with Baltimore's Inner Harbor and neighborhoods like Fells Point.

Denver, Colorado

Football with the Rocky Mountains as your backdrop is tough to beat. Add breweries and outdoor adventures and Denver becomes a great long-weekend destination.

Las Vegas, Nevada

This might be the easiest NFL trip to convince your friends to take. Raiders game Sunday. Vegas the rest of the weekend. Not exactly a difficult sales pitch.

Minneapolis, Minnesota

U.S. Bank Stadium is one of the more striking indoor venues in the league, which becomes particularly appealing when Minnesota decides to remind you what winter actually means.

Miami, Florida

Sometimes you want snow, frozen breath and old-school football.

Other times you want to watch an NFL game and be sitting beside a pool the next morning.

Miami understands.

So, What's the Best NFL City to Visit?

It depends on what kind of weekend you want.

For pure football history, Green Bay is difficult to beat.

For nightlife, take New Orleans or Nashville.

For tailgating, start with Kansas City or Buffalo.

For a big-city trip, pick Chicago.

And if you want the kind of place where football seems to take over the entire city on Sunday, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati all deliver.

But here's the better idea:

Don't pick just one.

Choose one NFL road trip every season.

Pick a stadium you've never visited, find a good matchup, arrive Friday and give yourself the entire weekend to experience the city.

Do that for the next decade and you'll end up with something much better than a list of stadiums you've visited.

You'll have ten football weekends you'll never forget.