The 5 Best Road Trips for Penguins Fans This Season, and Travel Recommendations
Published: Sep 7, 2026
The new 84-game NHL schedule will, in some ways, benefit the Pittsburgh Penguins, especially since the team will travel about half as many miles as last season. There will be no overseas trips or frantic weeks spent making up lost time.
Even through some awkward back-to-backs and mismatched road trips like Raleigh to Montreal, there is plenty of fun to be had for Penguins fans willing to brave the current sticker shock of airline prices.
Oh, those prices are going to take a chunk out of PHN, for sure.
Unfortunately, the NHL packed some of the best roadies into just two trips this year. There are some weird one-offs like St. Louis, with no corresponding second in the Central Division, and one of the Montreal trips is buffered by a preceding game in Raleigh, which almost negates the possibility of easy travel for anyone but the team.
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Of course, there is the typical California trip, but LA’s current downtown scene makes it one we can’t recommend to the average hockey traveler. If you love Anaheim and Disneyland, go for it, but LA…at least the sunshine is nice.
Yet through the very different schedule for the 2026-27 season, the NHL did gift the Penguins some extra time in our favorite cities. Viva Las Vegas.
For the purposes of the best road trips, we’ll skip past the basic trips like Columbus, Buffalo, Philly, and Washington, D.C. Actually, PHN has lost several of our favorite hotels in those cities and has had to make do with budget-conscious options that we’ll not recommend for fans on a pleasure trip
unless you like seeing people lounging barefoot in the lobby, or drawing the shades and staying in the room waiting for Door Dash (I’m looking at you, New York Islanders).
Nope, we’ll make some strong recommendations for trips, including one that every hockey fan should take at least once.
Best Penguins Road Trips
5-4-3. Chicago-Denver-Vegas-Utah
Right out of the gate, October 13-19 is the best trip of the season. Chicago?
Yes, please. You can drive out because it’s much shorter than you think.
There’s even an overnight Amtrak from Pittsburgh to Chicago.
Now, the United Center isn’t in the greatest location. It was just two seasons ago that the security guard stopped me from taking the L around midnight with a firm suggestion: “No, bud, you want an Uber.” So, set aside a few bucks for the in-city travel.
When in Chicago, skip the tourist pizza because, well, it’s awful. Chicago pizza is sauce cake.
I don’t get it, don’t like it, moving on. Instead, go straight for Italian beef, and, again, blow off the touristy recommendations on Yelp.
Find Luke’s Italian Beef. It’s a little shop just a couple of doors up from the original Giordano’s.
Get the hot peppers on your sammich. It’s spectacular.
And go find the original Billy Goat’s Tavern. It’s downtown but not easy to find because it’s actually below N.
Michigan Ave. I wandered around for half an hour trying to find it before seeing the steps and exclaiming, “Cheezborger, Cheezborger.
No Coke. ”
There’s one location near the arena, which I thought was the original, but the actual OG, where Akroyd, Belushi, Murray, and the crew hung out, is downtown. They haven’t updated anything since they entered pop culture lore:
Denver: It’s a tough call to recommend Denver because it’s become quite expensive to stay in the city, but it is a great stop and one of the best nights out on the circuit. Usually, I struggle with budget-acceptable hotels in the city, but if cost isn’t an issue, Union Station is the area with the easiest walk to the barn, and downtown Denver is essentially a giant mall with trolley and bus service.
It’s quite convenient.
Now, the Denver airport is so extremely isolated from the city (isn’t that right, Illuminati?) that there’s a train running back and forth to downtown. It’s about a 40-minute ride, so plan accordingly, but it’s convenient.
There are two must-stops in Denver, at least for this greasy spoon aficionado. First, Sam’s No. 3 Diner.
The portions are plate-filling, old-school, hearty handshake-type Americana, and the green sauce is what you need to slather on everything. Then, a block away is the Tarantula Pool Hall, which takes me back to my carny roots.
It has good beer specials and has held this writer hostage on a few nights. There are plenty of spots in Denver, including some rooftop bars with champagne vending machines, but those two are the ones that keep me coming back.
