On the Road With Jason Heyward, Who Wants More Trips to Cabo and Fewer Trips to Cincinnati

Few people on earth travel as often as professional athletes. With On the Road, the GQ Sports Travel Questionnaire, they’re weighing in on everything from room service to flying comfortably to their favorite chain restaurants.

This is Jason Heyward’s 14th year playing Major League Baseball. That’s 14 years of boarding (private) planes basically every three days, constantly checking in and out of hotels, and spending summers shuttling between America’s major cities. 

When he was with the Atlanta Braves, he became very familiar with the Southeast. His lone year in St. Louis gave way to seven with the Chicago Cubs, making him an expert on all things Midwest. Now playing his first year with the Los Angeles Dodgers, the 33-year-old is experiencing West Coast life for the first time. That endless jet setting has given Heyward ample time to think about packing strategies and the staples of a good hotel room—and to have witnessed some truly wild airplane behavior.  

What are some essential items you have to bring with you when traveling? 

I need to have some lotion. I need to have headphones for the music, and outside of that, I always have my iPad in my carry-on. I use that to watch video prepping for games. If it’s a long flight I’ll watch some shows or movies. The iPad is also good for FaceTime when I get to the hotel. 

What are you watching right now?

My wife and I just finished Snowfall, which was dope. It was tough to see the ending of that. I just started The Diplomat randomly. What else? Mayor of Kingstown has been pretty good. I’m waiting on Yellowstone and 1923 to come back around, and Succession is a cool one. 

Generally speaking, do you overpack or underpack?

Overpack, for sure. My wife always tells me that I got way too much stuff. But I err on the side of: you never know what you’re going to come across. You’re walking around and there’s bad weather, you sweat more than you thought you were going to, whatever. So I definitely have more shoes and shirts than I ever need. You don’t want to have to rely on other people, or rely on the ability to do laundry. I don’t want to figure that out! I’ll bring enough, and we’ll go from there. You have to be comfortable when you’re traveling. That’s what I’ve learned. Have what you need to have.

What makes a good hotel room and what makes a bad hotel room? 

A good one just starts with feeling clean. Obviously, there’s some hotels that are older, but as long as they do a good job keeping it clean—sheets, towels, not dusty—then you can go in there and feel like you’re truly at home on the road. 

A bad one is when not everything’s working in the room. If you have to go down to the front desk and tell them something doesn’t work—the phone, the TV, the lights, air conditioning—to me you gotta reset and change rooms. At the worst, change hotels completely, but I haven’t had to do that too often.