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Field of Dreams Baseball Field
Think the Field of Dreams Baseball Field was just a backlot somewhere in Hollywood? Guess again! It’s REAL and is located in Dyersville, Iowa. Best of all, it’s open year-round and is FREE to visit.
One of our favorite things about traveling is the chance to discover new and interesting places to stop and explore. When we road trip, we always try to leave a little bit of flexibility in our schedule so that if we see something that piques our interest as we drive, we can stop and check out it, even if just for a few minutes. One of the earliest memories I have of this “off the beaten path” type of traveling is back in 2005. Bob and I were in Las Vegas doing some scouting for our possible Vegas wedding. We stayed in Vegas for a couple of days, checking out venues and meeting with wedding coordinators before hopping in our rental car and pointing it west towards California. We would spend a few days in Cali doing the tourist thing before hopping a plane back to PA from Los Angeles.
Anyway.
Back to the road trip. Vegas is a few hours by car from LA, so as we cruised through the San Bernardino Valley, a sign caught our eye. It was a billboard for a very tourist-trap-looking (literal) hole in the earth – Calico Ghost Town featuring Maggie Mine, a silver mine last mined in the 1800s. Oh yeah, this place had Clark Griswold written all over it! We stopped, we snapped pics, we still talk about it to this day. I can’t recall many other happenings during that drive from NV to CA, but the ghost town? Will never forget it!
Fast forward.
This past summer, we went on a most epic road trip to Yellowstone National Park. Along the way, we stopped at many places where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived, a Little House on the Prairie road trip en route to Wyoming.
We decided to detour a little on the way home, taking a slightly different route back to Pennsylvania. (Yeah, yeah, it was to see another Laura Ingalls Wilder homestead site.) Well, that site just so happened to be in Iowa. After we drove by that LIW site, we continued on a hilly highway with rolling corn fields as far as the eye could see. And that’s when Bob saw a tiny little sign that said the Field of Dreams movie site was just a mile or two away.
The Field of Dreams Baseball Field is real and open to visitors year round for FREE!
After Bob spotted the sign on the side of the highway for the Field of Dreams Baseball Field movie site, we knew immediately that this was worthy of a stop! The farm in Dyersville, IA where the 1989 movie, Field of Dreams, was filmed (starring Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones) was a real farm that (just like in the movie) mowed down corn fields to put up the baseball field. Apparently the original farm owners were approached and asked if they might consider letting their farm be the setting for the film. They said yes and ultimately, their home was chosen as the location.
So with a quick turn off of US Highway 52, we followed a couple windy roads before finally turning onto Lansing Road and seeing this:
The Field of Dreams Movie site is FREE to visitors!
That’s right! Not only is this attraction the perfect little slice of classic Americana, it also won’t cost you a dime to visit! When you pull in from the long stone driveway, you will find a small parking area next to the barn. There are restrooms (port-o-potties) in the parking lot.
As you walk from the parking area towards the baseball field, the white farmhouse with wraparound porch that was so prominent in the movie, will be on your right. From what I understand, the farmhouse is no longer a private residence but instead has some offices inside. You can take a farmhouse tour, though that will cost you a few dollars. We did not have a lot of time for our visit, so we skipped the tour and continued to the ball field.
Now of course, this being America and all, there was also a small souvenir stand. There you could buy various pieces of movie themed memorbilia, including shirts, hats, even pencils that had the Field of Dreams logo splashed on them. One thing that we did find very interesting is that the field owners still have to pay a large sum to use that movie logo on anything they sell. I would imagine that this cuts down on their profits considerably, and remember that the field is free to visit. There were a few vending machine food items available at the stand as well – including soda and ice cream.
Can you play baseball on the Field of Dreams field?
Yes, you sure can! You can bring your own ball, bat and glove and have a little catch or batting practice right there on that very famous baseball field. It’s open to everyone, so don’t arrive with your entire Little League team expecting to have the entire field to yourself. But definitely run the bases, walk the outfield, sit on the wooden bleachers and of COURSE, step into the cornfield!!
If you build it, they will come.
We came, we saw, we were so glad that we did. And if, at some point during your future travels, you find yourself on or not far from US 52 heading through Dyersville, IA, we highly recommend the stop!
Always remember that sometimes when you travel, it’s the unscheduled stops that end up being among the most memorable! I wasn’t even paying attention to the side of the road when Bob spotted a blue sign pointing to the Field of Dreams movie site. If he had not seen it, we never would have known that we were driving just about a mile or two from the filming location of one of our very favorite movies!
