There a lot of things that are great about summer: warm weather, BBQ’s, wearing flip-flops, shedding your pale winter skin and New Belgium’s Skinny Dip beer, to name a few. But vacations and all the great sporting events that take place during the summer months are two things that definitely top my list. Fortunately, if you’re a sports junkie like me, you can incorporate seeing your favorite competition played out in some of the best destination vacation travel spots.

You can head to Paris to see the second major tennis tournament of the year, the French Open. This year, many fans started off the day cheering for top doubles players, the American Bryan Brothers, and French sensation Gael Monfils before hitting up the Eiffel Tower and devouring freshly baked croissants. If you’re headed to France during the month of July, you can check out the Tour de France running from the 3rd to the 25th. The Tour starts and ends in Paris but stages are held throughout the entire country. Pick your favorite location and coordinate the dates to watch the race, remember not to blink too much though, or else you might miss the cyclists whizzing by at over 33 mph.

Other European hotspots for sports include London for the Wimbledon tennis tournament taking place June 21st  to July 4th or the PGA’s British Open in coastal Fife, Scotland, running from July 15th -18th.

If you’re staying stateside, check out the NBA finals in Los Angeles and Boston (this year) throughout the month of June. Or take a trip to a famed ballpark (the hotdogs at Wrigley Field in Chicago are said to be unmatched by any other). If golf’s your thing, you can plan a sun-filled trip to Pebble Beach, California for this year’s U.S. Open Jun. 17th-20th. Better yet, visit your Aunt Betty in Wisconsin and head up to Whistling Straits for the PGA Championship Aug.12th-15th. Want to visit NYC? Book a trip Aug. 30th – Sept. 12th and watch the world’s best tennis players duke it out at the U.S. Open.

Last but not least, who can forget the greatest sporting event in the world, the FIFA World Cup? Every four years, I camp out in front of my television for an entire month and watch the 32 best soccer teams from around the globe fight for bragging rights and title of the world’s number one team. The tourney takes place in nine host cities throughout South Africa starting June 11th and lasting through July 11th, but America’s first game is the 12th against England. Prepare for bloodthirsty fans running down the street of your local pub with their nation’s flag tied around them like a cape. And if you so choose to partake in this activity, I promise not to judge.