The short answer: My polo bucket list starts at the Shandur Polo Festival in Pakistan, played at about 12,000 feet on the highest polo ground in the world. Then the Genghis Khan Polo and Riding Club in Mongolia's Orkhon Valley. Then every great club in India, where the modern game was born, every polo club in the United Kingdom, the best clubs in Latin America, and every polo club in America, which I've already started.
I've played polo in Argentina, across the United States, and in Costa Rica, and traveled to polo clubs from Thailand to South Africa. Here's where I want to go next, and why each place is worth the trip.
1. Shandur Polo Festival, Pakistan
The Shandur Polo Ground sits in the Shandur Pass at roughly 3,700 meters, about 12,000 feet, which makes it the highest polo ground in the world. Every year, teams from Chitral and Gilgit-Baltistan meet there for a three-day festival. The festival used to be held in early July. In recent years it has moved into June, so check the dates before you plan.
I want to see polo played at 12,000 feet at least once in my life.
2. Genghis Khan Polo and Riding Club, Mongolia
German filmmaker Christopher Giercke founded the club in the 1990s to bring polo back to Mongolia and train young Mongolian riders. It sits in the Orkhon Valley, guests stay in traditional gers, and the polo season runs from late June to mid-September. Riding treks go out to nearby lakes, hot springs, and volcanoes. Polo on the steppe, on the horses of the steppe. That's the dream.
3. The best polo clubs in India
The modern game traces back to Manipur in northeast India. British tea planters formed the first European polo club at Silchar in 1859, and the Calcutta Polo Club, founded in the early 1860s, is the oldest polo club still in existence. The Imphal Polo Ground in Manipur is often called the oldest polo ground in the world. I want to play where the modern game was born.
4. Every polo club in the United Kingdom
Cowdray Park Polo Club, near Midhurst in West Sussex, was founded in 1910 and has hosted the Gold Cup for the British Open every July since 1956. When Memo Gracida, who has won more U.S. Open titles than anyone, talked with me about the best clubs in the world, Cowdray was on his list. I want to see every club in England, starting there.
5. The best polo clubs in Latin America
Argentina is where I learned to play, and it's still the center of the high-goal world. Memo's other pick was Tortugas, home of the Tortugas Open, which started in 1930 at what is described as the oldest country club in South America and is the first leg of the Argentine Triple Crown. I still picture Los Reyes in Costa Rica, with mountains in the background and orange suede leather director's chairs.
6. Every polo club in America
This is the one I started in 2021. The website said there were about 180 clubs. I've written about what I learned trying to visit all of them, and about the night I almost quit.
How to plan your own polo trip
Check the season first. Polo follows the weather. Here's when polo season is in the US.
Bring your own helmet. Everything else can usually be borrowed or rented.
Ask about the horses. Memo's advice to me: be careful of places that don't have safe horses.
Message ahead. My process is in how to play polo when you travel.
Polo, wherever you are. That's the promise behind PoloFlow, the app I'm building to make finding a game anywhere easy. Join the waitlist.
