Here's Shaker's process.
First, we go to the WPI Regional. It's as close to a home regional as we have and we had a great time last year. We really like the small event size, the fact that it's on a college campus (students can see the campus and potentially tour if need be) and that the field has some strong teams in it (last year included 20, 190, 230, 2079, 3280).
However, we have enough flexibility that we can strongly consider eschewing the WPI regional. Back when we thought we'd have a budget this year
one consideration was attending both Waterloo and GTR, using the days in between to tour college campuses, visit science museums, and generally be educational. Unfortunately we found this wasn't really feasible this year, but it's on my list of regional paths I want to take.
For our second regional, we pick anything we can drive to from Shaker High on Thursday at 3 AM. Connecticut, Finger Lakes, Boston, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, and Long Island are the main choices here.