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South Africa Travel Tips for World Cup 2010

worldcup4You don’t have to be a hard-core soccer fan (or football fan, depending on where you’re from) to be interested in attending a World Cup. It’s the most-watched sports event in the world, and in addition to being a great way to see a country at its celebratory best it’s also an ideal situation if you like mingling with people from all over the world in one place.

The upcoming 2010 World Cup in South Africa is also an excellent excuse to visit a country with lots to do and see even if you’re not a sports nut.

But as is the case with any trips you’re planning, there’s some travel planning you’re going to want to do – and it’s even more important in this case when the country is going to be hosting (by some estimates) more than a million extra people during the tournament. So here are a few quick South Africa travel tips for the World Cup, and some links to find more handy travel information.

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Should you buy World Cup package travel deals or not?

worldcup3Budget travelers are always looking for ways to save money when they venture out into the world – and smart budget travelers know that sometimes booking a vacation package is the best way to do just that. Anytime there’s a big event – in this case, I’m talking about the World Cup – the travel industry comes out in force to provide more vacation package options than you can shake a stick at, and many of them look really tempting. But are they really the great deal the ads say they are?

Vacation packages make travel shopping easy, it’s true – you get everything booked for your trip in one fell swoop. Vacation prep, done and dusted. But they’re counting on you thinking like that instead of stepping back for a moment to compare package prices with what it would cost to book each piece of the deal individually. Unfortunately, as boring as this might sound, it’s exactly what you need to do to make sure you’re actually going to save money by booking the package.

In the end, if the convenience factor means more to you than the budget factor, then a package might still be the way to go regardless of the savings (or lack thereof) – but this is definitely something to be aware of when you’re shopping around.

>> The next World Cup events are: Women’s World Cup in 2011, Men’s World Cup in 2014

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Airports in South Africa to Use for World Cup 2010

worldcup2There are travel enthusiasts, and there are sports fans. Both can be evangelical about their passion, so you can probably imagine what happens when you combine the two. All it takes is a major sporting event to bring out the best (or worst, depending on your point of view) of these crowds – but the good news is that you don’t have to be both. A huge soccer fan or a travel junkie can appreciate the idea of going to South Africa for the World Cup in 2010, and the trip might make each group appreciate the other group as well!

One stumbling block on the road to South Africa, however, is that airfare to any of the World Cup cities isn’t cheap – and the prices are only going up between now and the tournament. Along with these other suggestions for how to find cheap airfare to South Africa for the World Cup, I wanted to talk about the idea of flying into alternate airports in a bit more detail – since there are nine host cities, there are more options to cover.

Often times when you’re flying into a major city, it’s a good idea to look at airports other than the main airport for that city in case one of the smaller area airports has cheaper flights. This isn’t always the case, but it’s almost always worth looking.

In South Africa, there are nine cities where World Cup games will be held, but not all of them present mutliple-airport options. In this article I’ll talk about the airports in some of the World Cup cities – which will be handy whether you’re looking for alternate airports to fly into or if you’re flying between cities in South Africa to attend games in multiple cities.

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How to Find Cheap World Cup Airfare for South Africa 2010

worldcup1The world outside your window may look like a winter wonderland right now, but if you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of people (some projections are for more than a million to show up!) planning to go to South Africa for the World Cup in the summer of 2010 and you haven’t already booked your trip – what are you waiting for?

Seriously, we know that summer 2010 may feel like it’s really far away right now, but it’s not as far away as you think. And when an event of this magnitude only happens every four years, you can bet that people in the travel industry – including the airlines – have been planning for it for a lot longer than you have. What’s more, they’ve been jacking up their prices on flights to South Africa, since they know so many people will be going.

Now, if you’re one of the lucky people who got tickets to World Cup games in the lottery, then you’re going to be buying airline tickets to South Africa no matter what. But wouldn’t it be great not to pay a king’s ransom for them? Yes. Yes, it would.

Here are our tips for finding cheap airfare to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010.

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Dallas Travel Tips for NBA All-Star Weekend

nba3It’s really nice of the organizers of the 2010 NBA All-Star Weekend to hold it in Dallas, a city that’s warm in February when the event takes place. I’m sure the temperature outside isn’t the main thing the organizers consider when they’re planning the weekend, but it’s still quite considerate of them. Because what do you need more than anything else if you live in a cold place? A trip to a warm place in February.

In other words, even if you’re not a huge fan of basketball this is a great excuse to pack your bags for warmer climes just when you need it. And it’s an even better excuse to plan a trip around the weekend sporting activities – so you can soak up as much of that much-needed sun as possible.

Ultimately, however, whether you’re just spending the weekend in Dallas or you decide to turn it into a longer trip, you’re going to need a little bit of travel advice. This article isn’t going to give you everything you need for your trip to Dallas, but it’ll get you started. Here are a few Dallas travel tips for the NBA All-Star Weekend.

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Miami Travel Tips for the Super Bowl

miamiThe 2010 Super Bowl – Super Bowl XLIV (or Super Bowl 44, for those of you who can’t read Latin numbers) – will be in Miami on February 7, 2010. Miami has hosted the event nine times in the past, and it’s not hard to understand why. If your big event were held each year in one of the notoriously dreariest months, wouldn’t you want to make sure it happened in a sunny climate?

Yeah, me too.

So, even if you’re not the world’s biggest football fan, or your favorite team isn’t even in the playoffs, there are still some decent reasons for making the trip to Miami for the Super Bowl. If, for instance, your significant other loves the game, why not tag along and get a Florida holiday out of it?

No matter what the reasoning behind it, if you’re going to Miami for the Super Bowl you’ll need some travel advice. Which is what we’re here to deliver.

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Fan with a Plan can Help you with your Next Sports Vacation

weekend-watch-face.jpgTraveling halfway around the world to see a sporting event always sounded a bit far fetched for me until this past summer when I went to Germany for the World Cup. I was amazed by the number of soccer fans from all corners of the globe who were willing to spend gobs of money to go watch their teams and to soak up the party atmosphere that is the World Cup. It was an amazing experience and one that has got me thinking that it could be fun to travel to foreign lands again in the future for global sporting events like the Olympics.

Our good friends at Visa – you might know them from the massive amounts of money you owe them – have launched a new Web site called Fan with a Plan to help guide people who travel for sports events. The site has a few handy features to help you plan your next global jaunt including:

* Tools like ATM locator and currency converter ensure that fans are not without a financial plan on their trips.

* Special offers and discounts for various restaurants, spas, and hops help fans to plan their trip in the most efficient way.

* Interactive advice that makes the drudgery of planning less drudgerous (why is that not a word?)

It is never too early to start planning your trip to the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. Make sure you pack plenty of face paint.

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