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Thinking of travelling to the World Cup next year in South Africa? If so read on!

I should probably start by introducing myself. My name is Justin and I have been working at Gabem for nearly 7 years now in the Invoicing dept. Basically my job is to raise your invoices and get you paid on time. I've supported Liverpool for as long as I can remember, and I am hoping that next year England do well in the World Cup (no penalty shoot-outs please).

Well I got to thinking since England qualified, that there will be many people considering going to South Africa to support their respective countries, and I thought as I was doing the research anyway I would put together as much useful information as I could and post it up here, to help you get over there and enjoy seeing your country do well.

Health

Before we get to the fun of buying tickets and sorting out accommodation I should probably cover any health concerns you may have about travelling to South Africa. You may have heard that there is a risk of catching Malaria in South Africa. This is true, but the main risk comes from the Northeast and low altitude areas of the Northern Province. All of the games are being played in areas that have been made safe from Malaria, plus it will be winter in South Africa when the World Cup is being played so the number of mosquitoes should be significantly less. Unless you are planning on spending time outside the game cities you shouldn't be at significant risk. All that said I am no Doctor so I would strongly suggest you go see your GP for medical advice on going to South Africa and follow what they say.

Malaria of course is not the only risk, there are other medical precautions you need to think about before visiting South Africa. While you are visiting your GP there are other vaccinations you should consider and discuss with them. The recommended vaccinations are: Tetanus (available as part of a three in one vaccine that includes diphtheria and polio), Hepatitis A and Typhoid. These vaccinations are free depending on what your GP's practice offers.

Here's what the NHS says about travelling to South Africa.

Traveldoctor also has some reasonable information on what vaccinations you might need

Tickets

Ok now on to the fun part and the reason I am writing this.....Tickets to the games! If you're lucky enough to be going to the World Cup, you need to start thinking now about getting tickets to any match or matches you want to see. It's extremely important you get your tickets from a reputable source here in the UK. Don't wait till you are out there hoping to get one, as there will be countless forgeries and it would be a disaster to waste all that money on getting to South Africa and not being able to see to a match. You can apply online for a ticket at the Official FIFA World cup site.

The Official FIFA World Cup site has an excellent FAQ with all sorts of questions and answers concerning tickets, match schedules, and info on the application process for tickets.

Passports and Visas

If you are a British Passport holder and don't intend to stay in South Africa for more than 90 days you don't need to apply for a Visa. If however you don't have a British passport then please check with your national Embassy for more info on what Visa requirements are in place, as they will vary depending on which passport you hold.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has stated that your passport must be valid for at least 30 days after you intend to leave South Africa and they also advise that you have two blank pages in your passport on arrival. Again if you aren't a British passport holder then please speak to your Embassy to see what requirements apply to you.

With regards to accommodation you need to start thinking about booking where you are going to stay and any flights over there as soon as possible as places are filling up fast and prices are only going to go up. It's also worth considering how you'll be travelling around South Africa, specifically to and from games. The longer you leave booking somewhere the less choice you have and it may even mean you finding out that everything is booked up. You have hotels, B&B's and guest houses to think about staying in whilst out there.

A couple of places you could look for World Cup accommodation on the net are listed below, but bear in mind things are booking up very fast:

The FIFA page covering hotels for the world cup

Tripadvisor, a user review website of hotels and holiday locations, may give you access to smaller hotels than the FIFA site.

Travelling within South Africa

Travelling around South Africa might not be quite what you would expect here at home. There are taxis, buses and trains available, but the standard and volume of service available to the masses of fans expected to visit South Africa is all under scrutiny by the press at the moment.

While I don't want to be a scaremonger I feel I must say that at present reading articles about public transport in South Africa that there are concerns from everyone; politicians, fans and the organisers of the World Cup. Serious steps are being taken to make it safer to travel in South Africa, but for the time being there are problems. I will come to what precautions to take whilst travelling in South Africa in my next post and I'll go into more detail about the various means of transport available to you over there.

As part of your planning you will need to look at what group your country has been drawn in and when and where each match will be played, as a few of the games being played involve travelling from one side of the country to the other. If you are going to follow your country for a number of games, a good idea would be to book as many of the internal flights as you can prior to getting to South Africa. If you don't then make sure you budget for any extra flights you might need out there.

Insurance

It might seem like an obvious thing to mention but I can't stress the importance of making sure you have medical and travel insurance. I would go as far as saying that this may be a once in a life time opportunity and South Africa is such a long way from home, you don't want something outside your control to ruin it. When you choose your medical and travel insurance get the most comprehensive you can afford, but cross your fingers and hope you never have to use it.

You can check out most insurance comparison websites for the sort of travel and medical insurance you can get.

Alternatively you could visit Martin Lewis over at Moneysavingexpert who has some advice on finding cheaper insurance.

You may also consider using the site topcashback to help you choose who you get your insurance through, just be sure to read about how it works.

I hope you enjoyed reading this and found it useful, look out for more info appearing in the blog over the next few weeks. Please e-mail in if you think something needs to be added or even to leave your comments

Justin
23/10/2009

Image Sources:

• "UK Passport" original photo was taken by King Chung Huang's photostream and used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic License
• "South African train" was taken by Dewet and found on Wikimedia Commons it is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 Generic License