world cup BRAZIL 2014. flow into South American ski season

[mtcham]

My 2 cent tips for Brazil

If you want to learn portuguese check out the Pimsleur audio cd's at your library or buy them, they're inexpensive.

If you don't want to mess with the visas yourself, I've used Travisa and they get it done quickly. Plan ahead, the consulates only do so many a day.

Rio will be a shitshow but if you stay there check out the Mango Tree in Ipanema. Decent place with about the lowest rates you'll find and it's one block off the beach.

If you go to Sao Paulo my brother in law might store your skis, for a price

If you rent a car, the economy cars have like a 1 liter engine, bump to the next level for a car that actually has some power.

Soccer games there are rowdy, rowdy, rowdy-the world cup games will be just crazy

Go for as long as you can, such a great place!

[Bobby Finstock]

Soccer games there are rowdy, rowdy, rowdy-the world cup games will be just crazy

Unfortunately FIFA will have all the WC matches locked down tight.

[ate'em]

i'm in for the world cup. Brazil! FKNA!!!

down to the dirty work of logistics-
please chip in any info/insight you have, this trip seems quite the beast to plan. the collective can do it!

after looking over the schedule of games-
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/matches/matchschedule.html

i am thinking to base out of belo horizonte and porto alegre for the knockout rounds. take some quick flights to rio, sao, brasilia to catch a game for the day. seems realistic. staying in rio, etc sounds more spendy and also a bit sketchy. so i think the 'smaller' big cities might be a better value. party gonna be everywhere!

flying to brasil from colo/utah is gonna be some coin, best i can find is around $1300rt on American. gotta be a cheaper way? no?

game tickets not available yet, FIFA seems to have this locked down in some convoluted lottery scheme. legit ticket re-sellers (stubhub) seem to be prohibited from selling tickets. from what i see it is FIFA, or black market on the street. could be tough given demand to try and get tickets last minute in brazil.

trickiest of all, i think i am going to want to book flights/hotels this july, before any game tickets are released. then you know which games you need tickets for, sort of cart before horse, but it seems unavoidable. if i wait for tickets first, then flights and hotels are going to be booked out or prices through the roof.

wanted to give this a BUMP, get the wheels turning. trying to get the whole plan/budget together now, so that i can start making reservations in july while having an idea of what it is all gonna cost. not cheap! but copa mundial in brazil, not since 1950. once in a lifetime!

what we need now is-

-travelers with experience in brazil
-tips on cheap international flights
-insight on getting hands on match tickets

dream....to make it real.

[ate'em]

I thought I would share my choices so far and see what the world cup pros think about my plan, or what suggestions you have-

I booked a room in Rio for the Round of 16 (4 nights) and the Final (3 nights)
Most places didnt have pricing yet, quite a few were fully booked, but I found a B+B I liked in Santa Teresa for a reasonable price and jumped at it. The other less demanding reservations will come together as time gets closer.

I am planning to setup flights in and out of Rio in July, as soon as they become available. It seems that the games in Brasilia particularly would be easily accessable for a day trip from Rio, so I going to try to get game tickets for these too.

Tickets to the games seems overwhelming, but like others have said, just dont get too worried about things you cannot control. There are six games, including the final, that I am hoping to get a pair of tickets to. If not possible/ absurdly expensive, I will just enjoy Brazil and the football-loving atmosphere there.

What do you with WC experience figure is the way to approach tickets to these six specific games? Can I have friends apply in the lottery for me to help boost my chances? I dont think the VST or TST tickets will do me any good, so do I just apply one game at a time and hope for the best? Assuming I dont win the lottery, what will my fallback options be?

thanks in advance-

[Spew]

So. I did a recon mission at the beginning of this year. Spent 5 months in the south of Brasil on the island of Florianopolis, in Santa Catarina. Great trip, learned tons of Portuguese, traveled around the country. SO here's some things I will be considering for my own trip to Brasil in 2014.

Visa: The Visa process took a while, but it wasn't terrible. For those of you not close enough to a major city, you will either have to make the pilgrimage to one of the regional consular offices around the United States, or pay a third-party to handle the visa application process. The consulate officers like to fuck with you, love to say no, and generally make life difficult. It's about $160 for the visa, good for ten years. Upon my entry to Brasil in Sao Paulo, it was stamped for 6 months. There are 10 Brasilian Consulate offices in the USA. They can be found here. http://saofrancisco.itamaraty.gov.br...risdiction.xml They want you to have an itinerary, a bank statement, etc saying you're not a fuckup so you can come visit their country.

Flight: I flew on TAM and they are a great airline. Two free checked bags when I left (Jan 2013) and one of them was a surfboard. They didn't care! Prices are medium-high. Look on sites such as www.studentuniverse.com www.cheapoair.com and try to find a flight. I'm only buying a return flight this time, so not worrying about baggage or round trip flights. These flights are usually over $1200. I found a one-way for $500, but I think I got lucky. I'm definitely not bringing skis to South America on this trip. I'll be selling, unloading, giving away most of my things before my trip home.

Driving around Brasil: Driving is easy in Brasil. Finding a car might not be so easy. Driving on motos is a death wish, but certainly an adventure. I was lucky enough to find a girl with a nice car and we drove it all over South Brasil. They drive on the right side. The roads are ok, Traffic in Sao Paulo and Rio is outrageous. Driving around other parts of Brasil is easy, roads are in mediocre condition, gas is expensive. There are many buses (and overnight buses) that go all over the country. Most cities have well-functioning, cheap municipal bus system. Rush hour in the cities I've been to renders some roads gridlocked for a few hours. Sao Paulo has that happen, Florianopolis only rarely.

As everyone knows, there are 12 host cities in Brasil. http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/destina...ies/index.html For reference, Brasil is nearly the same size as the contiguous United States. there is no 'quick juant' between host cities, or even other cities. You will want to commit serious time to driving/exploring/adventuring all over Brasil unless you want to fly between cities. On the plus side, those 12 cities are committing enormous resources and money to updating the infrastructure to/from airports, stadiums, hotels so that they may handle the huge influx of people. Of the $30 billion being used to upgrade facilities, roughly 2/3 of that will be embezzled, used for bribes and graft or just outright wasted, so $10 billion should go a long way!

What Cities? The south+southeast region of Brasil (Rio, Sao Paulo, Curitiba, Porto Alegre) is the area I'm more familiar with, and it's part of the more populous part of the country, as well as the most developed. The Northeast part is a more rural area, with the exception of Salvador, Recife/Natal. Recifie is the birthplace of Brasilian Carnaval! (it's crazy there) one sport they have there is lighting homemade fireworks off that spin around on the ground, and then catching them by hand.

Where to stay? Brasil isn't cheap. Hotels during the world cup are going to be expensive, like Vancouver during the olympics. I don't have that kind of weight right now so I'm going to be staying in the cheapest places I can find. www.hostelworld.com/ has done well for me during my travels in Brasil. Many hostels are registered there and make an effort to maintain their reputation via accommodations, food, activities. Had great experiences with the Cabana Copa Hostel in Copa Cobana beach in Rio! Awesome place!

Tickets go on sale in August. http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/organis...ses/index.html I don't know how much they are, what teams play where, or how to even register. I'll look into it when information becomes available.