FIFA World Cup 2026 Travel Guide

Host of the 2026 World Cup Final on July 19. MetLife Stadium sits in East Rutherford, New Jersey, an 8-mile train ride from Manhattan via NJ Transit's Meadowlands event service. The NYC area is the deepest hospitality market in the world, with more than 700 hotels across the five boroughs plus Hoboken and Jersey City. Group-stage matches here will pull in the largest expat crowds of the tournament. The cheapest practical move is staying on the New Jersey side: rates run 30 to 50 percent below Manhattan with a 25-minute PATH train ride.

SoFi Stadium opened in 2020 in Inglewood, $5.5 billion under a translucent ETFE roof canopy. Los Angeles is the largest Mexican city outside Mexico itself, the largest Salvadoran city outside El Salvador, the largest Korean city outside Korea — visiting teams find built-in supporter bases here unlike anywhere else in the tournament. The Pacific surf, the Hollywood film machine, and a serious immigrant food culture come with the package. Traffic is the main practical constraint: any pre-match plan that assumes you can cross LA in less than 45 minutes is wrong. The Metro C Line drops you within walking distance of the stadium, the only sensible match-day mode.

AT&T Stadium in Arlington is the largest 2026 venue, around 80,000 in FIFA's soccer configuration. Arlington sits squarely between Dallas and Fort Worth in the DFW metroplex, equidistant to two distinct downtown cultures. Dallas is corporate, polished, and food-forward (top-end Tex-Mex, steakhouses, a serious Vietnamese pho scene from Garland). Fort Worth is the older Texas: stockyards, country bars, cowboy culture without irony. The practical hotel move is staying in Arlington itself if you have multiple matches, downtown Dallas for nightlife between matches.

Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, 17 miles north of South Beach. Miami is the gateway city for South American fans flying into the tournament: more nonstop flights to Bogotá, Lima, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo than any other US airport. Spanish runs as a first language across most of the metro, the Cuban-Colombian-Venezuelan-Brazilian mix gives the food scene a depth other US host cities can't match. Match-day humidity is the actual constraint: June afternoons in Miami Gardens cross 90F with 80 percent humidity, evening kickoffs are dramatically more humane. The beach culture and the nightlife are the obvious draws between matches.

Mercedes-Benz Stadium opened in 2017 with a pinwheel retractable roof. Hartsfield-Jackson is the busiest passenger airport in the world, making Atlanta an easy connection hub for fans flying in from anywhere. The city is the cultural capital of the US South: hip-hop's modern center, the civil rights movement's headquarters, the most consistently underrated food scene in the country. MARTA's Red and Gold lines drop you a five-minute walk from the stadium, the rare US venue where rail beats driving on match day. Strong African (West and East), Caribbean, and Korean communities mean visiting teams from those regions will find a local crowd.

NRG Stadium has a retractable roof and full A/C, genuinely necessary in Houston's June heat and humidity. Houston is the most ethnically diverse US city by census measures, with strong Vietnamese, Mexican, Salvadoran, Nigerian, and Indian communities giving most visiting teams a built-in local crowd. The city's neighborhoods read more like distinct small cities than districts: Montrose (food, art), Heights (craft beer, antique row), Chinatown (the actual best food, Bellaire Boulevard not the tourist Chinatown). NRG Park sits south of downtown, with the METRORail Red Line running straight to it from the urban core. The energy capital's oil wealth shows up as world-class restaurants and museums priced at no-fly-over-state levels.