How I research
Every page starts the same way. I open the official tournament release for whatever I'm writing about (fixtures, venue policy, ticket phases) and read it end to end before I look at anything else. Then I go to the host city tourism board. NYC Tourism for New York. Visit Mexico for the three Mexican host cities. Destination Canada for Toronto and Vancouver. These are not glamorous reads. They are usually the source of the most boring, most accurate baseline information you can find: transit times, neighborhood boundaries, the actual name a metro line goes by in everyday speech.
After that I pull in the editorial layer. Lonely Planet for the long-form neighborhood feel. Time Out for what's open right now. Eater for restaurants (and what closed last month, which Eater is unusually good at flagging). The Michelin Guide when a city has one. I also read Reddit. A lot of it. Threads from fans who attended Russia 2018, Qatar 2022, and the 2024 Copa América are worth more than any official FAQ, especially anyone who showed up at a gate at 6pm with the wrong size backpack.
Stadium policies get cross-referenced against the venue's own published document. If the FIFA page says one thing and the venue page says another, I cite both and flag the conflict.
What gets verified before publishing
Kickoff times are checked against the official FIFA schedule, not a third-party blog. Stadium bag policies go straight to the venue page. Visa and entry requirements get verified against the relevant state department or immigration site (US DOS for the States, IRCC for Canada, INM for Mexico). I never cite a 2022 travel blog for visa info. The rules move too fast.
Hotel sample prices on the city pages get spot-checked monthly through the tournament window. Transit times come from Google Maps off-peak (a Wednesday at 2pm), not match day, because match-day numbers will be misleading by the time the tournament starts and the city closes a lane. Where match-day transit is genuinely different, I say so on the stadium page.
What we don't accept
No paid placements dressed up as recommendations. No sponsored posts. No "best hotel in X" lists where the order is set by commission rate. None of that has ever been on this site and none of it will be.
If I ever did sponsored work (I don't, but if I did), it would be labeled Sponsored at the very top of the page, in plain English, before the reader could see a single recommendation. That is the line.
Affiliate disclosure
Most hotel, flight, eSIM, insurance, ticket, transfer, and tour links on this site carry affiliate codes. If you click through and complete a booking, I earn somewhere between roughly 2 and 8 percent of the booking value, depending on the merchant. The commission is paid by the merchant, not added to your price. You pay the same amount you would pay if you booked directly.
Here is the rule I hold myself to. I only get paid after a fan would have made the booking anyway. That means I will not write a recommendation purely because the commission is higher. If two options are roughly equivalent on quality and price, I'll usually pair them and let you decide. If one option is genuinely better but pays nothing, it goes in anyway. Independence is the entire product.
When we get something wrong
Email arrives. I read it within 48 hours. I verify the claim against the source. If the page is wrong, I fix it (usually within 24 to 48 hours), and the page gets a fresh Updated date. For material corrections (anything that affected a travel or money decision), I leave a visible note at the top of the page. I don't quietly amend.
I get things wrong sometimes. There are 12 host cities, 16 stadiums, 104 fixtures, and roughly 220 pages on this site. Some of them were written from research rather than from being on the ground (I haven't been to every city, and my own travel spreadsheet is messy). When I'm wrong, I'd rather hear it from a reader than discover it later.
Sources we cite
The sources I lean on most often, in roughly the order I open them:
- Lonely Planet (neighborhood guides, long-form context)
- Time Out (what's open now, food and nightlife)
- Eater (restaurants, openings, closures)
- Michelin Guide (where it covers the host city)
- US Department of State (entry requirements, advisories)
- GOV.UK travel advice (a useful sanity check on US DOS)
- Host city tourism boards: NYC Tourism, Visit Mexico, Destination Canada, Visit Dallas, Discover LA, and the others
- The 16 stadium venue websites (always the primary source for bag policy, gate times, parking)
- FIFA.com for the official match schedule and ticket phases
- Reddit threads from fans who attended Russia 2018, Qatar 2022, and the 2024 Copa América
The list is open. If you think there's a source I should be reading that I'm not, tell me.
Get in touch for corrections
Corrections, missing info, a tip from your own city, anything: the address is contact@worldcuptravelguide2026.com . I commit to reading everything that lands there within 48 hours. I can't promise I'll act on every suggestion, but I will read it, and if it's a correction it will go to the top of the queue.
Independent. Boringly thorough. Paid by merchants, not by you.