World Cup: Stay Or Go?

The World Cup is the greatest event in the world. Period.

And hundreds of Americans, who have made the U.S. the top ticket purchaser aside from South Africa for the 2010 cup, will have the time of their life on the other side of the world next summer.

If you’re still waffling on whether or not to take the plunge, as I was until recent weeks, you’ll find no better travel guide on the Web than the one written by Sports Illustrated reporter Grant Wahl. He proclaims his love for the country and the time he spent there, but also hands down a warning to visitors.

In six months, we walked on the sidewalks outside our apartment exactly once (to go to a cricket game at the nearby stadium). It’s too dangerous, we were told. The sad truth was that you almost never saw white people walking on residential sidewalks, even during the day, and those who did stood out.

If the $2,000 airfare and the tricky transportation from city to city in South Africa isn’t enough to make you stick to the States, the crime just might.

It will be a very different experience than what Americans encountered four years ago in Germany. By using the world’s greatest public transportation, they hopped from city to city and match to match.

On a balmy night in Stuttgart, I saw Fernando Torres run rampant over Tunisia in a 3-1 win for Spain. By the time the match ended, it was 11 p.m. and we were 15 miles away from our hotel. A train took us as far as it could into the suburbs.

We wandered the streets, looking for a bus line or a cab to take us the final two miles to our hotel. All the while, we felt perfectly safe.

Those type of adventures too frequently end tragically in Johannesburg, it appears.

If, by the time you reach the end of Wahl’s column, you’re still considering the trip. Maybe his postscript, in which he mourns the loss of a photographer friend killed in an attempted carjacking the week prior, is enough to force you onto your favorite bar stool this summer.