I was having a look at ticket availability on the FIFA website and Port Elizabeth is looking like a good bet if you want to see some games. Is this because of its location or the games that are being staged there?
Of all the venues to be hosting games in a few weeks time, there are four geographical outposts: Durban, Bloemfontein, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. The other locations (Johannesburg, Tshwane/Pretoria, Rustenburg, Nelspruit and Polokwane) are relatively close to each other and easily driveable for those wishing to move around a bit and see a few games. It'll be chilly up there though.
Cape Town has a Mediterranean climate and is easy to get to and was always going to be popular. The fact that France, Italy, England and Holland are all playing there during the group stages will help. There are currently no tickets available for any games in Cape Town. If you wanted to drive to the nearest venue from Cape Town to take in another game, that would be Port Elizabeth 750 km away. It would cost you a couple of hundred quid per person for a return flight on Kulula, the low cost airline. I don't think it normally costs this much!
Port Elizabeth is lucky enough to be hosting England, Germany, Portugal and Cote d' Ivoire amongst others - but there are still tickets available. The next stop travelling along the coast would be Durban, a further 950 km away. Or maybe you would prefer Bloemfontein heading north and inland for around 650 km. From Durban, Johannesburg is 550 km or 400km from Bloemfontein. To get around you need to be up north.
Durban might be more attractive than Port Elizabeth with its beaches and hosting Brazil v Portugal, as well as Germany, Spain and Netherlands. Lucky Durban. If they hadn't have been so lucky in terms of the draw there may still have been plenty of match tickets available. So maybe it was a bit of a lottery. We bought tickets before the draw was made for the first two games in Cape Town as we knew we were staying there, because it's Cape Town and it wouldn't matter which games we went to see. Although if we had've guessed better we could've had England v Algeria tickets first off! Port Elizabeth has Addo Elephant Park though, somewhere we intend to go at some point in the future. But not for this trip. Bloemfontein is close to Kimberley, home to The Big Hole diamond mine so there are other major attractions in the more isolated World Cup venues but possibly not enough to compensate for their respective distances from Jo'burg, Pretoria and the like.
I think that unless you can afford to take quite a few internal fights, or you have a booked a package with a tour operator then basing yourself in one location is the best option. Jo'burg would probably be best from a geographical point of view but based on our one 24 hour stay there, I wouldn't want to stay there for two weeks.
Give me Cape Town any day.
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