Although I am looking forward to almost every element of this winter’s World Cup in South Africa there are two issues I am dreading. As someone who travels to the country annually, I am not especially excited about being confused with the typical tourist. I am even less excited about the prospect of everything being more expensive than it ordinarily would be. There are real fears of price gouging that the country will only be able to address marginally.
One way for Europeans, Americans, and other non-South Africans to avoid the worst gouging will be to utilize domestic search engines, to inquire about prices in rands, and to do some legwork early on so as not to be taken for a ride. You can book internal flights late in South Africa without the same steep costs that doing so in the US would incur, so don’t be afraid to book to your final destination and then hit a site like kulula for flights in the country. And if you have never been to South Africa before, there is one lesson you should learn right away: Respect the currency. The dollar is very strong against the rand, but tossing around 100 rand notes because you think they are worthless might make for quite a shock when you get home and look at your bank account.
