Europe trip 2024: Beaches, soccer and pizza (with one bag)

Following our trip to Europe in 2022, Krystal and I saved to return in 2024. 

We once again focused our travel around soccer, with visits to Monaco to watch Folarin Balogun, to Milano to watch Christian Pulisic and Yunus Musah (who was sidelined for the match we attended) and to Eindhoven to watch Malik Tillman, Ricardo Pepi, Richy Ledezma and Sergiño Dest (who was injured when we visited in May 2024). 

If you're a soccer fan like us (or a fan of any sports or concerts), you can get $20 off your first ticket order on SeatGeek with promo code JONHEATH. The code will work for newly created accounts making a first-time purchase. 

We made the trip again with our 40-liter MATEIN backpacks, which are on sale for $23.99. It was, admittedly, a long trip for one bag, but we were able to do laundry at the midway point.

All of the water videos below were filmed on Krystal's GoPro Hero 10, which is not the latest model, but somewhat of a bargain at $249.99. 

I booked our overnight stays on Hotels.com, and we earned OneKeyCash with each booking. A big plus of Hotels.com is that you can double dip with cash back from Rakuten as well. If you don't have a Rakuten account yet, you should sign up today because you can activate cash back for everyday purchases, and there's a $30 cash back bonus for your first $30 purchase! 

I used my VISA Southwest Rapid Rewards signature credit card to book all our flights, and I used it for all of our card purchases during the trip because there are no foreign transaction fees. You can sign up for a Southwest credit card using my referral link and get 50,000 bonus points for meeting purchase requirements. Not having to pay foreign transaction fees is a huge perk for a travel. 

Our journey started with a strategically-time Iceland layover that gave us an opportunity to visit the Blue Lagoon and the Bridge Between Continents before hiking over to the ocean and then continuing on to London for an overnight pit stop. 

Stop 1: Iceland and the Blue Lagoon 

From London, we flew to Nice and then took a train to Monaco. We stopped by the Monte Carlo Casino and then visited the prince's automobile collection and toured the palace. Then came perhaps the most memorable part of the trip -- AS Monaco's game against Clermont Foot 63. 

We had purchased front-row seats in the 16,360-seat Stade Louis II stadium and arrived early with an American flag. Balogun spotted us as soon as he walked in for warmups and after the game ended, he took a soccer ball straight to us. I asked if I could trade the U.S. flag for his jersey and before I could even finish asking, he whipped off his jersey and asked us where we were visiting from. Some very nice fans sitting next to us gave us a Sharpie, and Balo signed the shirt off his back and then signed the customized Orlando Magic jersey I had brought (if you know, you know). 

We traveled from Pennsylvania to Europe to watch some USMNT stars. First stop is Monaco to watch @balogun 🇺🇸

After the game he brought us over a ball and gave us his jersey‼️ Thanks, Balo! 🫡 pic.twitter.com/J76kDYhn6j

— jon (@jonmark93) May 4, 2024

Stop 2: Monaco and Folarin Balogun

After the Monaco stop, we took two trains to get to Milano to watch AC Milan host Genoa CFC at San Siro the next day. We had front-row seats again, and watching the match in the 75,817-seat stadium was quite an experience, but Milan conceded late in what was a disappointing draw for them. Pulisic was understandably frustrated and went straight to the tunnel after the game. We held up another U.S. flag (I packed three), hoping for another Balogun experience, but Pulisic "only" gave us a little wave before leaving the field. Still an amazing experience, and had we not been spoiled in Monaco, we probably would have been delighted even by a wave. I will still plug the Pulisic documentary, which you can stream on Paramount+. With coverage of Serie A and the Champions League, Paramount+ is the only streaming service that I willingly subscribe to. (Sign up!)

Stop 3: Milan and Christian Pulisic

After the Milan game, I flew to Napoli for pizza school, and Krystal flew to Greece to help with a summer church camp. I attended a 10-day class at Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana to learn the art of making true Neapolitan pizza, with a weekend day trip to Procida between class days. The first few days were extremely difficult, but like everything, it got better with practice. My pizza has greatly improved following the class, but I'm still perfecting the craft with my outdoor Gozney oven. We were allowed to take video during the introductory instructions at the class, but we were too busy making dough and pizzas on ensuring days to have time for much filming beyond that. (For those who are interested in pizza but don't want to commit to a week-plus course, there are plenty of day classes in Napoli.)

Stop 4: Napoli and AVPN pizza school 

Krystal met me in Napoli the day I graduated from AVPN, then we took a train to Rome so we could fly from there to Sardinia. We flew into Olbia and our host (San Francisco Hotel) connected us with a private transfer to drive us from the airport about an hour to Cala Gonone. The hotel is at a great location, just a short walk away from Cala Gonone, where we secured a boat from Dolmen Boat Rental (of note for that link: you can use Rakuten to get 10% cash back on Tripadvisor and countless other sites -- sign up for free!). After a rewarding but grueling pizza class, boating down Sardinia's coast and jumping in the (very cold mid-May) water was extremely refreshing. 

Stop 4: Cala Gonone boat rental  

Following the boat outing in Sardinia, we made our way back to Olbia and took a flight to the Netherlands. We went to the Corrie Ten Boom Museum in Haarlem and the Ann Frank House in Amsterdam before taking a train to Eindhoven. The next day, we watched PSV host RKC Waalwijk at Philips Stadium. We opted to get luxury seat locations for the Monaco and Milan games, and we had no choice for the PSV match because buying a special package was the only ticket option for foreigners. A plus of that package was a credit at the team store, so we got two soccer balls, which came in handy after the game when Malik Tillman stopped on his way out of the stadium and signed the balls and took a photo with us. Richy Ledezma also stopped for a photo. Dest (recovering from injury) and Pepi did not greet the fans who lined up at the player exit outside the stadium. 

Stop 4: PSV game in Eindhoven

After the Netherlands visit, we flew to Lisbon and rented a car to drive about 40 minutes south to one of Portugal's most beautiful secluded beaches: Praia do Ribeira do Cavalo. The vantage point overlooking the beach (in the video below) was one of the coolest views I've ever seen on a trip. After exploring the beach, we drove to Sintra (and Krystal navigated an extremely tight street) to stay at NH Sintra Centro, a perfect location for the next day's activities. The following morning, we hiked up the mountain to Pena Palace (a tiring but scenic trek), then we hiked over to the Castle of the Moors. Both provided amazing views of Sintra. 

Stop 5: Praia do Ribeira do Cavalo 

After visiting those beautiful locations in Portugal, we drove back to Lisbon and flew to London and then back to Iceland for our connecting flight home to the States. It was a whirlwind of a three-week trip, but an amazing adventure with fun soccer games, beautiful blue water and delicious food. What's next?

Thank you for clicking the links on my website! I can earn small commissions when readers purchase services and products through the referral links on my blog. 

How to guarantee the chance to buy tickets for 2026 World Cup

(FIFA Collect)

The 2026 World Cup is coming to North America next summer, and ticket demand will likely set records. 

FIFA says there were 23 million World Cup ticket requests in 2022, but only 3.4 million tickets were available. With those odds, the chances of winning the lottery to buy 2026 World Cup tickets will be slim. 

There is good news for fans who don't want to wait for the lottery and risk not winning a chance to buy World Cup tickets. There are currently two ways to guarantee yourself tickets to the 2026 World Cup without having to wait for the lottery process. 

The first option is buying hospitality tickets from FIFA. Those are extremely expensive, though. If you wanted to buy one ticket to the USA's three group stage games, for example, hospital tickets start at $14,000 (and hospitality prices go up from there). 

Fortunately, there is a second option. 

FIFA Collect is an official trading platform from FIFA that gives fans the opportunity to buy and sell soccer-inspired NFTs (note that the FIFA Collect links I post here are referral links). 

There are various "surprise packs" and challenges that fans can purchase with the hopes of winning prizes that include the "Right To Buy" 2026 World Cup tickets. Those "Right To Buy" (RTB) NFTs can be redeemed closer to the tournament, giving you the guaranteed opportunity to buy face value tickets from FIFA without having to win the ticket lottery. Just note that each RTB is for a specific match (for example, the USMNT's opening match is "M4"). 

Fans can skip the challenges and go straight to the secondary marketplace to buy RTBs that have been listed by other users who have completed the challenges and decided to sell their rewards. 

On the secondary marketplace, you can purchase an RTB to a pair of tickets to the USA's opening match (M4) for $3,600. (Note that the price at the time of publication is subject to change based on the market.) The RTB to USMNT's second group match (M32) is listed for $649, and the USA's third group match (M59) is listed for $630. So you could secure the right to buy six total tickets to the USMNT's three group stage games (2 tickets per match) for $4,879 on FIFA Collect.

That's still a big price tag, but it comes down to about $813 per ticket and guarantees your chance to buy face value World Cup tickets without having to take a chance with the lottery. If you opted to skip the opener due to the high cost, you could purchase RTBs to the second and third USA games for a total of $1,279 for the opportunity to purchase four tickets. There's also an M32 and M59 bundle listed for $1,150 on FIFA Collect. (Again, note that these prices are subject to change as 2026 draws closer.)

And just to reiterate, these RTBs from FIFA Collect give you the guaranteed opportunity to buy tickets to the 2026 World Cup. After securing the RTBs, you would still have to opt into buying the actual tickets when they become available from FIFA (alternatively, you could sell your RTB). 

So, how much will the tickets cost at face value? When U.S. Soccer (along with Mexico and Canada's soccer federations) bid to co-host the 2026 World Cup in 2018, they suggested Category 3 prices of $320 for the opener and $174 for non-opener group games (there are four categories of non-luxury tickets). You can view all the proposed prices on page 490 of the bid proposal on FIFA's website.

Note that those were the proposed prices way back in 2018. The actual tickets could end up being far more expensive. We won't know the actual prices until they are announced by FIFA. 

If we took a guess and added $100 to U.S. Soccer's suggested prices, buying two tickets to each of the USMNT's three group games (including the opener) would be $1,936 (again, that's just a wild guess). If you were worried about not winning the lottery and opted to buy RTBs from FIFA Collect for $4,879, that would be a (hypothetical) total of $6,815 to secure two tickets to each of the USA's three group games. A bit better than the $14,000 hospitality price for one ticket to the three games. 

FIFA attempts to prevent the resale of tickets outside of their official in-house resale website, but fans will likely still list tickets on resale websites like SeatGeek, StubHub, Vivid Seats and viagogo. (Those are affiliate links. Note that if you have a new SeatGeek account, you can get $20 off your first SeatGeek order with promo code JONHEATH.)

Fans should note that FIFA has said "the resale or attempted resale of tickets ... is strictly prohibited," so turning to the secondary market is a risky endeavor and not advisable. 

So unless you can afford hospitality tickets, the best way to guarantee the opportunity to buy tickets to the 2026 World Cup is on FIFA Collect. 

I can earn commissions when readers click my referral links. The figures for World Cup ticket prices are guesstimates and should not be taken as official or as financial advice. 

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Thank you for clicking the referral links on my website! I can earn small commissions when you buy services and products that I use and recommend here.