Curaçao
📍 Base camp: Boca Raton, Florida
Corendon 737 MAX 9 | Willemstad → West Palm Beach
VISA-FREE
Group-stage travel · The toughest five
The long way to 2026
The team traveling farthest to the 2026 World Cup walks in visa-free.
Update · How the five roads ended
The Final has been played: Spain beat Argentina in extra time on July 19 for their second title. And the longest travelers?
Curaçao · 4th in Group E, out in the groups: but the debutants took home the island's first ever WC point.
Austria · 2nd in Group J after a 3-3 with Algeria, then out 0-3 in the round of 32 to Spain, the eventual champions.
Bosnia & Herzegovina · 3rd in Group B, through to the knockouts as a best third: the two-home gamble paid off.
England · Won Group L with 7 points.
Jordan · 4th in Group J in their first ever WC, still waiting for a first point: the longest road with the heaviest toll.
And the team that barely traveled? Mexico won their group, three wins from three. That story is next.
Inspired by Ryan Jares, who measured how far every team travels in the group stage, and Flightradar24, where Sebastián Polito covers how each squad actually flew into North America, I rebuilt the model, added the visa each team needs to enter the hosts it plays, and ranked all 48.
These are the 5 longest roads to the FIFA World Cup 2026™ - Canada, Mexico and the United States, and how they held up:
48
CUW10,134
KM ROUND TRIP
≈ 6,297 mi
Flew in on a Corendon 737 MAX 9 charter: Willemstad to West Palm Beach. Base camp sits 40 min. south in Boca Raton, and from there they stretch out to Houston, Kansas, and Philly: the longest group-stage road of all 48 teams. 25 of their 26 players were born in the Netherlands. The smallest nation ever to reach a WC walks in visa-free on a Dutch passport.
So far, 1-7 to 
, then a battling 0-0 with 
for the island's first WC point ever. Farthest to travel, easiest to enter.
47
AUTAustria
📍 Base camp: Goleta, California
Austrian Airlines Boeing 777 | Vienna → Los Angeles
VISA-FREE
9,570
KM ROUND TRIP
≈ 5,947 mi
Landed at LAX on a scheduled Austrian Airlines 777 out of Vienna. The base isn't in LA, though: it's up the coast in Goleta, near Santa Barbara, training at UC Santa Barbara. From there, they reach the Bay Area, Dallas, and Kansas City. Visa-free on an ESTA.
Opened with a 3-1 win over and faced 
on June 22.
46
BIHBosnia & Herzegovina
📍 Base camp: Sandy, Utah
Lufthansa A330 | Sarajevo → St. Louis (via Frankfurt)
VISA REQUIRED
9,504
KM ROUND TRIP
≈ 5,906 mi
Bosnia flew from Sarajevo to St. Louis on a Lufthansa A330 via Frankfurt. Why St. Louis? It holds one of the biggest Bosnian communities in the world, refugees from the 1990s. They trained there, played a warm-up against Panama, then flew straight to Toronto for the opener. The real base camp is somewhere else again: Sandy, Utah, another Bosnian diaspora home, where they settle for LA and Seattle. Two homes and they pay the full toll: the long flights plus a visa for both hosts they play, and .
Had a 1-1 draw with then a 4-1 loss to 
. 
came next in Seattle.
45
ENGEngland
📍 Base camp: Kansas City
Virgin Atlantic A350 | Birmingham → West Palm Beach
VISA-FREE
8,972
KM ROUND TRIP
≈ 5,575 mi
They flew into Florida first on a Virgin Atlantic A350 for a 2-week acclimatization camp and 2 warm-ups, then repositioned to Kansas City on June 13, days before Croatia in Dallas.
Visa-free on an ESTA: again, all distance, no paperwork, and a 4-2 win over 
to open. 
came next, top of the group.
44
JORJordan
📍 Base camp: Portland, Oregon
Royal Jordanian Boeing 787-8 | Amman → Portland
VISA REQUIRED
8,833
KM ROUND TRIP
≈ 5,489 mi
Their first ever WC, and they did the long-haul properly: a Royal Jordanian 787-8 in the team's "Al Nashama" livery, Amman to Portland. Here, the arrival and the base line up. Portland is home to the whole group stage, with games in the Bay Area twice and Dallas.
And unlike the others up here, Jordan needs a visa : the one team whose passport reality matches the label exactly.
Their 3-1 loss to on debut. 
came next, their best shot at a first WC point.
And the team that travels the least?Mexico, by a mile. Two home wins, six points, top of the group, and barely a boarding pass between games. More on that next. I'll keep you posted.
The rest of the model drops here first
All 48 teams ranked, the easiest roads, and Mexico's home advantage - the full series lands on this site and on LinkedIn.
Follow me on LinkedIn ↗
Executive Advisory & Consulting · I·A is always Advisory
Interested in chatting more about insights research?
📅 Schedule time with me ↗