Fans of the 2026 World Cup are talking a lot about American food and hospitality
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Christopher Columbus made his name more than 500 years ago, but a new crop of Europeans is discovering America in time for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, posting rave reviews of comfort food and rustic hospitality on social media.
World Cup games are scheduled across the country, with Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Houston, Kansas, Los Angeles, Miami, New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, Seattle and the San Francisco Bay area all hosting games. Oxford Economics reported that 1.24 million international tourists are expected to visit America for the World Cup. The company added that it expects the tournament to “spark a strong momentum in international travel – to revive demand, fill hotels and show the economy’s broad access to major events.”
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It also sparks some tourists’ interest in American culture.
X user @FreddyLA7, from Germany, has over 500,000 followers and has been posting enthusiastically about his experiences exploring the South. He started his road trip about a week ago, according to his works. He praised how green Georgia is, writing, “crazy,” and posted a photo of Taco Bell and a bunch of food, declaring the fast food chain “The Holy Land.”
Freddy took the filming locations of “Stranger Things” and Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park and praised his experience at Walmart.
A German visitor to America for the FIFA World Cup has been talking about his trip through the South and said he had a great experience at Waffle House. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
“We just had our first Waffle House experience at 1am,” he posted, along with pictures of several plates of food. “Great food, great prices and friendly staff. 10/10, we’ll be back.”
Freddy enjoyed the mountain of food and said “Wendy’s climb!” and joked about the number of soft drinks he said were “too big.”
He snapped a picture of Buc-ee’s, writing, “DUDE LMAO THIS IS A GAS STATION,” and a picture of a meal he bought at a travel center at 1 a.m. He also featured Chili’s, Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, Chipotle, Buffalo Wild Wings and Waffle House (again) in his post.
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“The best discovery of our trip was a singer called Ella Langley,” she wrote in a post showing her car’s music system. “We had never heard of him before, but after hearing him on all the local radio stations, we have become big fans. He is the song of our journey.”
Freddy called Bass Pro Shop’s Outdoor World “another surreal place.” He posted a picture of a bunch of guns in a store. “I know some people will say I’m optimistic about everything I see,” he wrote, “but this place was crazy. They had a shooting range in the store.”
In another post, she wrote, “I love Americans. We were going to walk an hour to the stadium in the rain to save on an Uber, and the receptionist of the hotel we were parked in front of decided to take us there.”
A video of a Norwegian boy in the United States for the FIFA World Cup ordering from In-N-Out and enjoying his burger has gone viral. (Stock)
A post by X user @washghost1 showing a young Norwegian boy ordering from In-N-Out and enjoying his burger has garnered nearly 900,000 views.
@SkylarSkye3 posted a photo of food from the grocery store in Erewhon.
“I’m not going to lie… the food in America is ridiculous,” he wrote. “Everyone talks about portion sizes but nobody talks enough about HOW everything tastes. Even ‘fast’ food tastes good compared to what I’m used to in the UK”
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X user @japan_nobunaga wrote a long post about his experience at an American breakfast counter (although it’s not clear if he’s in the US for the world cup or to tour the country). The waiter recommended the biscuits and the drink.
“When the plate arrived I thought something was wrong in the kitchen,” he wrote. “I say this with shame. The bowl looked like a building site after the rain. Pale mounds. Gray ladle-fall. Spots I can’t see. In my country, the eye eats first. Food is arranged like a garden. This food is arranged like weather.”
He expressed a change of heart after tasting the Southern staple.
A Japanese visitor posted on X that she was initially turned off by the appearance of biscuits and gravy, but then apologized for prejudging the Southern delicacy. (Stock)
“I now have to officially apologize to the biscuits, the gravy, the waitress, the kitchen and the South American breakfast culture,” he wrote. “It was wonderful. Warm. Peppery. The biscuit drank the broth the way a field drinks the rain – that’s why it was built that way, you fool – and all the mounds I was afraid of were soft comforts that our country, in eight hundred years, never once thought of founding.”
The same user also humorously wrote about his experience with a brain freeze after drinking too much gas at a gas station and the wonders of coleslaw at a BBQ meal.
Country singer Ella Langley, whose music is all over the radio, has found fans on Germany’s tour of the United States for the FIFA World Cup. (Taylor Hill/Getty Images)
“One thing I love about the European World Cup tourneys right now is that they’re not just pulled out of the middle of Los Angeles or New York City or some big city area that most Americans like me don’t even like,” commented X user @realmikolson. “They are dumped in the heart of Middle America.”
“A wise man once said, if you want to hate America, watch the news. If you want to love America, drive across the country,” Olson wrote in a post accompanying the video clip.
Olson said international visitors who drive nine hours across Texas and see Auburn University’s fraternity houses are a testament to “America’s great kindness.”
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“Most of the local people in these areas do not know who these people are and why they are there,” he said, adding that there has been very little news or advertising of the World Cup, especially in small towns.
Still, you’ve heard of incidents of restaurant owners driving World Cup fans to games because they couldn’t get an Uber. The owner of the deli offered British visitors a free lunch, “just because they came to this place,” he said. Some Alabama firefighters reportedly gave foreign visitors tours of their fire department and free merchandise.
Buc-ee’s large tourist centers, common in the South, have captured the hearts of foreign tourists in the United States for the FIFA World Cup. (Washington Post/Getty Images)
Olson said the hospitality that “shocks” visitors is a direct result of people “living by American values and principles.”
