POPL 2009 Local Information
January 21 - 23, 2009, Savannah, Georgia, USA

An Important Note for Visa Waiver Program Travelers

IMPORTANT (from U.S. Department of Homeland Security): If you plan to attend the conference and are from one of the countries in the Visa Waiver Program (and therefore do not need to apply for a VISA), you now (starting from January 12, 2009) must fill in an on-line request several days before traveling to the United States. You can find more information about this at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/travel/id_visa/esta/about_esta/esta_intro/.

Accommodation (Reservation Deadline: December 18, 2008)

Note: You will not get the discounted rate through the hotel web site. Please call the following phone numbers to make your hotel reservation.

All the conference events will take place at the Hyatt Regency Savannah. We have reserved a room block at the price of USD149 + tax per room per day. Participants should contact the hotel directly to reserve a room. The phone number for the hotel is +1-912-238-1234 (ext reservation); the Hyatt-wide toll free number for reservation is +1-800-233-1234 (please specify the hotel you want, i.e., Hyatt Savannah). Be sure to mention the group code ACMY (or Association for Computing Machinery).

We realize that you may want to consider other hotels. Before you decide, please read why you should try to stay at the conference hotel.

If you have question regarding the hotel, please contact Zhong Shao or Joanne Martori.

Travel & Local Attractions

Fly into Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport. The airport is only 8 miles away from the conference hotel and downtown Savannah.

Check out this page for information about ground transportation. The taxi from the airport to the hotel takes about 20 minutes and costs $29 for the first person and $5 per person after that.

The conference hotel Hyatt Regency Savannah is located in the historic downtown area of Savannah (2 W. Bay Street, Savannah, GA 31401, USA), directly on River Front Plaza. Map and directions to the hotel can be found here.

Here is the downtown map in PDF.

Here are a list of restaurants near the conference hotel (in html) .

Here are a list of restaurants in Savannah (in msword or in html).

TripAdvisor's List of Things to Do in Savannah.

TripAdvisor's Top-Rated Restaurants in Savannah.

More information about Savannah and local attractions

Visa Support Letters

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) does not issue formal invitation letters for visas. However, ACM can issue a visa support letter, which describes the technical nature of the conference. For visa support letters, please send all requests to Ginger Ignatoff at ignatoff@acm.org with the following information:

  • Name as it appears on your passport.
  • Residence and a ship-to address (if different).
  • The name of the conference you wish to attend.
  • Registration confirmation number.
  • If you have any papers accepted for the conference, please indicate whether you are the sole author or a co-author, and provide the full title of the document.
  • Fax number (**Please note** Visa Support letters are not issued via email)

    • Last modified on November 30, 2008 by Zhong Shao, Dept. of Computer Science, Yale University