Some boring important tips. Part 2:
Travel:
Guys, please, never leave home to travel without having a grand plan for how it's all going to go!
- When there is about 1 month left before your flight home, start planning your trip.
- Talk to your employer, notify them of your wishes well in advance so they don't get such a "surprise" a day before your planned trip.
- Ask yourself "what do I want to see?" and mark those places. Plan at least 1-2 days for each place to fully soak in the atmosphere of your desired destination and live there like a regular American.
How to travel?
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It is more profitable and fun to travel in a group. Many tour operators offer discounted prices if you buy for 2 or more people. Below are some sites where you can look at various tours to any point in America.
http://www.taketours.com/usa/ http://www.tours4fun.com/ http://www.ustours.biz/ -
If you are a fan of independent and unpredictable/exciting trips, then arm yourself with a phone with internet access, more money, and sites like www.couchsurfing.com
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Take warm clothes for the road. Who knows where you will have to spend the night. And in American buses, the air conditioning works so well that you start to be surprised that a Russian person, even from the Urals, is freezing in the USA.
My example:
I am giving my own example so that you can take a few points on board, so you don't make some mistakes, and sometimes make desperate moves like I did.
I was so busy working that I didn't even notice September approaching. With this month came the sadness that soon all this life would be left far behind.
Lesson: You are going to the USA not only to work!
On August 24-26, I finished my jobs, told my managers that it was time for me to go "Discover America". It was 2-3 days before, so everything was in a rush. The last days at work were slightly melancholic, it was hard to realize that I had to part with colleagues, there were farewells and wishes, hugs, tears...
Lesson: it would have been good if I had gone to the USA together with someone from Russia – there would have been company.
I probably tripled the number of visits to the above sites during those days.
Everywhere the tours were expensive, because I was alone. Searching for people on the internet who also want to travel on these days was unsuccessful.
Lesson: Therefore, look for everything in advance and plan everything in detail!
On the penultimate day of departure, I realized that I had nothing to take photos of the places I would visit. 2 hours before departure, I am standing in BestBuy and torturing the consultant with questions about what is better between Canon and Nikon. I choose Nikon and rush home with a big box in my hands.
Lesson: I shouldn't have broken my phone/or I should have bought a camera in advance! I should have asked someone to drive me home.
The tour started somewhere in Chinatown in NYC very early in the morning.
Lesson: it is important to think about where you will spend the night in NYC before the start of the tour. In my case, it was McDonald's in Times Square with some guys from Bulgaria. Thanks to Mac for the roof over my head.
After the tour of the East, I planned to fly to the West. I bought the tickets "in advance" again and it cost about $800 round trip.
Since I didn't have a phone, I needed at least something to contact friends who were worried about me. I bought a TracFone in some small store – a mobile phone with limited talk minutes. You buy minutes – you talk. This was a last resort, because there was no time to buy a normal one. To contact my parents, a friend lent me his mp3 player, which could access the internet.
Lesson: Never make such a mistake! In the end, I probably spent more money buying extra minutes for the TracFone than on buying a new one.
