Our big trip started on September 1st. We decided in advance that we would go as a group of six, booked a large car in California and all our accommodation (well, almost all of it), and planned our movements day by day. If you are short on time but want to visit as many interesting places as possible, do the same. We used services like Kayak (flights), Airbnb (accommodation), Turo (car rentals), Recreation.gov (camping rentals across America), TripAdvisor (interesting spots), and Couchsurfing (a community of people ready to host guests for free). Walmart was, of course, the sponsor of our food and camping gear. I hope this doesn't count as an ad – just a tip in case it's useful to someone :)
So, we quit our jobs five days earlier than planned, did a "big checkout" at home (after all, a team of professional cleaners was on the job), packed our bags, and rented a car again to get to New York.
I could talk about this trip endlessly, so I'll leave only fragments. Everyone will decide for themselves how and where they will go anyway.
Chicago. The plane from New York lands at midnight, and in just 30 hours, the next one awaits us to California. Was it worth flying in for just a day? Absolutely, yes. This city struck me to the core – I have never seen such beautiful skyscrapers, such urban parks, or such cool subways anywhere else. I could never have imagined how one could build a multi-layered metropolis. Just imagine: the lower level is parking, the level above is high-speed highways, and above that are skyscrapers propping up the sky. Everything is drowning in greenery and buzzing with life.
Panorama of the city from the planetarium
World-famous Chicago Bean
If you happen to visit Chicago, be sure to go to Millennium Park and walk along the embankment to the planetarium, then head back and take a boat ride along the inner canal from Navy Pier to the Willis Tower. You can see the "layers" of the city especially well from the water. You can also take a loop on the subway – the entire Loop is above ground, a kind of roller coaster right between the skyscrapers.
Subway line winding between buildings
The next point on our route was Los Angeles – that's where we rented a seven-seater car and set off on our own. This city left us with very strange impressions. You won't see a city as such – it's spread out over the territory like butter on bread, and it's completely impossible to get around here without a car. Looking at the skyscrapers after Chicago wasn't interesting – they don't even come close. Besides, there are a lot of homeless people in the center, and even as a large group, we felt very uncomfortable walking around. I was afraid to take out my camera, and there was nothing to shoot anyway.
Literally every bench in this seemingly cozy central park is occupied by homeless people
But this is the best place to meet the Pacific Ocean. We were at Venice Beach, named after the district where you can feel a bit like you're in Venice. Surfers, palm trees, lifeguards – this is exactly how we usually imagine Los Angeles. The ocean itself is very different from the Atlantic. It is much more powerful; you can't miss a single wave, and you definitely won't be able to fight them.
A bit of Venice 200 meters from the ocean
Pacific Ocean in all its glory
Our trip was not without adventures. In Los Angeles, we rented accommodation on Airbnb, just like everywhere else. At night, it turned out that the landlady was mentally ill... We listened in horror to her screams and the same phrases repeated dozens of times. It's good that it all ended with just a ruined night's sleep. But as it turned out, that was only the lesser of our adventures...
The road from Los Angeles to San Francisco would have taken us a whole day, so we decided to split the journey into two parts and spend the night near the town of Monterey. Nothing foreshadowed trouble, but five hours behind the wheel took their toll: at some exit from the main highway, at a very low speed... I safely drove into the bumper of the car in front.
Can you imagine that feeling? You get into an accident for the first time in your life, at the very beginning of a grand trip, having no idea what will happen next. For a few hours, I just went into a fog and couldn't figure out what to do. My friends helped me out: they inspected the car, talked to the driver of the damaged pickup truck, and exchanged documents. There was a dent of a couple of centimeters on his car, our bumper slightly pulled away from the car body and was covered in scratches. Nothing catastrophic happened, but this incident greatly affected the entire further trip – we were constantly calling someone, writing emails, and getting nervous due to the complete lack of connection in national parks.
I felt like I had let everyone down, and it was not easy to come to terms with the fact of the accident. It took a few days to fight the overwhelming emotions, but I kept trying to return to the trip – after all, it was going its own way and wasn't waiting for me to cheer up. "At least I'll have something to tell at home!" I thought. Not everyone can boast of the experience of their first accident in life happening in California.
A very important piece of advice I would like to give to everyone who is going to rent a car in the USA: do not save on insurance, even if you have experience and feel confident behind the wheel. Unfamiliar roads, unusual traffic rules, long drives, and even friends in the car – all this contributes to stress and reduces concentration. All the money earned over the summer could have evaporated in an instant if not for the insurance. To our great happiness, the damage turned out to be minor, and it fully covered all expenses.
