Everything is bigger. That’s an obvious statement, but the knock on effect is that nobody seems to have a sense of “nearby”. I frequently went out running on the pavement around two or three blocks, and people either looked at me as if I was possessed, or honked their horns like a “run Forrest run!” type thing because there was literally nobody else out putting miles on tarmac.
Retail parks are a cracking example. I was out with a friend who knew the area well, and we wanted to go from one store at one end of the retail park to the other. I was happy to walk the three or four hundred metres and back, but they were positively horrified at the thought of not taking the car to another parking spot there.
Speaking of driving - know your rules. Four way intersections are a cool invention. Roundabouts traffic circles are fucking wild going in from the right.
See those 300, 200, 100yd marker boards on A-roads and motorways allowing you to figure out what lane you need to be in to take your slip road? Purely optional in the US. Be ready for people in lane three (or four, or five, or six) to see their exit and cut straight across. Blind spot checking is for nerds and communists.
Things have changed lately, but go out with two or three changes of clothes, and that’s it. The clothes in the US are generally much cooler and much cheaper, it’s a good excuse to get new gear. Depending on where you’re going though, it’s hard work getting particular stuff - asking for Under Armour’s heatgear stuff if you go running in winter will get you some real fuckin’ weird looks in Florida, where even the vests are sometimes hotter than a duffle coat.
The border: know your shit - where you’re going, how much you got, who you’re with. The border force agents (whatever their unit is called) are generally super cool, but they ask super intrusive questions. That Marks and Spencer ham baguette you got in Gatwick/Edinburgh/Manchester? Eat it quick, because it isn’t going through customs.
Not sure how long you’re going for, but get a Post Office multi-currency card, or a credit card that specialises in the US Dollar or low international currency fees. While you’re at it, feel free to wow them with contactless payments. Last time I went to CVS, I had tapped the card before the cashier had finished his spiel about swiping the card, and refused to believe I’d actually paid for a few seconds. It’s like a magic trick with none of the effort.
Overt generosity is mostly viewed suspiciously. I left the DC metro system at a gate, and tried to hand off my all-day travel card for someone else to use for the day, and was looked at like I’d shit on their station concourse and drew a Greek flag in it. It’s not like the tube.
Tylenol: get shitloads. It’s basically paracetemol wrapped in bubblegum. Outstanding for hangovers.
Enjoy it! The Americans are friendly enough even if the majority of them make some pretty wack political choices, but that’s another discussion. They’re generally sound as fuck, and find the British accent something of a novelty, so feel free to use it as a get out of jail card if you make a social faux pas. (edit: I don’t mean literally, I haven’t tried it on police officers)
This is quite dated. Per Forbes, "Nearly 90% of U.S. consumers now use contactless payments, "
Tip at restaurants where they take your order at the table and bus your table, 15-20% of the total. Absolutely don’t tip at those kiosks at the counter. They’ll beg for a tip because software. You’re absolutely fine to hit skip or custom 0. Don’t normalize that shit.
It was a bit over 18 months ago I was last in a CVS, but as has already been pointed out, the US is a huge place so there’s bound to be regional differences. Glad contactless payments (or is it tap-to-pay in the US?) has become the norm.
The clothes thing is interesting to me as an American living in Europe. I feel like our clothes are shapeless blobs made in china for fast fashion exclusively, while the clothes in Europe and UK seem to be much better in cut and quality. They are certainly more expensive in UK and western Europe though!
Maybe in the UK we’re super used to fast fashion shite like Primark or Asda George. I mean, the designs are cool but the quality rivals that of the Looney Tunes ACME products.
Maybe you’re right though, maybe I’m looking at them through rose tinted specs. I rather like the Old Navy stuff or American Eagle. The material just seems to last a tad longer than the supermarket pish in the UK.
Also be prepared have your photograph taken and to be ‘ten printed’. Which means fingerprints for all 10 digits will be taken. Usually right 4 fingers in one time then the thumb then repeated for the other hand.
You must have documentation showing your onward travel from the USA. Strongly recommend printing this out rather than relying on your phone. Wifi is usually crap at customs if it’s available at all.
Make sure you have an ESTA (or a full visa) sorted out before travel or you will not be able to board the plane.
One other tip. Get an e-sim from someone like Nomad or Airalo. Then you can use that for data. Getting a sim in America never seems to be as simple as it should be.
Oh man, I forgot the ESTA. A travel plan for your travel plan for your travel plan.
We’ll have the ETIAS to do soon as well. Won’t be long before the dude at the border in Gibraltar will be like “¿que tal bruv, where’s Travelling With Authority Treaty form?”.
Oh well. We did it to ourselves 🙁
edit: forgot to say, thanks for the addition.
Definitely worth calling your mobile provider beforehand - I think I had an add-on where I could pay £2 per day and use my contract allowance as usual. It worked nicely.
Nah that’s fair enough, I get it. It’s a reasonably common thing in the UK - either the person who takes it is a local rogue who’ll flog the travelcard for a quid, or it’ll be used by someone away out on the piss for the night.
I just found it odd is all. Like, if you take it and it works, happy days - you’ve saved yourself a bit of cash. If the ticket gate spits it back at you, then oh well, back to plan A.
It’s cool to hear your take on it though, thank you.
We Americans are very paranoid about things we think are “too good to be true” (don’t know if that’s a phrase everywhere). This may be looking too deep into things, but I honestly think our country’s history of taking advantage of less informed peoples has influenced this - we know what happens when you take the bait, so it’s best to just accept the norm (ie paying your own metro fare) vs risk finding out what happens if they come back looking for what they “gave” you.
I actually sat and thought on this for a second. If someone walked up to me and tried to give me a $100 bill, I’d probably ask a few questions first, mainly, “what do you want?” If they seem genuine in that they just felt like being nice to someone (or even if I got the “social experiment” vibes), I’d probably take it, and ask if I could buy them something small with it (like, if this were outside the grocery store, ask if they wanted some snacks or a drink or something).
I think if I were in a group setting, someone approaching the group trying to give us a $100 bill would probably would be quickly closed out of the circle, and everyone would get quiet and look away until they left, at which point everyone would talk about that weird guy trying to sell us something.
I absolutely get it - “too good to be true” is definitely a thing in the English speaking world.
I absolutely get the apprehension - if I was jumping on to a Bee Bus or the Edinburgh Trams with a ticket that some rando was trying to offload, then my Spidey senses would be tingling too.
In this instance though, we’re probably looking at a value of US$10ish, so in my own perfectly subjective opinion, I’d be happy to give it a bash. If it doesnt work, the the ticket gets yeeted and the contactless card gets used instead.
I absolutely understand settling in to the “normal” of buying your own ticket though and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience.
Hello fellow Brit.
Everything is bigger. That’s an obvious statement, but the knock on effect is that nobody seems to have a sense of “nearby”. I frequently went out running on the pavement around two or three blocks, and people either looked at me as if I was possessed, or honked their horns like a “run Forrest run!” type thing because there was literally nobody else out putting miles on tarmac.
Retail parks are a cracking example. I was out with a friend who knew the area well, and we wanted to go from one store at one end of the retail park to the other. I was happy to walk the three or four hundred metres and back, but they were positively horrified at the thought of not taking the car to another parking spot there.
Speaking of driving - know your rules. Four way intersections are a cool invention.
Roundaboutstraffic circles are fucking wild going in from the right.See those 300, 200, 100yd marker boards on A-roads and motorways allowing you to figure out what lane you need to be in to take your slip road? Purely optional in the US. Be ready for people in lane three (or four, or five, or six) to see their exit and cut straight across. Blind spot checking is for nerds and communists.
Things have changed lately, but go out with two or three changes of clothes, and that’s it. The clothes in the US are generally much cooler and much cheaper, it’s a good excuse to get new gear. Depending on where you’re going though, it’s hard work getting particular stuff - asking for Under Armour’s heatgear stuff if you go running in winter will get you some real fuckin’ weird looks in Florida, where even the vests are sometimes hotter than a duffle coat.
The border: know your shit - where you’re going, how much you got, who you’re with. The border force agents (whatever their unit is called) are generally super cool, but they ask super intrusive questions. That Marks and Spencer ham baguette you got in Gatwick/Edinburgh/Manchester? Eat it quick, because it isn’t going through customs.
Not sure how long you’re going for, but get a Post Office multi-currency card, or a credit card that specialises in the US Dollar or low international currency fees. While you’re at it, feel free to wow them with contactless payments. Last time I went to CVS, I had tapped the card before the cashier had finished his spiel about swiping the card, and refused to believe I’d actually paid for a few seconds. It’s like a magic trick with none of the effort.
Overt generosity is mostly viewed suspiciously. I left the DC metro system at a gate, and tried to hand off my all-day travel card for someone else to use for the day, and was looked at like I’d shit on their station concourse and drew a Greek flag in it. It’s not like the tube.
Tylenol: get shitloads. It’s basically paracetemol wrapped in bubblegum. Outstanding for hangovers.
Enjoy it! The Americans are friendly enough even if the majority of them make some pretty wack political choices, but that’s another discussion. They’re generally sound as fuck, and find the British accent something of a novelty, so feel free to use it as a get out of jail card if you make a social faux pas. (edit: I don’t mean literally, I haven’t tried it on police officers)
Have fun, let us know how you get on!
This is quite dated. Per Forbes, "Nearly 90% of U.S. consumers now use contactless payments, "
Tip at restaurants where they take your order at the table and bus your table, 15-20% of the total. Absolutely don’t tip at those kiosks at the counter. They’ll beg for a tip because software. You’re absolutely fine to hit skip or custom 0. Don’t normalize that shit.
Cheers for the added advice.
It was a bit over 18 months ago I was last in a CVS, but as has already been pointed out, the US is a huge place so there’s bound to be regional differences. Glad contactless payments (or is it tap-to-pay in the US?) has become the norm.
The clothes thing is interesting to me as an American living in Europe. I feel like our clothes are shapeless blobs made in china for fast fashion exclusively, while the clothes in Europe and UK seem to be much better in cut and quality. They are certainly more expensive in UK and western Europe though!
Hey thanks for your insight.
Maybe in the UK we’re super used to fast fashion shite like Primark or Asda George. I mean, the designs are cool but the quality rivals that of the Looney Tunes ACME products.
Maybe you’re right though, maybe I’m looking at them through rose tinted specs. I rather like the Old Navy stuff or American Eagle. The material just seems to last a tad longer than the supermarket pish in the UK.
Maybe perception on my end too but I feel like the quality of clothes at the fast fashion level has cratered in the last five years
Also be prepared have your photograph taken and to be ‘ten printed’. Which means fingerprints for all 10 digits will be taken. Usually right 4 fingers in one time then the thumb then repeated for the other hand.
You must have documentation showing your onward travel from the USA. Strongly recommend printing this out rather than relying on your phone. Wifi is usually crap at customs if it’s available at all.
Make sure you have an ESTA (or a full visa) sorted out before travel or you will not be able to board the plane.
One other tip. Get an e-sim from someone like Nomad or Airalo. Then you can use that for data. Getting a sim in America never seems to be as simple as it should be.
Oh man, I forgot the ESTA. A travel plan for your travel plan for your travel plan.
We’ll have the ETIAS to do soon as well. Won’t be long before the dude at the border in Gibraltar will be like “¿que tal bruv, where’s Travelling With Authority Treaty form?”.
Oh well. We did it to ourselves 🙁
edit: forgot to say, thanks for the addition.
Definitely worth calling your mobile provider beforehand - I think I had an add-on where I could pay £2 per day and use my contract allowance as usual. It worked nicely.
I can confirm the suspicion of strangers handing you something. We don’t trust something for nothing.
There are entire YouTube channels about walking up to Americans and trying to give them a $100 bill. Most won’t take it.
Nah that’s fair enough, I get it. It’s a reasonably common thing in the UK - either the person who takes it is a local rogue who’ll flog the travelcard for a quid, or it’ll be used by someone away out on the piss for the night.
I just found it odd is all. Like, if you take it and it works, happy days - you’ve saved yourself a bit of cash. If the ticket gate spits it back at you, then oh well, back to plan A.
It’s cool to hear your take on it though, thank you.
We Americans are very paranoid about things we think are “too good to be true” (don’t know if that’s a phrase everywhere). This may be looking too deep into things, but I honestly think our country’s history of taking advantage of less informed peoples has influenced this - we know what happens when you take the bait, so it’s best to just accept the norm (ie paying your own metro fare) vs risk finding out what happens if they come back looking for what they “gave” you.
I actually sat and thought on this for a second. If someone walked up to me and tried to give me a $100 bill, I’d probably ask a few questions first, mainly, “what do you want?” If they seem genuine in that they just felt like being nice to someone (or even if I got the “social experiment” vibes), I’d probably take it, and ask if I could buy them something small with it (like, if this were outside the grocery store, ask if they wanted some snacks or a drink or something).
I think if I were in a group setting, someone approaching the group trying to give us a $100 bill would probably would be quickly closed out of the circle, and everyone would get quiet and look away until they left, at which point everyone would talk about that weird guy trying to sell us something.
Hi American friend!
I absolutely get it - “too good to be true” is definitely a thing in the English speaking world.
I absolutely get the apprehension - if I was jumping on to a Bee Bus or the Edinburgh Trams with a ticket that some rando was trying to offload, then my Spidey senses would be tingling too.
In this instance though, we’re probably looking at a value of US$10ish, so in my own perfectly subjective opinion, I’d be happy to give it a bash. If it doesnt work, the the ticket gets yeeted and the contactless card gets used instead.
I absolutely understand settling in to the “normal” of buying your own ticket though and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your experience.