What as a English man should I look out for on a trip to the USA.
USA is really quite safe, just remember to not be black or a woman
Oh and wear a ballistics vest if you’re going anywhere near a school
Also not arabic or queer. Also dont cross streets without a green light or you might get vaporized by an orbital drone for the royal offense of “jaywalking”
And don’t try to stand in some place idly outside for more than a minute. They call that “loitering” and it’s the barbaric act of experiencing being alive in public without spending a dime.
Don’t try to bring food. I’ve seen people stopped for smuggling meat. You’re probably okay with packaged sweets or chocolate, but you should declare it.
Don’t be fooled into thinking you can get tea if you see it offered. It may be some strange flavour, or very weak, or iced, or all three. And it will be hard to explain that you want milk and sugar with it.
Biscuits are good enough, but chocolate is rough.
And, of course, a “biscuit” will mean a type of savory scone.
If your shop, at most stores they will pack shopping bags for you and are a little shocked and overly grateful if you do it yourself.
Be prepared to tip in many circumstances (but not, oddly enough, for having your groceries packed).
Be prepared to be asked about football, the Beatles, the Queen, maybe even the King.
Don’t be offended is someone attempts to do a British accent at you, it’s meant as a friendly greeting.
If driving:
Four-way stops are like roundabouts without the roundabout. But with stop signs.
Pedestrians are not expected to look out for traffic, but are not allowed to just cross anywhere. So it balances out.
Someone has stolen the clutch pedals from all the cars.
The last one got me. A friend of mine from the US asked if my partner could drive a manual. I was confused at first, “can’t everyone?”
On the reality show The Amazing Race, it’s never the rock climbing or skiing or skydiving that holds back the teams. It’s driving the manual rental car from the airport.
I drive manual in the UK but have never tried a left-hand-drive manual car, I’d probably keep hitting the door with my left hand.
Quick note on this one
Pedestrians are not expected to look out for traffic, but are not allowed to just cross anywhere. So it balances out.
If you end up driving, pedestrians are not allowed to cross anywhere (although some places like New York have legalized crossing anywhere) but pedestrians always have the right of way. You can’t run people over because they crossed outside a crosswalk.
So if on foot, use crosswalks or you could get a ticket for jaywalking. If in a vehicle, don’t hit pedestrians.
You can’t run people over because they crossed outside a crosswalk.
But you can shoot them, right?
Four-way stops are like roundabouts without the roundabout. But with stop signs.
The priority is different to a roundabout. A four way stop is ‘person who arrived at their stop line first goes first’. If two arrive at the same time the person on the right has priority.
In my experience if 2 cars arrive at a 4 way then it’s just pure panic until someone decides to go. Drives me up a wall.
True. But I’d sum it up as “A roundabout is a group of T-junctions. A 4-way stop is a nightmarish hellscape that relies on people paying attention and being reasonable.” A 4-way stop near a school at drop-off time is basically Mad Max. Kids crossing at each corner holding up the vehicle that should be next, people splitting into two lanes so that they can turn right out-of-turn, buses obscuring the view, people who decided that “surely it’s my turn now”…
Much more likely to get run over in a crosswalk in the us than in Europe. American drivers don’t stop. The amount of overengineered zebra crossings in the US are crazy.
Part of the problem is that if you get a green light, so can go ahead or turn right, the road to your right has a “walk” sign on at the same time. So pedestrians can start crossing. In the UK a walk-sign equivalent means that “the traffic has stopped so that you can cross”.
Be sure to tell them their life would’ve been much better today if they remained a colony
Where in the USA are you going. Saying you’re going to the USA is like saying you’re going to europe. There’s a vast difference between the different states and regions within those states.
If you’re doing activities outdoors: Always bring an extra bottle of water. That is to say, bring a bottle to drink, and then another for when you get thirstier than expected. This season is relatively cool, but you really don’t want to be caught unprepared. Also: Arizona has a law requiring businesses to serve water for free if you ask. Don’t let anyone bullshit you and ask for money.
Keep an eye on the weather reports, and do not hike down washes, ravines, or narrow canyons if there’s a rain storm anywhere nearby. Heavy rainfall several miles away can turn a sunny, dry ravine into a raging torrent that can kill. If you see a road that’s currently flowing with water, don’t try to cross it, even in a big car. You don’t know how deep it really is, and even just a few cms of fast water is enough to sweep a person off their feet and drown them. It doesn’t take much more to get a car stuck.
If you’re going to Northern Arizona, bring warm clothes. People can be caught unprepared when they leave Phoenix for a day trip and it’s 60⁰F, but when they get to Flagstaff 2h later it’s snowing.
If you see a Jumping Cholla:
Don’t get too close. Their spines are longer than they look because they get so thin as to be nearly invisible.
It’s a single country with a single currency, a single government, a single history, and a single language. Yes there’s a lot of variance within the country, but it’s really nothing compared to visiting Europe.
I honestly love it when such profoundly misinformed statements are put forward with absolute authority like this.
a single history
You know that half the country went to war with the other half, right?
a single government
In California, you can order weed through an app and get it delivered to your front door. In Idaho, get pulled over after picking up for the month, you’re a felon.
a single language
Single official language sure. At my work I’m the only native English speaker and a majority of our customers are foreigners who speak little English.
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 interactions 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.
Have fun, let us know how you get on!
feel free to wow them with contactless payments
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.
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.
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.
The border
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.
