Welcome

This book, like its companion volumes dealing with US jobs and visas, is for anyone who has ever thought about spending some time in the United States. Millions of Europeans have settled in the United States, but today modern communications make it possible for millions more to cross the Atlantic for business or merely for pleasure. The choice is no longer between emigration and the trip of a lifetime. Millions now visit the USA for a period longer than their annual holiday but without ever settling down there. This book is therefore for anyone who has ever thought of living or working in the USA for anything from a few weeks to many years. It is particularly geared to those who would like to experience the USA for more than just a few days' holiday, though even weekend visitors will find much here to inform them about what is available in the USA.

What follows results from living and working backwards and forwards across the Atlantic for the last 30 years, travelling from coast to coast by plane, hitching, driving a van, by hired car, and even at times on foot. It's the result of visiting some 30 different states and living for years in and around the federal capital as much as of teaching American history, cultural geography and landscape studies to Britons and Americans at Keele University and the University of Maryland, not forgetting advising those applying to study abroad. I've entered the USA by plane, by car, and on foot, on three totally different kinds of visa, crossing sometimes alone, sometimes with family, on holiday and on business. So this book is a little bit of what has become American within me, even while I live and write in the UK.

I hope you will find the lessons of my own experience enable you, the reader, to enjoy your own visits to the USA with just a little more emphasis on the fun and a little less on the hassle for having been that little more prepared than I ever was. Friends and colleagues have often said that I should pass on my experiences: so here they are. With the incredible bits cut out so that you don't think this is another Tom Sharpe novel, here is a guide to living and working in the USA. May you enjoy your own experience as much as I've enjoyed mine.

So What Does This Book Do?

It's a guide to the USA, providing hints and suggestions that may help you gain just that much more from your decision to visit or even to live in the USA. Many aspects of being in the USA come as a shock even for those who think they are well prepared. When I first arrived with a newly minted American Studies degree in my pocket I thought I'd arrived in the wrong country, so little did I recognise or understand in my first few weeks.

So bad was the experience I could have cheerfully hijacked a plane out and away (in any direction!) if only I'd known how. Nothing bad happened at all: no muggings, no illness, nothing specifically traumatic. But the experience overwhelmed me as I tried to cope with the reality of a new job, looking for somewhere to live, no car, no pay yet, though my savings were fast ebbing away, and the fact that I'd arrived in one of the hottest and most humid Augusts for years.

The only guides had been my textbooks and guidebooks for those visiting the sights. I didn't even know that all the paper money was the same colour and size, that I'd have to pay a month's rent in advance plus a month's rent as deposit, that my pay wouldn't be paid directly into my account but that I'd have to do that myself every other Friday. Traffic on the right-hand side of the road was the least of my problems. That I'd expected!

So this guide will start by asking you to consider what you expect from the USA, for what you want will be the most significant factor in how the USA measures up to your expectations. Anyone expecting a Big Mac in a vegetarian restaurant is going to get a nasty surprise! Be honest with yourself as to what you want to do, and, just as importantly, what you don't want from a holiday, a family reunion, an American extended stay, or a new start in life, and you'll be able to explore precisely what opportunities the USA does indeed hold for you.

Once you've decided you're off to the USA there's the whole question of the paperwork. The US is not an easy country to deal with even once you've been let in. Many people expect US bureaucracy to be more efficient, or at least less convoluted than in Britain. They often find that the truth is far from pleasant. Don't forget that everything governmental is duplicated: a State income tax may well be payable as well as the Federal one. Income tax liability is by self-assessment, but it's usually so complex, and the penalties threatened so dire, that most people pay a tax specialist to fill out the annual forms for them. Just thinking of your local tax inspector in Britain may bring a warm glow to your heart (but only while you're in the USA!).

But what opportunities exist? These are discussed in terms of the various groups – such as students, business people, entrepreneurs, professionals and artists. Read widely here, for though all face different problems all share similar hassles as outsiders trying to get along on the inside.

Throughout the book there is a wealth of information, outlining where best to go for further advice, with addresses and phone numbers and Web sites for contacts both in Britain and in the USA. A careful use of the telephone and increasingly the Internet can be a great time saver, especially in such a complex and potentially overwhelming matter as going to the USA.

Caveat

I have tried to update all phone numbers and Web addresses listed here, but some old ones are sure to have lain low and escaped detection. Web addresses are notoriously volatile so please be patient if sites have disappeared into the electronic ether. You can probably use a defunct address in a search engine (such as www.askjeeves.com ) to find something similar. And to phone abroad remember the international access code is 00, so to call the USA dial 001 before the US seven digit number.

Whilst every attempt has been made by the author to ensure that the information presented in this book is accurate at the time of going to press neither the author nor the publishers can accept any responsibility for any errors or omissions.

Steve Mills