I would say my trip to States was one of the most craziest thing i've ever done for myself so far.First,at the time I was deciding (during Summer 2011 to be exact) to do this trip to fill and empty slot of my travelling planner during winter vacation 2011,I was actually an absolute pennyless girl from a small town in Perak.Tg Malim,have you ever heard of that?Never?no worries!(=_=).That moment,I know i would need at least $2000 to realised this sweet teenage dream!(i tell you, this is the most expensive trip I'd ever had so far!).It was all initiated when I was having summer break in Malaysia last year, a friend of mine who's studying in Bristol asked me if I would like to join her and companions to explore the States.Without any hesitation,I nodded my head and said "YES!!" right away.(i did'nt even count my bank balance at that moment).Few days,after that I found myself so busy studying about US Visa application from.(I noe,that was a bit of hurdle,but it wasn't too bad! ).Hereby,I'll write a bit on a few simple steps i've taken for visa application.
1.looked up this website http://www.ustraveldocs.com/my/
2.for non-immigrant visa,look for this form DS-160 which can be found here https://ceac.state.gov/genniv/
3.got a picture ready to be uploaded in the DS-160 form
4.filled in all the details
5.went to nearby Standard Chartered Bank and ask for US Visa form.Pay for the fees (it depend on your purpose of travel,i applied for Business/Tourist visa which cost $140).You may also pay online if your have Standard Chartered Bank online account :)!
6.Registered a new profile account and verify your payment details at this https://cgifederal.secure.force.com/
7.verified payment, booked an appointment date at US Consulate in KL.(date of interview usually could be chosen 1 week upon the day of payment verification)
8.Attended interview on selected date
9.Visa ready for collection in 4 days upon interview date.(I collected mine at Visa Collection Centre Wisma MCA,Jalan Ampang)!
Wallah! then I was all ready for the planning part!.At first I would like to attend my frienc's graduation at Missouri,however,due to financial constraint,I decided to visit only the East Coast of USA (of course lah to stick on within my budget range).After discussing with my Bristol partner,and my friends in States,we decided to sort of having a 'beach break' where we gonna meet up at Miami and then sail off to Bahamas.(orang kate alang2 menjeluk pekasam,we just wanna had Carribean experience too! why not?).everything went well, another friend in States told us we could get a really good cruise offer to Bahamas if we sail from Miami.(OMG! Bahamas cruise was so much cheaper than Meditteranean cruise!) .We persuade another friend in Colorado to join this cruise,so it was all inclusive 5days/4nights cruise to Bahamas which cost us only $450/person included tax :)
Since that day,everyday in my life during the 7th sem (I'm in the final year of studies at Queen's University Belfast!!) was spent on browsing through cheap flight deals online! Expedia.com, Kayak.com,Skyscanner.com,you name it!i also spent hours to look for a part time job for the sake of financing my trip!!Alhamdulillah,I eventually got a called from Holiday Inn Express to work as a housekeeping assistant.Few weeks, after that I also got a job offer from Sports Direct.I decided to leave the hotel job and opted for Sports Direct which offer better work hours,i was offered 16 hours/week and the pay was'nt too ad either!Few days after that,after a tremendous weekend of flight deal searching,i'd finally found the cheapest deal online £275 return ticket from Dublin to Newark,NYC via Philadelphia.I bought that ticket straightaway,and soon I realised that I'd actually have more than enough fund to finance the trip,and why not include the West Coast on top of the journey?
Alhamdulillah, Allah has made everything easy for me.While browsing through several tours provider website,i found this budget tour website namely as tours4fun which offer a massive deals of $398, 7-days West Coast trip covering the likes of Los Angeles,Las Vegas,Grand Canyon,National Yosemite Park and San Francisco (the price includes transportation and accomodation at really nice hotel).
After done with cruise and bus tours booking,I started to research on place to stay and excursion in NYC .I allocated 4 days/3nights for the NYC part before starting the 2nd leg of journey which is the Miami/Bahamas part.In overall,my journey could be easily summed up as below;
1st Leg : Dublin-Philadelphia-Newark-New Jersey-New York City
2nd Leg: Miami-Bahamas-Miami
3rd Leg: Los Angeles-Las Vegas-Grand Canyon-Yosemite National Park-San Francisco-Solvang-Los Angeles-New York-Philadelhia-Dublin
Hmmm,that's all for now.I shall write another entries for all the places i've seen in States!!!Shall publish later not now but soon!Tata!
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