The United States has a very large highway system throughout the country. These universal highway networks with vertical and horizontal grids give people the urge to drive across the United States and experience those legendary star highways. Let me share with you the essential items and precautions for a self-driving trip to the United States.

Recently, more and more friends around me choose to travel by car when traveling abroad. Sister Tiankai took a road trip in the United States before and summarized some practical tips to help everyone plan and prepare their itinerary in advance.

Rent a car

A rental car can be booked at home, rented from the airport, and returned from other places. You can also rent a car anywhere after you get off the plane.

Generally speaking, international chains are more expensive, such as Hertz. Renting a car on the official website will be more expensive. My sister’s neighbor rented a Hertz car on priceline for more than ten yuan. On the official website, it costs at least fifty or sixty yuan a day.

Rental car insurance: You can choose the default basic insurance, or you can add some of your own. It won’t be too expensive, such as insurance for car crashes and damage to items in the car.

Stay

If you want to be more relaxed on your road trip, you don’t have to book a room in advance. You can book as you go. If you have a reservation, you can find a hotel and stay there. You can find available rooms in tourist areas and smaller towns. Of course, the price may not be as good as booking in advance, but it is more flexible and free. You don’t have to arrive at the hotel you booked in advance on time, you can stay there as long as you want.

I stayed in a literary motel in San Francisco, had kitchen utensils, cutlery, and condiments, and cooked a delicious meal.

Summary

For bottled water, go to a larger supermarket and it costs 2 or 3 yuan for 24 bottles. Otherwise, a bottle of wine is $1 or $2 on the way.

Instant noodles, ham sausage, pickled mustard and other Chinese favorites can be purchased in Chinese supermarkets. Instant noodles are rarely served in cups, which is troublesome, so you can book an apartment-style hotel and cook. After eating hot dogs and hamburgers for a few days, I will be extremely happy cooking instant noodles. The most Chinese supermarket in Los Angeles is 99 Dahua Supermarket. If you go to China, you can buy some bread cakes, because the bread cakes Americans eat are very oily and too sweet. Los Angeles is still 85, and business is very good.

Power bank (power bank), car charger, navigator or navigation app.

Do not use an adapter plug, use a domestic two-pin plug.

Familiar with traffic rules

This is how Sister Tiankai did it: rent a car, drive around in accommodation with few cars, get familiar with the road conditions and traffic signs, and then get on the highway .

Common traffic signs:

U-turn: Do not make a U-turn.

One-way: One-way street

Stop: Stop and wait 6 seconds, but usually look around, no one can leave. If it is an intersection without traffic lights and there are cars in all four directions, the basic approach is to pass one car in one direction and take turns, so that it will not "die". I feel that if a traffic light is broken in Beijing, the scene at the intersection will be too "beautiful" to look directly at.

Carpool only: Carpool lane, that is, two or more people including the driver can use this lane. This is the innermost lane on the highway, very useful in traffic jams.

The directions of American highways are very clear. If you don’t walk, the road signs will disappear. There will be no problem if you follow the navigation. Don't change lanes frequently on the highway, as this will make everyone go faster. The highway conditions in the United States are average and not as smooth as those in China. After all, it’s been years, but there are plenty of lanes and it’s free! The speed is very fast. Although the navigation keeps reminding me that I am speeding, there will be no problem if I follow the traffic flow. Conversely, if you're too slow, you'll be fined for "obstructing traffic," usually at 100-120km/h.

The sign is 2 or 3 kilometers ahead of schedule. Change lanes as early as possible and be sure to turn on the lights. Otherwise, everyone will default to going straight, and no one will hold you back. And many exits stipulate which road can only be taken in which lane, so change lanes as soon as possible.

The red roadside is the fire lane, parking is not allowed, remember!

Pay for self-parking. Some are coin-operated, some are card-operated, some automatically calculate how long to park, and some allow you to purchase parking time in advance, and you can only park after inserting coins

The ones with Apple or Android phones Enough. Sister Tiankai rented a car for more than a month and relied on Google Maps to go everywhere. However, unlike the powerful Chinese Amap, you cannot query destinations by POI points of interest (such as buildings). The house number must be entered, so check the house number in advance.

Booking (Bink)

You can use the booking.com website first. Almost all foreign hotels can be booked. This has reviews and is objective. When you're on a road trip, it's even more convenient to download the app to your phone.

Download the number of routes to cities and attractions in advance.

Introduction to Route 1

If you take Route 1, this is enough. Apple's app store can be downloaded, which displays not only attraction introduction but also navigation functions.

Let’s talk about the only scenic spot on Highway 1: Walrus Beach (sea lions, seals, walruses, I can’t tell them apart)

The walrus is very big, visually weighing several tons, but it is so far away From a distance, it looks like a pile of dead fish~ ~

There is no fence here, only a small warning sign telling people not to touch it, no one manages it, no one collects money, and of course no one sells water or sells it. Toy. Both adults and children stood on the shore and watched.

Death Valley, a barren land along Highway 1

Shout

The "Dianping" in the United States can display reviews of surrounding restaurants, view maps, and adjust Navigate out of Google Maps.

What Sister Tiankai finds most useful about this app is:

Look at the pictures and order food! Because foreign menus contain words without pictures, and many new words are unknown at all, so they may not be found in the dictionary. Sometimes, if we want to see what others eat, we have to eat the same thing.

But there are many reviews on Yelp, plus pictures of the dishes. You can point at the pictures and tell the waiter what to order.

It is recommended to use these apps in China first to familiarize yourself with the functions. In addition to Yelp, there is also a Chinese version.

[Important Tips]

How to cheer yourself up?

As you know, there are no refueling service personnel at American gas stations, so you have to go down and insert the refueling gun yourself. You can pay with a credit card, but the only time Sister Tiankai tried to pay with a credit card was to help herself, but it was unsuccessful.

I don’t know if it’s because domestic credit cards cannot be used. In some places, it is quite troublesome to enter the zip code, so the most convenient way is to go to the gas station store and tell the clerk how much gas I want to add and what the number of the oil gun is. He will fire the oil gun for you and you can refuel.

If you don’t know how much to add, you can give us $100. After adding the amount, a receipt will come out, or you just need to remember the amount and tell the clerk and the clerk will give you change. We were driving on Highway 1, and we had never encountered a gas station that could only accept coins and credit cards, and there were no stores, so it was pretty smooth.

How to use navigation?

As I said before, you must look for it by the house number. You can check POI in the United States. The navigation name is tomtom. Take a look at the app store. It’s RMB 273! Rich people don't mind playing.

Car rental agencies have Chinese navigators that you can rent for a few dollars a day, usually from Garmin. Sister Tiankai uses both a navigator and Google Maps. She thinks Google Maps is very detailed, accurate and complete.

How to bring US dollars?

If the cash for a household is less than 10,000 yuan and for an individual leaving the country for less than 5,000 US dollars, more declarations are required. Declaring is not a hassle.

If you are worried about safety, you can bring a domestic credit card and a stored-value card with the UnionPay logo. Most merchants accept credit cards and stored-value cards to withdraw cash. Generally, you can only withdraw 300 yuan at a time, and there is a handling fee of several yuan for each card.

Travelers' checks (paper/electronic) are not very reliable.

My sister Tiankai brought an electronic traveler's check, which is a stored-value card with US dollars pre-loaded in it. Travelers checks are issued by American Express. AE fees are high, and many small shops and restaurants don’t charge them. Many ATMs do not offer cash withdrawals. The only advantage is that relatives and friends in China can deposit money into it at any time, and if there is a balance, they can withdraw cash or swipe their cards in the United States. What’s more, they can report the loss and instantly activate another backup card. More suitable for international students, the remittance fee is one thousandth.

How to save money?

Many American price comparison websites, such as China’s Qunar, such as priceline. Rent a car with priceline, a neighbor, and it costs 60 yuan a day for a dozen or so at Hertz. There are also car rental agencies recommended by travel friends, such as c

Commonly used price comparison websites include expedia.com (Smart Travel World), agoda.com (Accorda), etc. All have Chinese interfaces. Sister Tiankai has used agoda, which has a Chinese interface and accepts Chinese credit cards. A four-star hotel in Sanya has a room with windows on three sides, priced at 1,600 for three nights, and more than 3,000 for one night in peak season.

There is also a magical and expensive travel website (the membership fee is relatively expensive), which is suitable for booking very cheap hotels and air tickets long in advance. If the price is reduced after booking, 1 times or even 1.5 times of the price difference will be refunded. It's called worldventures.biz, and you need to register with the member referral system. If necessary, you can ask me, only once - friend, because you have to provide some sensitive information.

The largest group buying website in the United States is called groupon.com, and its usage is the same as in China.

How to change the mobile phone card?

You can buy a mobile phone card when you look for att, verizon and other operators or small stores locally, because using Google Maps navigation on your mobile phone requires a lot of data. Most mobile phone cards in the United States offer unlimited data, usually about $50 a month, and some include 1,000 minutes of international calls.

If you use a domestic mobile phone to roam, the data is very expensive.

However, the United States is a vast and sparsely populated place with few people. Maybe your mobile phone and navigation device have no signal. When you are driving on an empty stomach in the deserted Gobi Desert, it is already dark and there is no signal on your mobile phone or navigator. I drove 100 kilometers and there was no gas station.

Really scared! Can't help but think of the movie "No Man's Land". How to avoid it? Don't go.

San Francisco Bay Area shot at the Golden Gate Bridge

Hoover Dam and Autobots