I've accepted a job offer in Maryland, working just north of Adelphi. I currently live in the UK, so have to move. I would really appreciate some general advice on moving to the states. Where to live initially, good ways to find an apartment, things to watch out for and avoid. Opening a bank account ahead of time perhaps? Should I transfer a sum of money over before hand? I'll also need a car it seems, not much options in way of public transport. Should I just go to a local dealer and haggle? General advice on things to keep in mind and things to avoid would greatly help. If any Gurus have moved to the states from abroad, please share experiences. Thanks!
I can help with cars... You'll want to make sure that you have it inspected wherever you get it from unless you can verify it's condition by yourself. If you're planning to buy used, you'll have to go do a dealer or you can also buy private party. You can always try to haggle, but your success will depend on how much of @$$ they're being during that day. If you're buying used you can look for a used car at a name brand dealer or a non name brand dealer. Generally name brand dealers will offer "certified preowned" which means that they inspect it and offer some sort of quality assurance and possibly a small warranty. Or you can buy a used one without that, again it's all up to you to make sure it's a good car. You can also check places like cargurus to see if someone (private party) is selling what you're looking for. You'll always pay less when you're buying from a private party.
Cheers dude, helpful. Also wondering about network carriers, what companies should I avoid getting a new SIM from. Tips on good ISP and setting things up first time.
If you need help with apartment/condo rental and/or purchase Zillow and Redfin are great places to look. I recommend making a visit to scope out a particular area you wish to live and find out about it. Find out the crime rates, observe the nightlife, etc. I also suggest a place with controlled access, so you have control on who comes and goes. Here are a few great sites to get you started: 1. https://www.apartments.com/ 2. https://www.zillow.com/ (I found my current apartment on here) If you wish to buy, Redfin is also a great place to start: 3. https://www.redfin.com/
Your ISP choice will be limited unfortunately. Just go with the fastest cable provider in your area.Use your own router and modem if possible. If you're lucky enough to have municipal broadband or a smaller ISP then you might see a service difference between them and the likes of Comcast, Cox, Time Warner etc. Always use a VPN for torrenting no matter the ISP. Your cell service will be a choice between Verizon, T-Mobile, Sprint or Project Fi. I highly recommend Project Fi if you live in an area with good coverage. It's Google's network so you can get the unlocked Pixel and Nexus phones for it. https://fi.google.com/about/
haha nice one Lovcat^.....anyway...Welcome to America Bro! Thanks to president Trump!....jobs are plentiful here in the USA!
As biggerx mentioned, your ISP is limited in usa, you have large areas to cover and you have monopolies, if you're unlucky it's one ISP (and possibly 1 phone carrier) or nothing. Doesn't compare to the UK really.
If you can avoid comcast as your ISP, avoid it. Comcast suuuucks. Customer service sucks, prices are crazy. They up your bill every month and hope you don't have the time/balls to call up and yell at them for it.
If I were you....You can save alot of money buying a new or used car from a Private owner using Autotrader.com for example,dealerships usually charge a couple thousand over blue-book price so yeah you can save there for sure! Just be smart and enjoy your stay dude,Good-luck with the new job and life in the states.
I have no particular love for Comcast and they do tend to keep raising prices, either directly or by eliminating the service level with which you were otherwise quite happy. That being said I do find Comcast reliable. The other ISP in this area is Verizon and I hear worse stories of Verizon. For example a couple weeks ago my apartment complex suffered a power outage and one of my neighbors told me she and the other Verizon customers she knew had fried hardware. Verizon is my phone company and I hope they don't read this and cut off my phone service. I tend to believe there is no such thing as a good ISP.
I'm also moving to the US from UK, should be there by November by the time interview/medical etc done. Question to Omagana though: how are you going about moving your possessions? I'm literally selling everything off, furniture, car etc, but want to take some prized possessions with me - 35 vinyl records (about 25kg in weight), a couple of retro consoles (Mega Drive/CD, games) - unsure if I should pay to ship or take as much with me in my flight luggage. Still struggling to decide to sell my rig, buy a mediocre laptop, or disassemble, pack and reassemble when I get over there haha, first world problems.
What hardware fried? Verizon doesn't provide power or PC components, so if it was PC....it had nothing to do with Verizon. If it was router, it's the fault of Actiontec, who actually makes the gateway/router Verizon uses. Verizon will replace gateway/routers that fail anyway. Only other possibility is the complex itself.... Verizon has it's moments, but they're really not that bad to deal with as long as you get a CSR that actually cares about doing their job. Sometimes it takes more than 1 phone call though. I've been with them for almost 7 years....
He can't get a green card without getting married to a US citizen or taking and passing the citizenship test, which requires someone to spend a certain amount of time in the US first and know things that most US citizens don't even know. He needs a work visa...
We hired an individual from Canada the beginning of last year, we could not pay them as an employee, only as a consultant till their work visa was straightened out. That also meant that they could only stay in the States for less than six months and then leave for a month and then come back. They were let go because the visa was not handled in a fair amount of time. So yes, get the visa squared away or at least get the ball rolling before you leave.