A guide to spending a J-1 summer in the US, covering two funding approaches: work three months or save beforehand. The presenter worked at Abercrombie for money and connections, strongly recommends California's West Coast for beaches and road trips, and details staying fit cheaply through gym access and meal prep.
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Right, so this is not a cooking video. I'm just here because the lighting is decent. But today I'm actually going to be giving advice for those going on a J1 holiday. I'm just going to be telling you what I wish someone told me before I went. So let's get to it. Hey, Leroy, roll the intro. Okay, so you and all your friends want to go and spend the summer in America. Bloody good on you! Great cause, great thing to do. You have two options. Either apply for a J-1 visa that will enable you to work there for 3 months and to keep yourself afloat. Or a second option, you can save up so much money before you go that when you get there, you won't need to work. It'll keep you afloat for the whole summer. Now this may sound crazy money-wise, you know, how much do I have to save up? But it actually kind of works out the same because after you sort everything to do with your visa, such as insurance and social security, it actually sets you back quite a bit. So it's up to you. I personally booked through Hewson and that enabled me to work there. So I worked in Abercrombie, obviously. The pay is not good there. I know people who worked in bars and restaurants and they made a killing off tips, but I wasn't there to work much. I didn't go in too often and I went over with a good bit of money and just used that job to kind of keep me ticking over. And also meet new people too. That's a big bonus of working in America. Okay, so that's all the boring stuff out of the way. Now, where in America to go? The question is: East Coast or West Coast? I have friends who one year they went East Coast, and then the next year they went on a J1 again and they went to the West Coast, and all of them say West Coast kills it. A J1 is about beaches and road trips and Mexico. Now, I couldn't imagine spending my J1 in a built-up city like New York, but that said, I've also heard very good things about Chicago. But if my geographical skills are on point, I'm pretty sure California's here, New York is here, you know, Chicago's like— Anyways, I made base in Isla Vista in Santa Barbara, and it was perfect. You know those house parties that you see in movies like Project X? They're real, they happen, they exist. I went to one house party and it was— the house was filled with foam. I was like, home insurance is gonna say fuck. Fuck this. No phone parties were in the agreement. Me and my posse had IV, Isla Vista, as our HQ, but this was the perfect place for road trips, and that's what you wanna do. You wanna travel as much as you can. We went to Huntington Beach for the Surf Open, Las Vegas to see Deadmau5, Calvin Harris, and Tiesto within 24 hours of each other. That took years off my life. Worth it. Hit up LA for a wild night. I ended up at Paris Hilton's birthday. I was just like, "Hey yo, what up Paris?" Also got a workout in in Gold's Gym Venice. Even if you're not into the gym, I'd recommend to go there and go for a nice post-workout meal in the Firehouse afterwards. Such a good experience. Took a road trip down to San Diego, ended up spur of the moment just crossing the border into Tijuana, Mexico. If you're a group of lads, you have to go to Tijuana, Mexico. I did some things there that I'll bring to the grave. I'll never repeat. All I'm gonna say is Hong Kong. So as long as you're on the West Coast, you're really all good. But if I had to make a base, I would say to either make base in Isla Vista, Santa Barbara, or San Diego. But like I said, if you're in California, you're pretty much set. It's actually not that hard to get around the place. For accommodation, my biggest and only tip is to sort it all out before you get there. If you wait till you get there to sort it out, you're going to end up staying in motels and hotels, and it's going to be the biggest waste of money ever. Not to mention, it's such good crack moving into a gaff with all your mates. Funny story that happened to me, actually. So the group I went with, right, you know, we moved into our bungalow flat thingy, and, you know, one lads comes in, "Oh, big loud group of Irish lads after moving in next door." So I was like, "Right, I'm going in to investigate." So I went in next door, and I knew all of them well from back in Dublin, you know. This was so unexpected. I was in shock. We didn't organize to be neighbors at all. So the two groups hit it off and we ended up combining our houses to make this like huge porch. And like this, we called it the stoop. It worked out so well and no one would say shit to us either. If any Americans were like, "Hey, can you turn down the music?" We'd just go full Irish on them. "Cut it dark, stoop! Would you like it dark?" We don't want no trouble, man. So that's all the main things covered, but this is a fitness channel, kind of. So I want to talk about that, as fitness actually did come into things quite a lot. Okay, so me and my housemates, we're all into the gym, so the first thing we did is we went up to UCSB and joined the college gym and recreation center. So every morning we would all wake each other, no matter the state we were in, and just be like, "Hey bro, come on, we gotta go lift." Get each other up, get each other psyched up and go to the gym. It was pretty fun. UCSB, the place, the college gym also has a huge outdoor swimming pool with diving boards that could cure any hangover. And it was also a great place to make some American friends, which is very, very important. You'd see some frat boys in the gym and it'd be like, "Hey, uh, I lift. I see you also lift." I'd be like, "Yeah, bro, I love to lift." Next minute, "Party tonight in Sigma Pi! DJ, 2 kegs, ton of drunk cheerleaders, let's go!" True story. As for the diet, a huge tip I have is just to cook your own food. One, because the supermarkets over there are fucking awesome. They are like the most macro-friendly things ever. You can get pints of ice cream that have like 150 calories. Two, it'll keep you in good shape. But three, most of all, it will save you so, so much money. Towards the end of summer, I was running low on cash, so I just said, okay, I'm just gonna cook all my own meals now, and it saved me hundreds of dollars a week. Not to mention it's good camaraderie with you and your housemates. Tequila Taco Tuesdays were the tits. I've gone on piss-up holidays where you completely lose the run out of yourself, but seeing as when you go to America you're gonna have a gym, a kitchen, and you're gonna be living there, you know, you can take a night off. It's not that hard to stay in shape. I actually didn't lose much progress at all. So I hope you like this video. I can honestly say it was the best summer I ever had. If you've got any more questions, write them down below. Below, or even inbox my Facebook fitness page. Hope you enjoyed it. Keep it real, and God bless America. I'm out of here.
