Quick Checklist & Tips for Business Trip to USA

It’s one of the common thing that all of us do when planning for international travel. Knowing that lot of IT professionals in India travel to US for business and formalities in US immigration are little intimidating, most of us take great care of things we need to carry along with us. I have been to US for many times, but still I spend lot of mental bandwidth to ensure that I am well equipped for the travel. Through this post I am trying to create a checklist which can be helpful for other folks as well. And as I said, in case of US I over-prepare, so would love to hear through comments if any of the mentioned things don’t make sense. Gradually I intend to improve this post after coming back from my upcoming trip. 

So there can be 2 lists -

1. Things which you need to prepare irrespective of the duration of your stay in US.
2. Things which you need to plan as per your stay duration in US.

Common list (independent of stay duration) -

1. Air-ticket
2. Visa
3. Passport
4. Photo-copies of passport & visa in all the bags you carry
5. Print out of hotel booking
6. Travel Insurance
7. Office invitation letter
8. Cash
9. Credit-cards
10. Adaptor as plugs of all electrical appliances would be different in your country.

List of things which are dependent on duration of your stay in USA -

1. Telephone connection (SIM)
2. Cloths
1. Also depends upon the time when you are traveling

Optional stuff, but important -

1. Camera
2. A good headphone 

Now that I have shared the quick checklist, let me also share some tips to save some money and time during planning & the journey. 

Telephone connection - There are 2 options. One is to get international roaming activated on your existing number which is little expensive but there is an advantage that you would not be missing any calls, if that’s important for you. Second option is to take a special sim of vendors like Matrix, Clay or Roam1. These are cost effective options and it also depends upon the time you are going to spend in US. But there is always a little risk of unreliable services. 

I intend to add more stuff to this list, but would request you to comment if I have missed something very basic which can't be avoided.