Hi Guys,

I am moving to LA for work in 3 weeks and only just had my visa issued yesterday.

So really any help and advise on the following would be great

I've read alot about AIG travel guard. But can't seem to actually find somewhere to activate the service. Will call them on Monday.

Can I drive for a year on my uk license. Can't find official answer on dmu site

Best place to get a months car rental
Can I get a bank account before travelling. Hopefully can transfer my Amex beforehand.

Also looking to move to sherman oaks or studio city due to where I will be based. Any thoughts or comments on this.

Thanks a lot. And if there's anything I've missed that I need to take into consideration.

What visa do you have? It might affect some answers.

You can open a bank account as soon as you arrive - it'll take longer than 3 weeks to do it outside the US. For the AMEX transfer you need some information that you might not get until you arrive, though it's worth trying (the website says SSN needed but it isn't).

For driving, this might depend on the visa. If you're going to be here long term then you certainly need to take the CA test as soon as possible (supposedly 10 days but that's impossible). Allegedly having a CA license over a foreign one will significantly lower your insurance premiums.

Thanks for the reply

I'm coming on a L1b visa

Welcome to BE and good luck!

It seems most of your questions have been covered in previous threads though, so worth having a bit of a search and reading the wiki.

As for driving, you're resident, so you've technically got 10 days to get tested and get a local license, but reading numerous threads about the state, it seems as long as you get it done within a reasonable time, 30 days, it isn't a problem, as often you can't take the test that soon, but you need to sort out the permit to allow you to drive.

Renting a car, if you've got AA membership, you might be able to get a discount through them as they have a reciprocal thing with AAA and then there's various credit cards that might have discounts. Read the travel cheap thread which is stickied as it has some info on car rentals.

Bank threads are numerous, best off opening a credit union when you get there, but the big banks, HSBC, Chase etc allow you to do it, but doesn't help much if there isn't a local branch.

Sort out a proxy voter as postal vote might not make it in time from the west coast and sort out P-85.

"If you become a California resident, you must get a California driver license within 10 days. Residency is established by voting in a California election, paying resident tuition, filing for a homeowner’s property tax exemption, or any other privilege or benefit not ordinarily extended to nonresidents."

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/dl/dl_info.htm#two500

I'm sure that list used to include working here. They won't give you a year, best to set it up as soon as possible.

Don't bother with HSBC unless you like an 11 mile round trip to your nearest branch (from Studio City) and/or like paying foreign ATM fees. I've needed to go to branches more in 6 months here than probably the previous 6 years in the UK - mostly to do with setting up, to be fair, but a pain nonetheless.

If you want to be a little more specific about where you're working, some here might be able to tell you where to avoid living to avoid nasty commutes. Some areas around there always seem to be messy.

The wife's uncle lives in Sherman Oaks if i remember rightly. It seems a pretty upper class area (well the bit they live in anyway) with some beautiful houses. Pink and Melissa Joan Hart (Sabrina the Teenage Witch) live on the same street as them or at least they did the last time we were over accordinfly to her uncle. Been out a few times and there are lots of nice restaurants, cafes etc. Not sure if I'm making this up but think they moved to this area cause of the schools for their kid.

On aside note I'll be moving to Cali in 2 weeks. I thought I'd read I can drive for a 1 year on my own license but from what I read here i take it I need to get this sorted asap?

Just get it sorted ASAP. It'll make your life easier and cheaper.

Depends on the visa status, if you're a student then generally that is the case, but as you're working, that won't be.

You don't exist until you get a drivers license anyway, so get it as soon as you can.

Even just for ID purposes it's a great help - trying to get into a bar with an English license can really baffle a bouncer! Your insurance will want you to get it done asap too (but you can get the policy without it) - you can often bring your premium down by getting letters supporting your driving history in the UK (it halved mine) so thats worth getting while you're still there, I didn't and it took ages to get it sorted.

I live in Santa Monica and think it's great, so that's what I recommend... Brentwood is really nice too, Manhattan Beach etc, Pasadena (bit far out though), Loz Feliz, Silverlake are all good areas. Sherman Oaks could be ok just depends on where you're working, as it's quite far from downtown - especially in traffic. Bank account is really easy, just need to show them your visa - I have Chase and they have ATMs everywhere (be prepared that banks charge you for using any ATM that isn't theirs so don't get anything obscure).

really? we were here nearly 4 months before me and my husband bothered to take our driving test

You were lucky you were not involved in an accident in that case. BTW you could have saved yourself money by not paying for auto insurance...'cos without a valud DL you weren't insured anyway.

http://www.dmv.ca.gov/dl/dl_info.htm#two500

No we rented a hire car from Enterprise and was paying a ridiculous amount of car insurance i think about $10.99 a day. (plus the car rental!! guess they see us coming )

As I said you could have saved yourself money...because after 10 days after landing you were not insured. Makes no difference whether it was a rental car or not.

You seem very certain about that.

I think that it is more of a grey area than you seem to think.