Prices in this piece come from my personal spending records in May 2023; the RMB-to-USD exchange rate at the time was about 6.8, and they do not reflect current prices.
This trip started from Los Angeles, went to the Bay Area, the inland cities, and San Francisco, then returned to Los Angeles at the end. Across fifteen days, what stood out most was not the sights, but the car, the refueling, the parking, and sleeping only four hours a night.
On the road by day, in another time zone by night
I knew before leaving that I would be working across time zones, but I still underestimated what it would actually be like.
From 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. I was out on the road, and from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. I replied to messages from China. I slept about four hours a day and could guarantee four to six hours for meetings and getting things done. After a few days, my mind went dull.
The real pain of working across time zones is not the lack of sleep—it is that every little thing slows down. Business coordination, communicating with people, conveying goals: the pace is completely different. Burning the midnight oil alone does not help—you need people locally who can make judgments and close the loop, otherwise a single decision has to wait a whole day to be confirmed, and by the time it comes back it is already late night over there.
The deepest takeaway from this trip: the time difference is not something to push through—it forces you to leave judgment and the ability to close the loop with the local team. Toughing it out alone only drags the uncertainty from one midnight to the next.
The car is the default option
With a car, accommodation, supermarkets, friends’ homes, and sights can all be strung together; without one, many places are simply unreachable. Los Angeles buses cost $1.7 a ride and come every half hour, which is not exactly fast. The Bay Area has a small train into downtown San Francisco, but everywhere else, the car is basically the default option.
Gas prices I recorded at the time ranged from 5.7 a gallon, generally 5.2; filling a 12-gallon tank cost about 20, and 3 to 20 to 7 to 60 or $80.
Along Interstate 5, the great plains, the coast, and the hills all have stretches with no signal, and national parks have basically no coverage. I bought a 20-day unlimited travel SIM for about 160 yuan, which could not be used as a hotspot; while driving with navigation, 5G sometimes drifted, and 4G LTE was actually more stable.
“Expensive” is not any single purchase—it is a felt sense
The most direct feeling from this trip was not “hotels are expensive” or “restaurants are expensive,” but that every small expense piles up: a cup of coffee, one parking session, a delivery tip, filling the tank, hailing a ride.
Clothes in malls commonly cost 150 a piece; looking back at domestic prices, I had indeed been taken to the more expensive stores. A friend bought a pair of 50 to $300 a meal; the most annoying part was the tip, which you had to calculate yourself at 15% to 20%. Americans complain too—many places seem to just mark up by default. Delivery is not just the item price; there is also the delivery fee and the tip. Supermarket groceries were about twice the domestic price, and snacks were even more outrageous.
Where you stay, whether you have a car, and who treats you to a meal—these end up spreading the total bill a lot. Expensive is not any particular number; it is the feeling of being forced to keep converting and keep realizing that “money has a different value here.”
Looking back now, these 2023 numbers are already much cheaper compared to 2026—inflation in the U.S. since then has been severe. So the prices in this piece are only worth keeping as a record of that time; they cannot serve as today’s budget.
The reference point has changed
Coming to America at different times means seeing a different America. Those who came earlier would notice the gaps in infrastructure, the credit card system, and lifestyle; our generation, already used to mobile payments, instant delivery, and high-speed rail, will instead notice the distances, public transit, the cost of services, and network coverage.
This is not about who is better than whom; it is just that the reference point for comparison has changed.
What this trip ultimately left me with was four hours of sleep a day, a few stretches of highway, a running tally of expenses, and the plainest possible conclusion: “America really is expensive.”