As I’m writing this post, six weeks have passed since I returned from Butler, Pennsylvania. It took me a while to really sit down and process my thoughts and emotions of such a significant trip, and I finally feel ready to write about my experience and have it documented here.
If you’ve read my PhD story, you would know that my lifelong friend, Emily, lost her husband on the same day as my PhD viva. That was in December, 2024, and I had agonized over not being there for her. It’s not as if I could drop everything and fly there, even if I had wanted to. I had to renew my passport. I had to get a visa. I had to save up for the trip. I had to also find the right time to go, because as an academic, I couldn’t simply up and left whenever I wanted to.
But all that aside, I made it. And I want to write about the process of getting there, the full trip (including the visit to Niagara Falls), so this will be a mini-series over several posts, because there is a lot to cover.
The date was February 3rd, 2025.
At 3pm, I submitted my thesis corrections to my faculty’s postgraduate head of department. I had passed my viva with minor corrections and was given three months to make the amendments. I breezed through this process; firstly, because the comments were straightforward and I knew what I needed to do, but secondly, it was because I was eager to start planning the trip.
I had looked at the dates on my yearly calendar and decided two were possible. Either I could go in March, or I could go in June. Both dates coincided with Eid—Eid ul’ Fitr in March, or Eid ul Adha in June. The next possible date would be August/September, but I felt that would have been too late to give Emily my hug.
March was not ideal, because it would be cold in Pennsylvania and it was also Ramadhan. So June it was. I had already applied online for my US visa, and the date for the interview with the embassy was set at 5th February, two days after submitting my thesis corrections.
As you can probably tell, once I’ve made my mind about something, I’m pretty good at seeing things through.
The interview at the embassy was straightforward. They asked me why I wanted to go, where I was planning to stay. I was actually quite surprised that it went so smoothly. President Trump had been signed into office on 20th January, and I was already worried there might be another Muslim travel ban or that the visa would not come easy. Thankfully, though, none of this transpired.
Even when the travel ban was announced, Malaysia was in the clear.
It did take seven weeks for me to get my passport and visa back from the embassy, however. It was issued on 12th March, and there were no hiccups whatsoever apart from the long wait. So, with my visa and passport in the clear, on 27th March, I bought the tickets.
The amount for the roundtrip was juuust under RM6,000. Which wasn’t that bad at all.
This was my trip in a nutshell. My first flight was at 8:20PM on Friday, 30th May. It was a 7h 25m flight from Kuala Lumpur to the Hamad International Airport at Doha, Qatar. Then a 14h 10m flight from Doha to the John F Kennedy Airport in New York. And finally a 1h 35 m flight from New York to the Pittsburgh International Airport. My layover was 3 hours in Doha.
I opted for the longer 5 hours 30 minutes stop in JFK, simply because I had read so many stories on Reddit about the ludicrous waiting time at JFK. I wanted to make sure I had a lot of time on my hands should anything come up. In total, the trip to Pittsburgh lasted just under 32 hours, which we’ll talk about in the next post. I flew Qatar Airways for international, then American Airlines for domestic from JFK to Pittsburgh.
Once the tickets were bought, all’s left were the physical and mental preparations. I had two months to do that.
I need to say that while all the preparation was happening, there was a lot of uncertainty and chaos going on in the world as well. With Trump newly sworn into office, we were getting news every other day about the changes and new policies he was enforcing. It was anxiety-inducing, waking up and opening Reddit every single morning to see what else he was doing that may have implications on this trip.
He enforced some pretty drastic tariffs, including for Malaysia, that I was worried might affect things.
I found out that going through US security might subject me to laptop and mobile phone checks, as well as social media checks.
The Gaza-Israel war was still ongoing since October 7th, 2023, which made the transit to Doha somewhat concerning just due to the proximity of it.
There was just overall a lot of anxiety and uncertainty leading up to the trip. Some even questioned my decision to travel to the US, but I knew I wanted to see Emily. So I continued with my travel plans.
Let’s talk stuff, and what I had to buy.
I knew that it would be early spring in Pennsylvania, so I bought a cheapo light jacket (black) that would go well with everything. I brought a pair of sandals, but I knew I would rely mostly on just comfortable walking shoes (which I did). After so many years denouncing jeans, I bought two pairs and pretty much just lived in those for the entire trip. Oh, and special mention to my favourite purchase for the trip—a small cross-body sling bag, that was just big enough for my phone, power bank, passport, and cards.
There’s my dream team right there.
I bought a good Baseus 20,000 mAh power bank that could charge my phone fully up to three times. I bought a hefty Anker PD travel adapter which I did not end up needing, but isn’t a waste despite the price considering I have a few upcoming international trips planned anyway. I also bought a mini electric iron with dual voltage 120V/220V because one thing I learned during this trip was that USA has really low voltage lol. I got a WISE card, which works like a regular debit card, and I also had my credit card for emergencies. For mobile internet, I went with Airalo and just got a 2GB eSIM to last me for the week because I knew I would be relying on Emily’s home internet anyway.
In terms of bags, I had my laptop bag as my carry-on because I decided to bring my laptop with me. I knew I would have to access it for work one way or another (which did happen, though not often). I had already resigned to the fact that my laptop might get through checks during security and was prepared for that. I also brought a small 7kg bag for my clothes, which was my checked in bag. I can be a very light traveller when I need to (thank you, minimalism), and I knew I wanted to be mobile during the airport transfers and get another bag when I was in the USA for goodies and gifts. So I had only that small 7kg bag for clothes, my small sling bag, and my laptop bag.
Plus it was only nine days.
Now let me talk about another important highlight of the trip preparation: ChatGPT.
I honestly don’t know if I would have proceeded with the trip without ChatGPT. I asked ChatGPT everything I could think of. Information is power, after all, so I made sure I had all my concerns addressed. And I mean, ALL my concerns. Travelling is not new to me. I’ve travelled to ten countries, but this was the first time I’d be doing it solo, so I needed to make sure that I was both comfortable and well-prepared.
I asked ChatGPT what I needed to bring with me, documentation-wise. Per ChatGPT’s advice, I printed out my travel itinerary, my husband’s contact details, and Emily’s contact details. I printed out my travel insurance, and the letter from my university granting me approval to travel (with emergency hotline numbers listed). I printed my proof of employment. I printed my credit card’s hotline number, my university’s hotline number. I actually prepared several copies of these documents—one I gave to my husband, another to my dad. I was overpreparing, but it was important for safety reasons. After all, I was going to be travelling across the very globe we are living in, alone.
I asked ChatGPT about prayer times. I asked it, in advance, where I could find the musolla in the airports I would be going to. I looked up mosques nearby Emily’s place and around Pittsburgh. I paid extra for a window seat on my long flights for privacy. With the Gaza/Israel war happening, I even asked ChatGPT to give me a list of pointers of how to gauge whether the trip would be safe, and what might happen in the Middle East that might not make it safe. I asked it to give me pointers of when I should definitely cancel, and it gave me a nice, bulleted, traffic-light system of when it was safe, when to be concerned, and when I would definitely have to cancel.
I never knew how air travel worked at times of war. Coincidentally, six days after I returned to Malaysia, Iran and Israel went to war (the 12 Day War). Iran closed its airspace several hours before the first missile struck, and the Hamad International Airport, which I had transited through, was also closed for 24 hours. Though this happened a few days after my trip, I now feel reassured about upcoming trips knowing that the closing of airspace and the redirecting of flights is a common, standard practice. ChatGPT had informed me of this when I was preparing, of course, but to see it happen was something else. Words cannot convey how grateful I am that we live in this age where artificial intelligence is so accessible, and that I had ChatGPT as a place to ask any question to prepare me mentally for it.
So there you have it. That was the preparation leading up to the trip. In the next post, I can finally talk about the fun details of my time there, so stay tuned.