The Greatest Internship

Friday, May 1st 2026

Traveling to another country is a great experience,

you can see the wonders of the world and experience different cultures than your own. Just traveling, typically however you do it, only lets you see the tourism culture. The best way to see everything a country has to offer is to involve yourself in the community. Make some friends, join some groups and go where the locals go. When in Rome, do as the Roman's do. This can be very difficult when you only have a few days or weeks in one place when you are traveling on holiday, but getting to spend a few months to a year opens your eyes to an entirely new set of experiences; opens your mind to a whole new world, a new fantastic point of view, with no one to tell us no or where to go, or say we're only dreaming. - Aladdin

J1 Visa

The United States has a lot of different kinds of visas with many different requirements. One of the best visa statuses in my opinion is the J1 visa. This visa covers a wide variety of travel objectives, from tourism to working short-term, to even joining a host family in the au pair program for the purpose of cultural exchange, this visa allows everything you may be looking for, for up to 1 year.

Many people aren't familiar with the au pair program; let's break it down. More info can be found here; the US state government calls this program "Bridge USA" and allows young adults from many other countries to travel to the United States for the soul reason of experiencing the American culture! This program is a 2 way road, families with young children who are looking for a baby sitter can apply to be a host family. It is not like foster care, and families are not applying to being a child into a home to raise them as their own, but rather it is for families who want to help a young adult experience life in America and get a feel for the culture. The age requirement for the visa applicant is 18-26 years old, and they must pass a few tests including an English proficiency test and getting a physical check-up at a doctor.

Young adults who apply for this program will live with their host family for up to 1 year, and can extend for a few extra months towards the end of the program if they meet some requirements. The host family is required to provide the visa holder with food and lodging, as well as a weekly allowance as payment for their services of taking care of the children in the house. Their role is not just as a nanny however, there is also a requirement that the young adult also seeks higher than secondary education while they are here in the US. They can study anything they choose at any school or organization, and the program will cover $500/month of their schooling costs, making this a very solid choice for those looking for deepening their academic studies. The US also has the F1 visa for students who want to come to the US for the sole purpose of studying at an American university, but typically all costs are out of pocket from the student and they must find their own lodging and place to work to make ends meet. The au pair program is best of both worlds, as they get to study while also getting the experience of living in the US with a real family and the security that comes with it.

Work and Travel USA

The Work and Travel USA program is a seasonal working program that allows specifically students in university to visit the US during their school break, allowing them to work and travel while their school is out of session. This program is a wonderful concept, and later I will go into my own experience working with students that came in this program. The WAT program lasts for 4 months, and has a few requirements or restrictions. Applicants must be students of a university to join this program, and this allows them to work for up to 4 months, but most jobs will hire them for 3 months and allow them to travel for 1 month before going back to their home country. This program is such a great experience, like a summer camp, it allows people to experience the culture, but also the working environment in US and deepen their work ethic, gain new experiences, and earn money to pay off their flight tickets and fund their travel across the country. It's a win-win! If I was in their shoes, joining this program would be a no-brainer! Many people can't imagine coming to the US because it is very expensive, combining the flight ticket with the very strong currency making hotels, food, and travel expenses. This program is a great solution as you are earning money throughout your stay.

I have gotten the privilege to work with students from many countries who have chosen this program. Ever since 2019 I have worked with students from Peru, Ukraine, Brazil, Russia, Kazakstan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, China, Argentina, Turkey, Kenya, India, Jamaica, the Bahamas, Mexico, and my personal favourite, Malaysia. There could be some other countries I am missing, but my point is people from just about any country get to experience American life and everything that comes with it. Hospitality is such a large industry that is always hiring for every position, from front of house as front desk or restaurant host, to back of house with housekeeping or banquet set up. Even when I was working in waterparks I got the privilege of working with these students as lifeguards or attraction attendants. I say it is a privilege because I have gotten to experience so many different cultures without having to leave my home country! Sometimes it can be difficult to make friends with Americans, as we tend to be an uncultured race, but I want to both give these students the best experience during their program as well as for my own personal development, getting to learn cultures and experience working with different types of people and personalities.

I have talked to people about their childhoods, learning about how incredibly different it is to grow up in a place like Kenya and the political and terrorist warfare that goes on. Or growing up somewhere like China and how Covid was handled completely differently and the horrors that came with it, which every single person was affected by. I have also learned how the Philippines is incredibly similar to life in America, and it feels like the world isn't really that different. What amazes me is how everyone has experienced something different, and while it may seem like other people have a difficult life or face immense challenges, they don't think it's that bad. They just see that as normal, and every experience is just something that helped them mature and grow into the person they are today. Something that might cause PTSD in my mind is just the way of life to others. Perspective really does change everything.

"Friendship is found in the most unexpected places"

When I was younger, I wouldn't have guessed that my best friends would live on the opposite side of the world from the US. Furthermore, I didn't expect that maybe the most random job, handing jackets for guests to wear in a cold room full of ice sculptures, would provide me with the best friends I have ever made. Let's rewind a little and go back to 2021: I was working a seasonal job at a waterpark and needed something during the winter season. Growing up in Nashville I went to Gaylord Opryland Resort and Convention Center all the time; for pictures after prom to looking at the Christmas lights every year, least to say I was very familiar with that place. Gaylord has an attraction every year for the past few decades called ICE! featuring scenes from famous holiday movies. Every year, around 20-40 ice carvers called artisans would come to each location all the way from Harbin, China, to carve ice sculptures in a room that was kept -13˚ C. It would take this team a couple months of hard labour to get all of the sculptures carved out and ready to go, and thousands of pounds of ice later, a movie had come to life! My first year working in ICE was for the theme Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, and it was a sight to behold. The opening scene was a full sized baby deer lying in a straw bed inside an ice cave, all carved out of coloured ice. What a great experience!

When I started working at ICE! I was just an attendant, just starting out like everyone else. Some of the job responsibilities include: handing out jackets (parkas) to guests and sorting through the parkas into their respective sizes when guests had finished using them, working at the ticketing area to scan people's tickets they had purchased and letting in those who had the proper time, and working in retail as a cashier or stocking the shelves with souvenirs. Out of all of these, my favourite was actually being in the exhibit. I loved being in that cold room, feeling the cold air rush into my lungs was the greatest feeling. Helping guests take pictures with their families, and seeing the faces of little kids light up when they saw Rudolph's nose light up at the touch of a button! Sometimes I had to work as a slide attendant, making sure guest's followed the rules and understanding why those rules were in place. More times than not I ended up at the top of the slide, as others didn't really get the purpose of the rules. For example, we did not allow guests with cowboy boots or heels to ride the slide. Why you may ask? Heels can dig into the ice, not only scratching the ice and slowing you down, but at greater speeds can cause your ankle to twist. I heard one time someone broke their ankle because of the sudden force from their shoes being dug into the ice. I would hate for anyone to experience this pain, but also this is a traumatic experience for the staff and other guests who witness an incident like this. I had gotten very good at turning away guests, so the managers really liked putting me at the top so their minds would be at ease.

Working in ICE! was a ton of fun, not just because of the job but rather the people I got to work with. You can probably guess with the title of this blog that I got to work with a lot of J1 students, especially at this job. Before this, it was pretty rare for me to work with two J1 students from the same country, as my employers usually didn't hire very many and just took whatever help they could get and didn't choose the country. Gaylord was different, Gaylord would hire people from the same country for these seasonal positions. Christmas is their biggest leisure season, so they needed to staff up the restaurants servers and hosts, culinary workers in the kitchens, and attractions staff like ICE. The 2 years I worked at Gaylord I got the privilege of working with students from Malaysia! The first year I really enjoyed meeting people and talking to them about their culture and what life was like in their country. They really painted a beautiful picture of what life was like in many different places; KL, Penang, Miri, and others. After working with a very large group of Malaysians, when ICE was over we still had a couple months before their program ended, so I enjoyed taking different groups to experience Nashville and try uniquely American things! I took several people to try the famous foods, a few people went to play baseball and mini golf, and went on a few hikes. When the program was over I felt pretty emotional; not only were my friends leaving but it felt like a part of me was leaving too. The next year in October, I decided I wanted to be spontaneous. I wanted to visit Malaysia.

The first Malaysia trip

I reached out to a few people before heading out to get an idea of what I can be expecting. I wanted to see all of the people I got to meet and hang out with while they were in my country! I wanted to tour their home towns! I had never been on an airplane before this point, but I was pretty confident it was going to be a breeze. Boy was I wrong! The first flight from Nashville to LAX was nothing, super easy flight and I had a window seat so I could rest. The next flight on the other hand was a lot tougher on my gut. 13 hours from LAX to Taipei is not enjoyable for anyone, much less an inexperienced flyer in a middle seat in economy. It was really difficult to fall asleep, and I had to take frequent stops in the lavatory to vomit from the turbulence. It was a very difficult flight, but it was worth it!

First stop, Kuala Lumpur! What wasn't worth it is after I landed in my first city of choice I had a very weak stomach, so I didn't get to enjoy too much extravagant food and just needed to settle for the more neutral food I was used to back home. Anyways, I had done some research to find the must-see tourist places. I got to see KL Tower, a Chinese Buddhist temple, a Malay Muslim temple, and a Hindu temple inside a cave! Batu Caves was a very tiring but exciting climb. 272 rainbow coloured stairs next to a 42 foot tall golden statue take you to the entrance of the cave, and inside the cave was a brightly coloured temple to a Hindu god. If you plan to visit here, beware of the monkeys! Although they are cute, looks are deceiving. They tend to be kleptomaniacs, stealing anything they can get their hands on. Food, hats, keys, anything they can easily take from out of your hand they will try to steal, but lucky for me I wasn't driving.

I also visited Merdeka Square and got to see their library and an art museum dedicated to the city of KL. It was great to tour this museum and read about the history of Malaysia and what happened during WWII and how they gained their independence. Jalan Alor was a great street to tour and try different foods and experience the Chinese culture in that part of the city. To end this leg of the trip I got to take a sick picture in front of Petronas Twin Towers, or KLCC, around early evening when the tower was lit up brightly. Something that made KL so great is even though it is the largest city in Malaysia, it doesn't feel overwhelmingly big like NYC or Chicago. It feels closer to Los Angeles, but not as dirty and a better quality of life. It's a massive city sure, but it is spread out over a large area so it feels more like home. This city really won over my heart.

Stage 2 - Sarawak

Leading up to this trip I knew I didn't want to only stay in west Malaysia, I wanted to venture out east too. I am a huge nature guy, and east Malaysia is full of this and oil. The biggest difference is the eastern states, like Sabah and Sarawak, don't get the same recognition and government funding as the western states do. East has lots of rubber trees, durian and rambutan, palm oil and crude oil alike, and a lot of resources that can help the economy to thrive, but the cities are not as developed. Everything is smaller, but why? All of the product tends to go to west Malaysia to be shipped out to other countries to get profit, and the funds simply don't get their way back to the east island. While this is a sad reality for the locals in this area, I personally think it's a blessing as little development keeps the nature pristine and pure, untouched by the destructive hand of man. While this is nice, it also means roads are horrible, clean water can be scarce in some areas, and quality of life is not nearly as high as in other states.

Regardless, I have some friends in this side of the country and I wanted to visit and experience every part of Malaysia. I went to a city called Miri, and got to explore Coco Cabana beach, Miri Times Square, Grand Ole Lady (an oil rig) and the Miri/Hollywood sign. My favourite part of my Sarawak journey was Niah Caves, but not just for the cave. Yes, I love caves and hiking and this really was a blast, but it is pretty far away from the city. I had a friend come and pick me up from my hotel, we went and got breakfast where I was able to try midin, a very unique plant that can only be eaten in Sarawak as it withers. very quickly after harvesting and is not grown commercially. After this we set sail, literally! We drove quite a ways to the entrance to this national park, where the only way to enter the trail to the cave was to climb aboard a small boat to cross a river to the other side. This was my first experience of a rainforest, and they really weren't joking when they came up with this name. Rainforest. Even though it had not rained in several days, the forest was lush and the paths were wet, nothing was dry here. After traversing through this rainforest we finally arrived in the cave! Some places were narrow, some had low ceilings where I had to duck to pass through. My friend took a picture of me that is my favourite picture to date- it reminds me of Daniel in the lions den from the Bible, I can imagine Daniel looking up to the angel the same way I looked up at the sun through a crack from the bottom of the cave. This cave was unlike anything I have ever seen; Mammoth Cave doesn't even come close to the splendour of this cave. God is good!

I got to learn about Swiftlets, the native bird that makes its nest on the cave walls using its own saliva. While this sounds gross, these nests are harvested and cooked to be eaten as a delicacy! A very expensive delicacy, mind you, as they tend to sell by the kilogram from $2,000 to $10,000 or more depending on the variety! This was such a fun experience, and I don't think I would have learned any of this if it wasn't for my friend and his family traveling with me. I truly felt welcomed into their family. Miri also has a very special place in my heart, as a nature lover but also with the invaluable time I spent reconnecting with my friends.

The rest of the trip

I only spent one day in Penang, which I regret a little bit but not too much. I got to see many of the murals and travel with a few of my friends. I had my first taste of HaiDiLao! I think my favourite part was visiting the historic Penang Hill Railway, a staircase-on-tracks as you may call it. You get in a train car that is similar to a trolley and it sends you up a massive 2 kilometre hill to a beautiful lookout point with yet another Hindu temple and lots of tourist stalls selling souvenirs and snacks. The best part, yet again, was the time spent catching up and reminiscing good times with old friends.

After Penang was my first visit to Australia and New Zealand. I went to Brisbane and toured the Australia Zoo, then flew to Auckland NZ to take a guided bus ride and tour to Hobbit town where they filmed Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings series. These were two unbelievable places I will share about in another post as this one is getting a bit long. This was the first trip to Malaysia, and this trip really drew me in. This trip gave me the desire to move here and spend my life in this beautiful country.

After returning to the US, I decided to work at ICE! at Gaylord again, but this time my old managers encouraged me to apply for the supervisor role. In this role I was really able to lead a team well and was given many opportunities to strengthen my leadership skills. I was thrilled to hear we were hiring another 70 students from Malaysia! Only one person returned from the year prior, everyone else was new but having a shared experience I took a liking to them even more so than the first batch. My manager and I greeted the new batch at the HR office after their orientation, and I immediately knew I was going to make some more life-long friends, but I didn't expect something even more special. When we all walked to the event centre where we would start their training, someone came up to me and walked with me. He introduced himself very quickly to me, and when I asked him where he was from he said Miri. I said "I've been to Miri, I have some friends there!" "I know, he's my friend too!" he explained to me, "He told me to come find you when I started working here, I have to meet you!"

Over the next 4 months I learned a few phrases in Chinese, traveled with some friends, made lots of memories, spent many late nights learning games from China like Mahjong and teaching games from US like Dutch Blitz. I can't tell you how many times I came home at 2 or 3am in the morning after a late night out with friends. But there is one relationship I made that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. One that hopefully will last a lifetime.

2 years, 3 months, and 8 days of memories

In 2024, one of the Malaysians I met while working in Gaylord was a beautiful young woman with a wonderfully mature yet childish, fun loving personality. I was amazed watching how she acted when talking about a difficult situation at work where her manager made her upset. The situation just rolled right off of her and she went straight back like nothing happened. She is adorable too, when she gets excited she jumps like a little girl and it fills my heart with so much warmth. I can't imagine myself with anyone else. When I started working at Gaylord, I did not expect to meet and fall in love with someone so far away from my home. As I mentioned previously, I already had an interest in moving to Malaysia, but she has accelerated my desire. My hope is that the hospitality industry is not just a job that I enjoy, although that is a very important aspect, but also I hope it can help bring this dream to reality.

We all have heard the saying, if you love what you do you'll never work a day in your life, and that is somewhat true for me. I love operations, I love the hospitality industry because I can give guests a great experience, but I really love everything that goes into operations. My blog post next week will be "The 10 Things I Have Learned About Hospitality" where I will go over, well, exactly that. I am also going to go into more depth about why I love this industry. My other hope is that Hospitality can take me anywhere in the world I want to go. I have been researching the different opportunities for me in other countries, similar to Work and Travel USA but for an American citizen. I just had a phone call on Tuesday with someone from InterExchange about the opportunities in Australia and how that fits into my agenda, and I am very excited with her proposal. I think there is still a bit more for me in my current role and I want to give myself some more time to develop where I am to get more valuable experience, but I believe I should be able to make the move to Australia next July. There are a couple different visa types that would give me different privileges, and there is a lot more I need to explore to find what city I want to live in, what companies are in that area, and other things. I will continue to evaluate my options and hopefully someday in the not too distant future I can go on a Work and Travel adventure of my own.

Ending statement.

Sorry about missing a post last week. I was spending a bit too much time working on my website project. As I mentioned last post I am transitioning all of my current projects to OOP so they will be more structured, organised, and uniform under one clear method, rather than spread out randomly. I am working on planning out my next few posts so I can be more consistent and make blogging more of a routine. Thank you again for reading, I truly appreciate every second you listen to me blabber more than you will ever know. :)

Also no Chinese word of the week this week, I will get to it next week, I've been a bit pre occupied. 再见！Here's one it means goodbye!

Daniel Kennedy | Your WaT Guide