Canadian Border Crossing this summer

[Hypancistrus]

So I am reading over procedures for entering Canada this summer to visit Niagara Falls and Toronto and it's a bit more complicated than it seemed when other adults were making all the decisions for our 1997 band trip. It seemed like no big deal at the time, we just needed a birth certificate. I am wondering if any of you have done a Canada visit more recently?

We both has passports so are good to go with that.

Specifically, we were considering taking my fiances car, which is owned by her parents. I found that we are going to need to get a letter signed by her parents saying they know we are borrowing the car and taking it to Canada, so I may try to do that. I don't really fancy taking my truck to Canada... it's really hard to park and its gas mileage stinks.

I am also wondering about electronics. It says customs agents can search your laptops and cell phones. Do they typically do this? I am not planning to take any laptops, but we would have our iPhones with us. Do iPhones on ATT's network work in Canada? I have no idea.

I know that I need to contact the credit card companies and let them know we will be out of country and I plan to do that closer to the date.

Anything else I need to know about this? I am realizing that there is a lot I don't know. Glad I am reading about it before hand.

[Coluber42]

You can cross either with a passport or with a passport card (the card is good for land or sea crossings to Canada and Mexico only, not for flights and not for any other countries). And if you're using a borrowed car, yes, you do want a letter from the car's owner.

Border crossings these days can be sort of out of control. Most of the time, they'll just ask you a couple of basic questions and that's that. But sometimes they'll grill you, search you, detain you, etc. One place I teach in the summer is in Maine just over a bridge from Campobello Island in New Brunswick. It's a quick walk or bike ride over there. The island is not very big and there is only one bridge on or off of it. The last time I went over there, I rode my bike over and was there for a couple hours and then came back... at which point they grilled me for about 20 minutes, asking what I was doing in Lubec, where I was staying, how I knew the people I was staying with, where I lived, what I did there, how I knew the people I lived with, etc - all kinds of stuff that has nothing at all to do with the fact that I was in Canada (on a small island with no other bridges off of it) for two hours.

But really, that's not much to complain about because you also hear stories of people being detained for extended periods of time, handcuffed, separated from their family with no opportunity to tell anyone where they are, etc. You hear about laptops and cell phones being confiscated and searched and no word on whether you'll ever get them back. All this in crossing by car at the Canadian border.

So if you're worried about it, my advice would be not to bring any electronics you couldn't afford to replace if you had to, and back everything up. If you're really concerned about photos you take on your trip, you could bring an extra memory card for your camera and mail home the one you've been using before crossing the border back into the US, just in case they feel like checking your camera and you don't get it back.

That stuff certainly doesn't happen to everyone, or even to most people. But there aren't any reliable statistics on how often it does happen, either. Probably you are at less risk if you don't have a middle eastern sounding name, don't look middle eastern, and don't have any stamps in your passport from middle eastern countries, but who really knows.

If you want to get yourself good and pissed off, you can look up the series that the NPR show "On the Media" did probing into Customs and Border Protection after their producer and a bunch of her family members were detained at the border on the way back from attending a wedding in Toronto:

http://www.wnyc.org/story/on-the-media-2014-02-28/

Editing to add: All that said, I've never had that kind of grilling when flying back into the US from Europe, or heard stories of that stuff when entering by air rather than by land from other parts of the world. I don't know if it's because that stuff happens less for air crossings than for land, because people aren't as shocked by it when it does happen, or because the stories haven't gotten traction for whatever reason. So there it is.

[Ba11er]

i went to Niagara falls a few summers ago via rented car. i thought crossing the border would be hard but it was just the waiting that was difficult. the border agents asked some questions and scanned the car with an xray or something and we went into Canada. Have your passports ready, good answers to why your going in and you should be fine.

[Hypancistrus]

Keep the feedback coming-- thanks!

[hazzaram]

I live in a border city (Canadian side) and I find crossing the border stressful. It honestly depends on the border agent you get. When traveling to Texas the first time a few years ago, I had a hell of a time getting through and the border agent interrogated me like crazy. The next time I went I got a super nice agent and he started suggesting restaurants to visit and things to do, lol.

Have your passport and your letter for the car. And cross your fingers that you get a good agent when crossing!