Moving to Ontario and driving through US?
 

So, the time has finally come, me and my wife are relocating to Ottawa.

We are driving a rental truck there with our belongings (not much, just some furnitures/electronics and a lot of books) and we are on budget (the one way rental is around 2K for everything vs. about 4K if we go moving company/flight) and from Google Map it shows that the most efficient way would be driving through the US.

Has anyone done it (or maybe the other way around) before and drove through the US route? Any paperwork to be aware of?

We are thinking about driving the US route because it's shorter on distance (according to Google Map), more scenic (personal experience, the HWY1 after Calgary is brutal) and gas is hella cheaper in US than CA. (kinda big factor considering the truck only gets about 8~10MPG) But if it's more trouble than what's worth, we might stick with HWY1.

Any comment would be TIA.

Yep, just got back from a road trip that took me from Burnaby to Bellevue Washington to New York City to Halifax and back via the Trans Canada. Pissed in both oceans and went to as many places as humanly possible in 3-1/2 weeks.

Anyway, the trek across the US is much faster, as in shorter more direct route. Plus, you can go 125 km/hr through the I-90 in some places.

On my trip, I went to Chicago, then Detroit, and into Canada to see Toronto and Niagara. From there, I went to Buffalo and onto New York.

My first stop was at Spokane. And yes, gas is pretty cheap down south, but it is pretty low in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Manitoba on, it gets a little expensive. Save the time and go US, for sure. Oh, the rest stops in the US are unreal compared to the ones in Canada. That's one thing I missed on the way back. The rest stops along the Trans Canada, with the exception of Southern Ontario, is brutal. Join BCAA, if you haven't already, and get free maps and discounts on gas and accommodations - you automatically become CAA and AAA member.

Is the discount on BCAA members worthwhile in the States? I'm thinking to do the trip in 4~5 days... so 3~4 nights depends on the route. Also, will the BCAA still work once I start living in Ontario?

If so, I might pick it up before I go.

What about the borders/customs? We will be with all our stuffs (computers, my wife's handbags... etc), is there anything I can do at Peace Arch so I don't get dinged when re-entering Canada?

GG living in Ottawa.

My friend did this when he relocated there. He left on Tuesday through the Canadian side and arrived Saturday at noon. Mind you he also made a detour in Edmonton. He drove alone, didn't know how he managed to stay awake 12-16 hours a day!

If you are working for the Feds, which is the likely the reason why people would want to move there, your department should give you $5000 relocation fee. Ask them and you won't even need to drive over. But you can also make some money by driving over since they pay ~50 cents per kilometer driven.
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When I was moving back to BC from Ontario couple years back, I had to take a detour to Minnesota from Ontario because the highway to Manitoba was closed due to an accident.
I didn't have a trailer or a U-Haul van but my car was packed with all of my stuff (clothes, electronics, books etc)
the border crossing was a breeze. I told the border patrol officer my intentions (told him I was moving back to BC)
He didn't even check my stuff and waived me through.

Also, if you drive through canada (vancouver-calgary-regina-winnipeg-thunder bay-sudbury-ottawa) it's only 4474kms. Vancouver, BC to Ottawa, ON - Google Maps
compared to the US route which is 4353kms.

Just me, but I would rather travel through Canada. Yes the drive from the Rockies to Ontario is super boring. but you can do that in one day. plus the drive along Lake Superior is fantastic (dare I compare it to Sea to Sky? :flamesuit on:)

Anyways, have fun and good luck in Ottawa.

Not working for Fed... relocation fee is only 3000... :(... that's why we are trying to keep it under that.

Awesome! I will keep that in mind. I'll just go have some of the more expensive stuff registered so I won't have much trouble getting back in.

I'm taking the US route because we will be visiting my best friend in St. Cathrine who relocated there half-year ago. So taking the route to US and then crossing border at Buffalo would be the shortest route by about a day worth of driving. :)

And the Trans Can after Calgary is scary... I rarely feel sleepy when driving... but that 1000KM+ of boringness really puts you down like nth else. :D

If you go threw the states make sure to get travel insurance.

i drove in a uhaul from ottawa to vancouver...we just went through all the provinces didnt bother going across border....it took 5.5 days, driving from 6am to 8pm ( my dad and i took turns) we had a 26ft u haul that was packed to the max (couldnt open the door without something falling) and a trailer with a car mounted to the back of the truck. We really couldnt over 120 and boy was it scary driving through banff lol....its kinda cool going through canada and stopping at all the cities.

I just drove to Regina and back on the weekend. 17 hours each way driving the #1 without ever going more then 10-12 over. Ottawa is obviously a lot further and I haven't tried driving through the US so it's hard to compare. I will say though once you get out of BC the number one is pretty straight and speed limit is 110 most the way. It's boring but easy driving.

There is construction going on in Rogers Pass and around Golden so if you decide to go through Canada that can slow you down a bit. It really shouldn't make a difference either way just something to keep in mind.

I don't know if my situation was the same as yours since I was moving back from the US, but I guess it might something to keep in the back of your mind as you'll be crossing borders and might need to prepare for the worst case scenario.

I drove back from Denver to Vancouver when moving back and one of the things that I was required to do was to itemize everything that I brought back with me from the US documented on paper for their review. I know in your situation this isn't the case, but I'm just thinking as a worst case scenario, be prepared for that.

You might want to take a quick read of this page which talks about Moving back to Canada (bsf5087: Moving Back to Canada) You may want to have some of those things ready just in case they ask it of you. There's also an additional information phone number there so it might be good to give them a call and explain your situation. If I were in your shoes, I'd stick to driving strictly in Canada. It's way less hassle.

Going back into Canada to visit Toronto and Niagara was a breeze. I bought a whole shitload of stuff, including a new tonneau cover (just under $1000.00 US) for the truck and was prepared to declare everything. The border guard just waved me by. Must be the ancient Chinese look I have with the white beard and all. When I crossed back into the US at the Niagara/Buffalo crossing, the US border guard was a bit of a turd. Went on a power trip. I just smiled and thanked the bastard. Black dude who looked and acted like he was a former sergeant in the US army a million years ago.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think BCAA being part of CAA and AAA gives you coverage anywhere in the US and Canada for a whole year. I'm not sure when you are going, but the card takes a few days to arrive. I didn't have the card during the trip because I left about two days after I joined. Some gas stations couldn't give me the discount without the card. Most, however, were good about it. I just showed them the number and all was good. I can still get the BCAA points. All I have to do is show them the receipts. As a CAA/AAA member, you save a fair bit at motels and hotels. At the Radisson, for example, the AAA rate was lower than government rates. You even save at KOA campsites. I discovered the wonderful world of KOA while on the trip, LOLOLOL.

Join BCAA for exclusive Insurance savings & Membership benefits


EDIT: forgot to mention why the gas stations couldn't give me the discount. I didn't have the expiry date of the card. Once you have that, there should be no problems. Have the card sent to your new address, if you are leaving soon.

Hope this helps.........

I will give CBSA a call tomorrow to see how to deal with this!

Thx!

Good thing I won't be coming back south again once I cross in Niagara Falls! :D

Thanks for the tips! I'd be leaving at the end of the month, so, hopefully they can deliver the card before I leave! :D

Firstly, enjoy Ottawa (it's one of my favorite cities). I just moved back from Waterloo 2 months ago in a U-Haul, taking the Canadian route. The prairies are skullcrushingly boring, from Canmore pretty much until Thunder Bay. That being said the other half of the route (all of Ontario) is gorgeous. If you do take the Canadian route, depending on your cell phone provider you may be without reception for large chunks of the prairies and northeastern Ontario. Before choosing to come back through Canada, I strongly considered going through the states. While there would probably be no issues travelling the southern route, in my opinion it is absolutely not worth the risk (1/1000 as it may be) of having all of your possessions dumped out and searched. Think of the hours of packing your stuff into the truck, and consider for a moment the unlikely but still possible worst case scenario of them rooting through all your possessions and having to repack it. Anyways, I'll upload some pictures from my trip in a few minutes once I find them. In the meantime, Ottawa this past Christmas:

I forgot to mention, contact CAA in Ontario before getting a BCAA membership here. You can use either all across the country, but mine from Ontario was cheaper than the same thing in BC last time I renewed.

Canadian rockies > American rockies. This is near Rogers Pass. Like quasi said, there was some construction around Golden when I went through but I don't think it delayed me by more than 10 minutes total.

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If you have never been to Drumheller, I strongly recommend the hour or two's detour to go up through there. Admittedly, it's more of a refreshing sight after driving the prairies from the other direction but it's still quite the sight.

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I travelled a lot around North America as a child with my parents and I've always loved the oil pumpjacks and grain elevators and stuff so the prairies aren't entirely devoid of points of interest for me.

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You will grimace or chuckle at points like turn caution signs for mild curves in the road and the occasional actual deviation in the road (before it returns to straight as an arrow for as far as the eye can see).

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You will see wildlife. My trip saw a dozen deer, two elk, two moose, one gigantic fox, prairie dogs, and many more animals.

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Also, if you are so inclined, you will see waterfalls the likes of which you simply do not see in most of BC. These were at the Augasabon River Gorge and some other place which I can't recall the name of right now.

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And for sure, you will end the lives of a lot of bugs.

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All in all I put just under 5000 kilometers on a brand new van with under 900kms on it when I picked it up, got it filthy and returned it (which somewhat negates the fact that I had to drive a shitty van across the country rather than my car). Let me know if you have any questions about specific parts of my trip and I'll see what I can do to help you out.

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I will give them a call today to see if it's better this way.

Where did you choose to stop for the night? I was thinking if I take the CDN route, I'll make it to Calgary on the first day, then try to pass the prairies the next day (getting to Winnipeg at least)

But I'll be the only one driving... so, not sure what would be the best stops if I were to have some sightseeing along the way and yet not wearing myself out.

If I take the US route, I plan to detour a little bit and visit Yellowstone while I'm there (Will try to make it in one long driving day)

Too bad the wife is with you. I'd be sleeping in the truck to save money. Ever wonder why there are so many RV's in Wal Mart parking lots? Husky gas stations are like that too. Lots of people spend the night and nobody says boo. You can't camp/sleep overnight at rest stops, but I did a few times.

Going across the US, I only made one side trip before hitting the cities. Mount Rushmore. Don't know why, but I went. It's the Mecca for all patriotic Americans. I saw grown men and women cry at the sight of it.........sad. I was like, meh.

If you go the Canadian route, check hotel prices. Can't remember which ones anymore, but some cities had pretty high prices compared to others.

I agree, Canadian Rockies are so much better than the American Rockies. I didn't even notice the Rockies down south. As for construction, every freakin' city and stretch of highway had construction going on (Canada's Economic Action Plan). Ontario was the worst. It was bad enough their posted limits are 90 km/hr.

On my trip, I saw very little wildlife. Saw plenty of dead deer on the road - real nasty. Nearly hit a couple live ones at night (down right scary incident). For this reason, avoid driving at night - at least slow down. I was going the 80 mph posted speed at the time I nearly wiped out avoiding these rather large creatures. Saw one moose grazing on the side of the road and a beaver. That was it in three and a half weeks and 17, 000 kms of travel. Oh yeah, a lot of red fox. By the end of the trip, the front of the truck was covered in bugs, I could barely see the car mask. Smelled like a fish farm.........

I was going to say beware of tolls, but they only start after Buffalo. I spent nearly 70 bucks US while going to New York and back up to Halifax.

I was wondering where the F you've been for the last month. You go with some buddies or something? Sounds like an awesome trip - I wish i could've been there.

Went with two of my legit kids, LOL.

The trip was awesome. Times Square was awesome, but a little disappointing at the same time (smelly, humid, and hot). The Nintendo store and the M&M Shop made it worth while. Hit all the Hard Rock Cafe's, too along the way. By far, the best place I visited was the Maritimes. Damn, the people there are friendly. So refreshing to see people behave like humans for once. Even the cops over there are super nice. One cop let me go telling me he didn't want to spoil my vacation with a ticket. The Cabot Trail in Cape Breton was the best drive of all. Night life in Charlottetown, PEI = nice. I can now say I've driven over the Confederation Bridge. One of three things on my bucket list I checked off (pissing in both oceans and saying I drove the entire Trans Canada all by myself). We spent a lot on food. BTW, poutine in Montreal is a bit over rated. There are places here that are just as good.

Thread OP is lucky to be moving to Ottawa. Close to everything. 100 miles to Montreal and seven hours to Boston. According to my eldest son, nice eye candy in Montreal and Toronto. Ottawa was a good spot, but just about every one of them were from Montreal or Quebec, LOL.

As for Montreal and old Quebec, I couldn't wait to get out. Not the friendliest of places.

I will never, ever, complain about the road conditions in the GVRD after this trip. My kids will never complain about Skytrain ever again. As wonderful as the trip was, it was so good to be home. I missed the North Shore Mountains.

One more thing. People kind of stared at us a lot in Eastern US and the Maritimes. I don't think they have ever seen a live Asian before, let alone three at the same time. LOL.

Don't want to hijack the thread any further, but interesting driving habits in some cities. As far as I'm concerned, Richmond is all good now.

I drove all but about 20 minutes of the trip. We'd hoped to do a bunch of camping along the trip but the weather, bugs, and flooding across the prairies meant we ended up hotelling each night. Loaded up the van in the AM in Waterloo and then made it to Parry Sound that evening. We'd intended to only really go to Sault Ste Marie the next day but there was a massive citywide power outage so we kept going on to Wawa. The small motel we stayed at there (top ranked on Tripadvisor) was one of the cleanest and nicest places I've stayed, and for super cheap. The owner even stayed up until 10:30pm, waiting at the office for us when we arrived in the middle of a massive thunderstorm. Really cool place, had little rubber duckies, including a pirate ducky all around the bathroom. From Wawa we took our time as the weather had cleared and did some sightseeing on the way to Thunder Bay. Next night we expected to get to Winnipeg but pushed on to Portage La Prairie. One horrifically long day later we arrived in Medicine Hat. Next day was spent sightseeing around Drumheller, but still managed to make it to Canmore for the night, and then home here in BC the next day. Average hotel price was probably 115 a night or so, in the smaller towns we might have paid 90, and up to I think 140 or something the Saturday night when we got into town late and didn't shop around. In terms of sightseeing, particularly across the prairies, almost all of the really neat stuff is far enough off the main routes that short of Drumheller, we didn't think anything was valuable enough to detour out to. If you do choose to go through Ontario - for sure take the 17 along the lake, not the 11. The views are spectacular and well worth it (besides it being the slightly shorter route). Long day today so that's all I can really remember but hopefully that gives you a bit more of an idea of what I did at least.

Awesome. Perhaps you can tell me what the bugs that infest the town in the summer are called. I stopped at a Petro Can gas station late at night in Medicine Hat. I'm scraping the splattered bugs off the windshield when something falls onto the windshield. It's black and round. Didn't think much about it until a few more fell on the windshield. Pretty soon there were a dozen or so of them on the windshield. I look up and there are hundreds of these round things crawling on the lights up above. I notice a whole bunch now on the hood. They were dive bombing on the car and me! I look on the ground and there are even more of these stupid things on the ground. I start brushing off my hair and clothes and run into the car. Stomping my feet in case there were any stuck on my shoes and whatnot. I drive off without getting any gas. YUCK! I get to a 24hr McDonald's drive through a ways down the road and look around the place, and sure enough, these bugs are crawling up the sides of the building. It was really late, so I park at a rest area for truckers and slept till the sun came up. I needed gas before heading out to Calgary. I pull up to another gas station and notice there are a few seagulls on the property. Seagulls in Alberta? They were gorging themselves on these creepy crawlers. I get out and sure enough a few of these bugs were still around - not as much as the night before. I also saw a lot of squished ones where people would stand to pump gas. Damn, I hate bugs.

Dive bombing beetles? They were jet black and round. Thank god they didn't move that fast on their feet. Too large to be ticks of any kind. I'm getting itchy just thinking about it. I'm thinking a few of these bastards got in my hair and made their way into me via the ears................ watched too many Star Trek movies, LOL.

^They're called pine beetle I think. They're in BC too in the forest areas. I've seen a few before. That must have been gross.

Take the long way and lap the US! I moved from Ottawa to Vancouver and went through the US, this was my route:

Ottawa
Toronto (awesome city, hang out a few days)
Detroit (fugly)
Indianapolis (went by the racetrack, pretty cool)
St Louis (Gateway Arch and RIBS!)
Oklahoma/Texas panhandle (boring, like the prairies yet with 75 mph speed limits on perfectly paved toll roads)
Albuquerque (yes New Mexico, its surprisingly a beautiful city!)
Grand Canyon
Utah canyons (Bryce and Zion)
Salt Lake
Vancouver

6900 kms in 10 days.

I ran out of time in Utah (broke down) otherwise I would've detoured and seen Old Faithful in Yellowstone. I had considered some backtracking too to see Nashville or New Orleans, and Vegas yet just didn't have enough time off.

If you're going to go through the northern US make sure you stop at Yellowstone and Mt Rushmore! Both only add a few hours to your trip.