During the Thanksgiving holiday, since I already had a Canadian visa (if you want to know how to apply for a Canadian visa while in China, you can read my write-up here), I decided to try driving from Seattle to Vancouver and take in Vancouver’s scenery—and food—along the way. Since this was my first time crossing an international border by car (I had already done it by plane and cruise, so this completed air, sea, and land), I thought I’d share the experience in this post.

Because my point of entry into Canada and my departure point back to the U.S. were different, I ended up using the two border crossings most commonly mentioned online: Pacific Highway Border Crossing and Peace Arch Border Crossing.

The two checkpoints are actually not very far apart, but the traffic volume between them was dramatically different.

Seattle to Burnaby

Since I wanted to visit some friends at SFU first, I chose Burnaby, near Vancouver, as my destination. According to the route I checked, I took Interstate 5 in the U.S., then Highway 539, entered Canada via Highway 13, and then continued onto Canada Highway 1. That meant I got to try the Pacific Highway Border Crossing.

It took nearly 2 hours to drive from Seattle to the Pacific Highway Border Crossing. When I got there, it felt more like a small highway toll plaza than a border checkpoint.

We arrived at around 4 PM. There weren’t many cars at the time, and 5 lanes were open in total. The 2 lanes on the left were express lanes (it looked like those drivers just flashed their documents and were waved through), while the 3 lanes on the right required people to hand over documents and answer questions. We waited a little over 10 minutes before pulling up to the window. After handing over our passports, the female officer at the checkpoint was pretty stern. She asked where we were coming from, why we were going to Canada, how long we planned to stay, and whether we had any relatives there. When she asked where we were from, I wasn’t sure whether she meant where we were living in the U.S. or whether I should answer China, so I asked whether she meant my home country or where I was staying in the U.S. She got impatient and basically said, “I’m asking you—don’t interrupt.” So I answered that I was coming from XXX, USA, ORZ. Fortunately, she didn’t give us any more trouble after that. She asked to see our I20, looked it over, stamped our passports, and let us go. The whole interaction took about 3 minutes.

Vancouver to Seattle

On the return trip from Vancouver to Seattle, we went through the larger Peace Arch Border Crossing. The checkpoint is actually already located within WA, USA.

This gate is quite famous. It has “children of common mother” engraved on it. I assume that’s because both the USA and Canada have Christian backgrounds? On the inner lower part, it also says, “May these gates never be closed.”

This time the line was much longer. I first waited more than 20 minutes in front of a red light (I wasn’t really sure what it was for), and then after passing that light, I waited another 20 minutes in line.

The U.S. border officer this time was also very casual. He came over, took our passports, scanned them, looked at the I20, and waved us through. The only question he asked was: what are you coming here for? It was unbelievably smooth.

However, this officer didn’t stamp the passport. He just scanned it, so hopefully that wasn’t a problem.

Final Thoughts

I didn’t expect crossing the border by car to be so much easier and faster than going through airport immigration, though that may also be because this was between the U.S. and Canada. I imagine the U.S.-Mexico border is probably much slower?