Canada is a huge country with a relatively small population and good infrastructure, making it pretty epic overland territory. I’ve personally only been to the western provinces of British Colombia and Alberta, but the road trip across the Rockies was great even on a Greyhound bus. I’d love to do a Trans-Canada rail trip at some point, and I’d also like to overland up to the northern towns of Yellowknife (for the Northern Lights) and Churchill (to see polar bears); Canada has many possibilities. It’s also easy to visit as part of a wider North America trip along with the US and perhaps Mexico and Central America; I first visited Canada as part of a US road trip, and later went back and lived there for a couple of ski seasons in Vancouver.
The US doesn’t really need an introduction. Time for a road trip!
Travel to / from Canada & USA overland
Canada and the United States share the longest international border between any two countries. In fact they actually share two borders, due to Alaska, with many dozens of roads crossing them. There are also trains between Seattle & Vancouver, New York & Toronto, and New York & Montreal. As long as your paperwork is in order you shouldn’t have too much trouble crossing the border by public transport.
However, in my experience US border guards are looking for any excuse to ruin your day – when crossing from White Rock (Vancouver) back to Blaine during our US road trip, we forgot we had four oranges in a plastic bag that our friend in Victoria had given us that morning for the drive… when filling in the customs form, you tick ‘no’ to say you don’t have any fruit & veg, drugs, weapons, terrorist manuals, kryptonite, etc… but because we forgot about the oranges, and the guy spotted them, the logic was that we’d lied about the fruit & veg so they had to assume we’d lied about the drugs and weapons. Cue a full search of our vehicle, absolutely everything turfed out on to the floor and rooted through, the engine and seats and door panels being searched, a million and one questions… we were at that border for 3 hours before being sent on our way with a 100 dollar fine and no oranges. Good thing we’d hidden our drugs and weaponry in the roof panel of a public restroom near the US border before crossing a couple of days earlier… (only kidding Mum!) But seriously, don’t forget to eat your oranges. We also got held up crossing the border from Tijuana to San Diego on foot, something to do with my friend’s visa waiver form being crumpled… the rest of us got through, realised he wasn’t with us, and had to wait there as the guards wouldn’t tell us why they weren’t letting him through or when (or if) they would. He emerged an hour later grumbling about how it was only a 2-minute bit of paperwork that had needed rectifying, but he (and the rest of the long line of people waiting) had to stand there watching the border guards enjoying a pepperoni pizza before getting back to work.
You can also travel to and between the States and Canada by ship; the main routes of interest for overlanders are between Prince Rupert (northern BC) & Juneau (Alaska), Victoria (Vancouver Island, BC) & Washington state, and Portland (Maine) & Yarmouth (Nova Scotia). The Seattle-Victoria ferry can be booked here and the Maine-Nova Scotia ferry can be booked here. There are also a number of short river and lake crossings in the Great Lakes region which are unlikely to be of much interest to overseas travellers; for a full list see here
Other interesting options are the regular Trans-Atlantic cruises from Southampton to New York, and ferries between Miami and the Bahamas – specifically Grand Bahama and Bimini islands, bookable here and here
Overland travel within Canada and the US
This is car country, and these are great countries for a road trip with good highways and some awesome scenery. You can also get around by Greyhound and other bus services; the buses are decent, but travel times are long e.g. I took a 15-hour bus from Vancouver to Banff… but I intentionally took an early morning bus in order to be able to see the country through the window, and spent most of that day watching the mountains and lakes of BC pass by, so it was pretty cool. Doing it again wouldn’t be such an enticing prospect to be honest though… next time, I’ll take the train!
The only well-developed (i.e. fast, modern, and frequent) rail services cover the main population corridor through Windsor, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec. Passenger trains in the rest of Canada are more of a tourist thing; slow but comfortable, somewhat pricey but surely a great way to see the country. I’d love to do the 3-day Vancouver-Toronto route on The Canadian, or ride the Hudson Bay from Winnipeg up to Churchill (to see the gathering polar bears in autumn). You can book Canadian rail tickets on 12go here
There are also domestic ferries serving the coastlines and islands, the major ones being to Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii (aka Queen Charlotte Islands, from Prince Rupert) in BC, and between Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador in the Maritimes (the Atlantic provinces). Local ferries serve smaller islands, such as Bowen Island near Vancouver, but the vast spread of barely populated islands in the Canadian Arctic is accessible only by air. Some of these domestic routes can be booked online with Direct Ferries
Likewise, the only fast and frequent intercity rail services in the US cover the heavily populated Washington – Philadelphia – NY – Boston corridor, with passenger trains in the rest of the States being a tourist thing. I’d love to do the 3-day Chicago – San Francisco route. As ever, Seat61 is the best corner of the internet for rail travel enthusiasts and has a very thorough page on rail travel in the States.
There are also various domestic ferry routes connecting peninsulas and coastal islands, some of which you can search & book on Direct Ferries
Things to do in Canada & USA
I’m going to do this in two parts; firstly, things I can recommend from personal experience:
Go skiing. I worked at Vancouver’s Cypress Mountain.
Go mountain biking and rock climbing. Whistler is good for both (as well as being a world-class ski resort), and the Whistler Bike Park is pretty mind-blowing.
Vancouver – a place I could easily have settled, had visas not been an issue.
Take the ferry over to Vancouver Island.
Visit beautiful Banff and Lake Louise.
Just flying over northern Canada is pretty amazing, looking down on the huge expanses of snow and rock, and no signs of people down there; if you fly from London to Vancouver, make sure you fly during daylight hours and you’ll hopefully get to look down on Iceland, Greenland, Baffin Island, the tundra of northern Canada, and the Rocky Mountains.
Go hiking.
The national parks. The US and Canada are blessed with some of the most varied and awe-inspiring natural beauty to be found anywhere on the planet, and the national parks are incredible; on our US road trip we visited Rocky Mountains NP, the Grand Canyon, Zion NP, Bryce Canyon, Redwood NP, Yellowstone, and Badlands NP.
The Grand Canyon. Standing on the North Rim was truly awe-inspiring, and the road there was a bit of an adventure too.
For film buffs, Oregon has a couple of iconic locations. Cannon Beach (near Astoria) was the Goonies beach (the area’s also used in Point Break and Kindergarten Cop) and the Timberline Lodge (Mt Hood) was the (exterior) Shining hotel. Both doable as day trips from Portland if you have wheels (and lovely spots even if you’re not a film buff)
Chicago; a very cool city, my favourite among the American cities I’ve been to.
Gamble in Vegas. Las Vegas was not my kind of place at all – think searing heat, all-you-can-eat buffets and their families of obese occupants, vast halls full of not-very-wealthy-looking old people wasting their money in slot machines… all a bit depressing… but still, blowing 100 bucks in a few seconds at the roulette wheel is something I can say I’ve done.
Whiskey with an ‘e’
…and secondly, things I haven’t done but want to:
New York, New York.
New Orleans for blues, booze and food.
Skiing in Colorado, Utah, and California.
The Yukon and on to Alaska (or a cruise / ferry to Alaska)
See the Northern Lights in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.
Polar bear safari in Churchill, Manitoba.
Visit Montreal and Toronto.
The Niagara Falls.
A trip round Canada’s rugged Atlantic Provinces.
Resources and Useful Links for Visiting Canada & USA
You can book some rail tickets on 12go here
Search for hotel rates on Trivago
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(This can be an important point, as I once found out the hard way in Bangkok). If you’re hitting the mountain, World Nomads also has winter sports cover.
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