Canadian RV Travel Book

[JackLClark]

We will be traveling into and through Canada next year. We plan to travel west to east, reentering the United States after visiting Quebec. With all your experience, folks, can you recommend a good book that covers RV travel for beginners to Canada?

Thanks, in advance.

[tbutler]

Welcome Jack,

I can't give you a book but there are numerous resources on the web. There are web sites for the border services for Canada and the US. Look at the discussion under this forum titled: Border Crossing web sites... There is also information on documentation required for the border crossing to Canada and the return to the US. You will also find sites for each province and many of the cities in Canada.

We have traveled through all of Canada with the exception of Newfoundland. You will find the campground facilities similar to the US for the most part. You will find almost no campgrounds with 50A service as the cooler weather and the native clientele simply don't demand it. Also you'll find that the Canadians call full hookups three way hookups. Just a little different terminology. Canadian campgrounds are listed in both the major campground directories and I would recommend that you get current copies of both before going to Canada.

You will find the best roads in Canada to be similar to good roads in the US. Secondary roads are another matter. You don't have to get far off the traveled path to find narrow, rough roads. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take them, just be prepared for their condition and travel accordingly. A toad is useful for getting to the remote areas that are very interesting to visit.

We seldom use phone service in Canada as the roaming rates for cell phones are so expensive. We use Wi-Fi when we can. Most campgrounds along the routes to Alaska have good Wi-Fi. We found good Wi-Fi service more rare in eastern Canada. Many campgrounds there charge for service.

The exchange rate for the US and Canada fluctuate constantly. Currently the rate is in our favor but that may change by next year. We were getting about a 10% break in our favor this past summer. We charge many of our expenses on a credit card which has a small exchange charge. We always get Canadian money after we have crossed the border. We use an ATM and get the cash we expect to need. Putting most major charges, campground fees, etc. on the credit card we find an amount near 300 dollars to be sufficient for a month of cash expenditures. Visa and MasterCard are welcome throughout Canada but you will find few if any places that accept Discover cards.

Canadian fuel prices tend to be about 25 to 40% higher than in the US so be sure to take a full tank across the border! We have on several occasions returned to the US from Canada to get mail, shop and refuel. This only pays if you are close to the border and the fuel stop is conveniently close also. Sometimes as we travel in Canada we just need to get back "home" for a little while. We enjoy having our phone and cell internet service working. It gives us a good feeling to have all our regular services available.

I have blogged our most recent trip through Quebec province into Ontario here on the FMCA site. Share a little more specific information with us, where do you plan to start, when will you be traveling? What are your interests? We have many Canadian members who can add information and make suggestions for things to do and see.

[JackLClark]

Welcome Jack,

I can't give you a book but there are numerous resources on the web. There are web sites for the border services for Canada and the US. Look at the discussion under this forum titled: Border Crossing web sites... There is also information on documentation required for the border crossing to Canada and the return to the US. You will also find sites for each province and many of the cities in Canada.

We have traveled through all of Canada with the exception of Newfoundland. You will find the campground facilities similar to the US for the most part. You will find almost no campgrounds with 50A service as the cooler weather and the native clientele simply don't demand it. Also you'll find that the Canadians call full hookups three way hookups. Just a little different terminology. Canadian campgrounds are listed in both the major campground directories and I would recommend that you get current copies of both before going to Canada.

You will find the best roads in Canada to be similar to good roads in the US. Secondary roads are another matter. You don't have to get far off the traveled path to find narrow, rough roads. That doesn't mean you shouldn't take them, just be prepared for their condition and travel accordingly. A toad is useful for getting to the remote areas that are very interesting to visit.

We seldom use phone service in Canada as the roaming rates for cell phones are so expensive. We use Wi-Fi when we can. Most campgrounds along the routes to Alaska have good Wi-Fi. We found good Wi-Fi service more rare in eastern Canada. Many campgrounds there charge for service.

The exchange rate for the US and Canada fluctuate constantly. Currently the rate is in our favor but that may change by next year. We were getting about a 10% break in our favor this past summer. We charge many of our expenses on a credit card which has a small exchange charge. We always get Canadian money after we have crossed the border. We use an ATM and get the cash we expect to need. Putting most major charges, campground fees, etc. on the credit card we find an amount near 300 dollars to be sufficient for a month of cash expenditures. Visa and MasterCard are welcome throughout Canada but you will find few if any places that accept Discover cards.

Canadian fuel prices tend to be about 25 to 40% higher than in the US so be sure to take a full tank across the border! We have on several occasions returned to the US from Canada to get mail, shop and refuel. This only pays if you are close to the border and the fuel stop is conveniently close also. Sometimes as we travel in Canada we just need to get back "home" for a little while. We enjoy having our phone and cell internet service working. It gives us a good feeling to have all our regular services available.

I have blogged our most recent trip through Quebec province into Ontario here on the FMCA site. Share a little more specific information with us, where do you plan to start, when will you be traveling? What are your interests? We have many Canadian members who can add information and make suggestions for things to do and see.

[tbutler]

I'm going to post here a response I made to Jack in a Personal Message. I asked that he edit the above to get his questions onto the board and hope that he will do so as it helps the rest of this make more sense.

Jack, I enjoyed your note and will do my best to respond though I am by no means an expert in Canada. By the way, we attended a workshop at the FMCA International Convention in Minneapolis the summer of 2008 given by a lady that had all kinds of tips for going to Canada. Since we haven't heard from her, she must not be on the web site. I don't know if there is a way to get a copy of the program from the 2008 convention but if so, you might try to contact her. I'm fairly sure she is a FMCA member. I think she had some kind of materials she was selling. There is another book that has comprehensive information about Canada and that is The Milepost which is the "all about travel to and in Alaska" book. A new version is published each year but an old copy will be good for the border crossing and Canada information in general.

Regarding mail into Canada, we have never had mail delivered in Canada so can't say how well it works. Our stays have always been in the four or five weeks then back into the US. We don't have that much mail that is time sensitive since we do all our bill paying on line. Our concern is that we don't know how long it takes the mail to get from the US to Canada and handled within Canada. We schedule our mail deliveries for places we know we will be and then move on to other locations. We don't spend weeks in one place when we are doing our summer travels so we want to be able to drop by the post office on a given date and know that the mail will be there. If you are going to have your mail forwarded to Canada, either a campground or a post office I would suggest that you allow at least two weeks from the time it is mailed in the US until it arrives at its destination in Canada. Then when you pick up that mail you will have some kind of time frame for how long it takes. I recently had a Priority Mail package that was mailed in eastern Missouri on Monday and it arrived in central California on Saturday. Five days for what the US Post Office should be 2-3 day delivery and that is within the US. That is why we usually have the mail in the US sent to a post office that we plan to visit one week later.

We find Canada to be different enough that over time, dealing with e-mail connections without using our cell data connection, not using our cell phones (minimally at most), different stores (few Wal-Marts), we just get an itch to get back to the US and it does feel so much more like home. Two countries that are so similar yet we definitely feel like visitors during our time there. We love it and yet it feels different enough to wear on us. That is why we try to periodically return to the US as we travel through Canada. We wouldn't have to but sometimes you just want to get on the phone and talk for half an hour or more with our children and parents. Or we want to replenish a supply of some product we can't find (or can't find at reasonable prices) in Canada. Throw in mail delivery and cheaper fuel and we find it refreshing to be back in the US.

As far as your travels, you will find much in the way of Canadian history that will be of interest. We loved Buffalo Jump Historic Site south of Calgary, AB. We enjoyed the RCMP Academy and Museum in Regina, Alberta. If you can catch the RCMP Musical Ride somewhere in the country, you will enjoy it. In Manitoba near Winnipeg there is an old trading post/fort that has been restored. We had a wonderful tour there with interpretive guides in costume. Much of that history was about the native tribes in Canada and their history of treaties with Canada. North of there we enjoyed a Viking Festival in Gimli. Through Saskatchewan and Manitoba look for any kind of Matis festival. The Matis as they are known are the culture that came from the French traders and their native wives. They still are regarded by some as second class citizens but are a fun loving very interesting people. We had a chance to see a dancing demonstration and some information about their history and culture as the lead in act to the RCMP Musical Ride. Some of this information came from web sites, some from local newspapers, some from travel brochures, some from maps that showed interesting sites to visit.

I haven't mentioned the whole Jasper, Banff, Lake Louise, Rocky Mountain area of Alberta. This scenic area is well worth a visit, great things to see here. Northeast of Calgary is a spectacular dinosaur museum in Drumheller. There are also lots of colorful statues of dinosaurs that are more tourist draws than science. Canadian towns seem to have a thing about the largest this or the largest that. Drumheller has the largest dinosaur, about 4 stories tall. There is a town that advertises the largest Pisanka (A Chech decorated egg). Wawa has the largest Canada goose. You get the idea. Each of these things has something to do with the history or nature of the area.

Calgary is a medium size city that has plenty of traffic during rush hour. Montreal and Toronto are major metropolitan areas with all the traffic headaches of any large city. I don't have specific experience with the smaller towns you mention but generally smaller towns in Canada are easy to explore. You will get a feel for Canadian roads, they are not difficult to negotiate with an motor home. We've driven the major highways, secondary highways and small roads thorough little towns without incident. When you get to Quebec province, all the road signs will be in French almost exclusively. Once in a while they have a token English word or two. If you know some French it helps! You can get pretty bewildered when trying to figure out signs at 100 kilometers per hour (I wonder what that meant - did you see that?).

Your timing sounds good for travel, it will likely be cool in late May and New England in the fall can also be cool. A caution about New England, many campgrounds here (and I suspect neighboring Canada) close down completely in the winter. By early to mid-October many are closing up so check the campground guides carefully to be sure the campgrounds you plan to use will be open. Many of these campgrounds are "family" campgrounds. In these you will find perhaps 80 to 90% of the sites are permanent sites with trailers of various kinds. They are summer retreats for families with children. When school starts again, there are few people attending and they close. We were at just such a campground in Ohio this summer and they were celebrating Christmas in July because the camp is always closed at Christmas. We found all the state parks along the lakes in northern New York closed after Labor Day.

[JackLClark]

Mr. Butler, Thanks for the reply. Have found a couple of books (not the RVing kind) in a used book store that will be handy. The Mile Post covers only the western part of Canada for entry to AK, but has some good info.

I've tried everything to delete my post that re-copied your input to my question. I just can't get rid of it. Hopefully other will figure it out to be a mistake.

Thanks again.