Seattle-Whistler/Vancouver border crossing

I'll be traveling by car from Seattle to Vancouver the Thursday before Labor Day, and back to Seattle from Whistler the Sunday before Labor Day. How long do you think I'll be waiting at the border during that holiday weekend?

 

Hey, I thought I was done with stuff like this after sophomore algebra.

 

The last time I tried it, the wait back into the U.S. was 2 hours. (That was 1995 or so.)

 

Depends on if the rockslide near Whistler is cleaned up. Blocked the road, trapped the attendees at the recent Mozilla developers' conference.

Being computer geeks, they filed a bug report.

 

Are you talking the I-5/99 crossing at Peace Arch? We were there a few weeks ago, and it was pretty rough coming back. Tons of construction at the border, so we had to wait close to an hour to get back in. Of course, that had a lot to do with the fact we got in the one line with the militant guard who was sure everyone in his line was smuggling something illegal back into the U.S., but don't get me started about him.

 

Take the truck route crossing (I believe its 16) just east of the Peace Arch and bring a book just to be safe. It's never longer than the Peace Arch and usually quite a bit shorter.

 

I was just typing about taking truck customs... to add to what DanOregon said, going southbound there's a sign that'll tell you wait times at each crossing and you can then pick your poison.

 

The trip from Vancouver to Whistler is a nightmare right now because of Olympics-related construction.

 

Depends on what time of day you'll be driving through. I went up in November on a Thursday afternoon (non-holiday weekend) and it took about 45 minutes to get into Canada, but we came back that night - around 12:30 a.m. - and there was one other car heading back into Washington/the U.S. at that time, so we only waited a minute or two.

 

I'm gonna go 3 hours, 38 minutes total.

 

Do not take the Peace Arch (I-5) crossing.
The construction has traffic reduced to something like two lanes southbound.

Take Exit 274 for the Pacific Highway/truck customs. Don't worry, cars are allowed (53.2 miles from Bellingham, Wash., to downtown Vancouver)

or

Take Exit 256 in Bellingham and drive north on Guide Meridian (WA 539) 15 miles to the border (56.7 miles from Bellingham to downtown Vancouver).

 

Check this before you go....

http://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/general/times/menu-e.html