We’re supposed to be going to the States on a car trip in three weeks, but we’ve just noticed (okay, I should have checked before) that our passports will both have expired by the time we leave, and it’s more than a three-week wait for new ones. Have the regs changed to require passports yet? We have birth certificates and driver’s licenses (well, one of us has a driver’s license).
Are we screwed and should we cancel? We can’t get the forms guarrantored (whatever), signed by a doctor before Friday at the earliest, and the websites are inconclusive. The Canadian ones are terrible.
No, for the time being the passport is not required at land crossings between US and Canada, but be prepared for delays at the checkpoint. It was supposed, IIRC, to be so early in 08 – but with all the troubles that have arisen, it’ s now uncertain if that date will hold.
I’m stuck going to Montreal as a tech rep for work. I don’t have a passport, but applied Friday (expedited, knowing full well I can’t fly into Canada - not enough time to begin the processing - I have to be there Wednesday this week). I’m flying to Burlington, VT, renting a car and driving to my meeting. Hopefully.
Now, when I applied for the passport, I had a long form birth certificate (embossed stamp, typed, official looking), and a short form certificate (also embossed stamp, but with a handwritten name & date - think “fill in the blanks - Labtrash was born March 27, 1968, etc”).
I had to send the long form certificate in with my application.
travel.state.gov says I can get into Canada with a govt. issued ID - Driver’s License, and a birth certificate.
Will I be able to cross into Canada & return with the ***short form * ** birth certificate (I obviously have the driver’s license)?
I would have started another thread with this, but I saw this one first.
Lissla, a health card and birth certificate, if the HC has your picture, should suffice. However, you CAN get a passport in three weeks, I’d suggest you look into it.
I got U.S. passports this past spring or winter for my boss in about 2 days. But it was very expensive - a couple hundred apiece, with the fees and rush fees and overnight fees.
Google “passport expediters” if you are interested. (I don’t know if these companies do this for other countries’ passports or only the U.S., though.)
This is from the other side, but my wife, our two children, and her two sisters just got back from a road trip to Canada last week. They had birth certificates (for the kids) and photo ID’s (for the adults) and were waived across the border both times without much difficulty (this was at Pigeon River, south of Thunder Bay).
The only hiccup was that the Canadian border guards said my wife should have been carrying a letter from me granting my permission to take our kids out of the country. That had never crossed our minds! Fortunately she didn’t have to turn back
