crossing the borders (food & fuel)

If you buy your groceries at Safeway Canada you can earn up to $0.10 per litre discount on gas.

Check whatever credit cards you are going to use for their rates for different things. Exchange rates...some charge a premium. Foreign Transaction fee...that will be an additional fee for any purchases made. Many cards here run at 2% and the fee is often buried, so one needs to actually ask. Some cards offer really great pricing on Health Insurance.

Having no idea what GB cc plans are like, you may not need to check it all out, but if you have any doubts, maybe now rather than when you get home. It might even be worthwhile establishing a cc from a NA bank.


Gary Haupt

SideHillSoup wrote:
Q-A fuel
We live with in 25 miles of the US boarder in Wash state. For me to make a round trip to get fuel with no boarder line ups it usually takes just about 1 to 1.5 hrs. Be pending on the boarder lineups on both sides.
The boarder crossings on the lower mainland (Vancouver area) have much long lines as a rule compared to the rest of the Province of BC.

Here is a link to boarder wait times
Wait times at boarders
Here is a link to Hwy cams at the border crossings
Boarder crossing cams

Back when I was crossing weekly, I often listened to AM-1130 as they gave the various crossing times every 10 minutes, with the traffic reports.
People seldom go south just for fuel. But they do go to Bellingham to shop -and- fuel.

..
Q-C fruit
You will NOT be able to take any fruit from BC in to Wash State, period. Even if it has a sticker on it saying it is grown in the states they will NOT allow you to take it back into the states. Veggies I am not so sure of, but I think it's the same because yesterday when they asked us when we crossed into Wash state , they asked if we had any Fruit or Vegetables on board. However there are something's they will allow, so as a rule we never take any fruit, Veg, meat or booze going into the U.S. We do bring some meats back however we have a list that was given to us at Canada Customs of type and weights allows into BC.
There are fruit stands around Omak and Wenatchee south of the Boarder in Wash State
Link to USA fruit and Veg info
U.S. Fruit and veg link.

Soup.

You are, of course, correct about fruit

Q-A fuel
We live with in 25 miles of the US boarder in Wash state. For me to make a round trip to get fuel with no boarder line ups it usually takes just about 1 to 1.5 hrs. Be pending on the boarder lineups on both sides.
The boarder crossings on the lower mainland (Vancouver area) have much long lines as a rule compared to the rest of the Province of BC.

Here is a link to boarder wait times
Wait times at boarders
Here is a link to Hwy cams at the border crossings
Boarder crossing cams

Sure you can save some money so it's up to you how much time you want to spend on your Vacation doing it.

Q-C fruit
You will NOT be able to take any fruit from BC in to Wash State, period. Even if it has a sticker on it saying it is grown in the states they will NOT allow you to take it back into the states. Veggies I am not so sure of, but I think it's the same because yesterday when they asked us when we crossed into Wash state , they asked if we had any Fruit or Vegetables on board. However there are something's they will allow, so as a rule we never take any fruit, Veg, meat or booze going into the U.S. We do bring some meats back however we have a list that was given to us at Canada Customs of type and weights allows into BC.
There are fruit stands around Omak and Wenatchee south of the Boarder in Wash State
Link to USA fruit and Veg info
U.S. Fruit and veg link.

Soup.

The origin of the fruit is not a factor. We've had California oranges taken from us when crossing from Canada to the USA.

The agents don't care where the product was grown. They do care about where it has been.

You can take Fruit in to Canada but can not bring it in to the USA unless its from the USA. But its best to to just buy it and use it there. Also You can take up Deer jerky but can not bring that back across either. We learned that the hard way this year. If it is much out of the way wont save much on getting gas.

If you're picking up a rented Motorhome I think you'll find the norm is you pick it up full and return it the same way. So it wouldn't need filling.

Just a thought.

Coming from the UK you are likely used to prices determined by a high density population.

Checking google, US has 317 million people as of 2014.

Canada has a population of 35 million. Of course it makes a difference in prices. Gasoline to drive on so many roads, for one.

But as has been said, food prices are close, especially when you think of freshness.

Enjoy

:C

If your flying into Canada to get a MH I would not want to go through customs twice to save a few dollars on fuel.

Fuel is roughly 25% more in Canada when you consider the currency exchange. When we cross the border we don't take any fresh fruit or vegetables. We've never had a problem with packaged or frozen food. We usually do our shopping after we cross the border and make sure that we use all our fresh fruit and vegetables before we return. We found that food is approximately the same cost either side of the border.
Enjoy your trip.