First time driving our RV into another country!

Today is finally the day after four and a half years of RVing. We are taking our RV into Canada for the very first time. We will take you along for the full journey of what it's like to cross an international border in an RV. Next stop, Canada. Next stop, Canada. OK, buddy, are you ready to go to Canada? You ready to hit the road, man? Let's get going. Using our RV safe GPS, it's in the coach. And for the very first time, instead of hitting United States as the country, we're going to hit Canada. We're one mile away from the border. Oh, I'm just hoping it won't be a problem because they say that it can only fit up to 35 feet and we're a little bit bigger than 35 feet. It's probably been one of the most amazing drives I think we've ever done. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Today is finally the day after four and a half years of RVing. We are taking our RV into Canada for the very first time. We are currently in Bonners Ferry, Idaho, where we've been spending the night and we're about 30 miles away from the international border crossing at the Eastport Kingsgate crossing area. We're pretty much all packed up and ready to go. We had a quick overnight stay, so we are going to get going and we will take you along for the full journey of what it's like to cross an international border in an RV. Hopefully we don't run into any issues. We're pretty well prepared. We've done our research. We've got all of our documents like passports and such. We are heading into Banff National Park. We were able to score reservations at the RV park in Banff itself. We'll be staying there for about a week. This is the first time that we're both going to Banff together, and we are so excited to just spend a week enjoying the beautiful scenery, hiking, wildlife, all of that. So we're going to take you along with us and we'll show you what it's like. So let's get going. OK, time to start her up. Next stop, Canada. And of course, it starts perfectly. Woohoo. Here comes Axel. Hey, buddy. He's always around whenever we start the RV. You going to get in your spot, man? Get in your co-pilot chair. Up, up. Come on. Axel, up. You ready to cross the border? You're going to be a world traveler after today, buddy. Multiple countries in your book. We should get him a dog passport. Why don't they make such a thing? A little doggy passport. OK, so I think all we have to do is put the slides in and put the jacks up and we should be good to go. Yeah, everything's disconnected. Lincoln's good. We never unhooked it. Lincoln's still all good. I checked it this morning. So slides in and rock and roll. Now that we've got the slides in, the next thing that we do is actually lift the jacks up. One of the things that we recently installed on the new coach are these snap pads. We love the snap pads. We've had them on the last three coaches that we've had. Sorry, we've had it on all of our coaches that we've had, not just the last two. We use them because they provide a lot of stability. They help us, especially in areas like this where we're on gravel, we're in the mud, provides an additional surface area and they're rubber. So the snap pads are actually made out of old used tires and they provide a lot of traction on gravel or wet surfaces or anything of that nature. And the really nice thing about them is that they're super easy to install. You just put them underneath your jacks. You place them underneath. You drop your jacks down. They snap right into place. Hence the name snap pads. And they're permanently installed. You never have to get out, put jack pads underneath them ever again. Yeah, we get that question quite a bit. But once they're installed, they are permanent. You don't ever have to look underneath the coach and you know that they're always there. So very handy things to have on the coach. And again, especially in these areas where it's wet and muddy and a bit gravelly. Yeah. So you can see our snap pads there. One of our highest recommended RV products, honestly, these are something that we think every single RV should have, no matter what type of RV you have. Yeah, definitely. Like I say, we've had them on every single coach that we've owned. It's the first thing we've installed, I think, on every coach. Yeah. And they really do make leveling your RV a lot easier. They provide a lot more stability. Highly recommend. And best part, if you use the link below in the video description and our discount code FYW, you're going to get 10% off your entire order. So be sure to check it out if you're interested. OK, so let's go ahead and raise up the jacks and then we can pull her out. Let's go. Let's get going. OK, buddy, are you ready to go to Canada? Are you ready to hit the road, man? Let's get going. I can't believe we're waking up in the U.S. in the RV and we'll be going to bed in Canada. That's right. And our own bed, for that matter. Not many people can say they've taken their whole home to another country. That is true. That is true. It should be fun. We're not even really visiting, then, are we? If we're sleeping in our own home in Canada? Yeah, I guess technically we're moving to Canada for a week. All right. You're going to go right out of here and then we go left on the Highway 95. Same road we were on yesterday. OK. We should only have about 30 miles to the border. All right. Exciting times. Exciting times. I don't know why I'm nervous. Using our RV safe GPS, it's in the coach. And for the very first time, instead of hitting United States as the country, we're going to hit Canada. We'll enter an address to get the GPS. OK, so I got the address inputted. See it here on the screen. It's pretty handy that this actually works in Canada. Start navigation. It does. It works in North America. This says it's going to take us almost five hours. We got 248 miles to go. Piece of cake. Hopefully if they let us into the Canadian border, it'll be a piece of cake. We're only about five miles away from the Canadian border right now. So we're hoping that there won't be a long line and we can get through pretty quickly. We've heard mixed reviews from people depending on which border crossing they go through, but everything we read, we've heard the Eastport Kingsgate crossing is pretty low key. So I don't think it'll take too long. You do have to do your research before coming to Canada in an RV. There are certain restrictions that you have to be aware of. Main thing being the dog. So with Axel, we have to make sure that we have our vaccination records, especially for rabies. And I actually believe that's coming back into the US, but I'm not exactly sure. So we'll see if the Canadian authorities ask for that or not. We also have to declare that we have Axel so that way when we come back, we have him with us. They know that we brought him into the country. And then you also have to be careful with what types of things you have in your refrigerator, especially things like alcohol, fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, those types of things. They do have some restrictions on what's allowed. So you go to the website, you can check out what you're allowed to have and what you're not. Hopefully everything that we have with us is allowed. So we won't run into any issues. But we've also heard some things where they'll just let you right through without inspecting anything. And we've heard from some other people that they'll actually come into the RV and they'll want to check things for themselves. So we'll see what happens. And of course, you do need to make sure that you have your passports available. A driver's license is not going to cut it. So we've got our passports right here. Not sure if we'll need anything else, but we've got the registration and insurance and all that for the RV just in case out as well. Should be good. Better to be overprepared. Got to have the right documentation. We're one mile away from the border. Oh, speed limit. Twenty five. They don't mess around here. U.S. Customs. Fourteen hundred feet. And then Canada Customs is nineteen hundred feet. So what is there like a 500 foot buffer of demilitarized zone? I don't know how it works. I didn't think we went through U.S. Customs on the way out, but maybe we do. U.S. Customs. We don't have to pay anything, do we? I don't know. I don't think so. Duty free America. There it is. The East Port Port of Entry. I've been through customs and immigration a thousand times in my life. Watch this big bump right here. But never in an RV. Never in an RV. This will be interesting. It said trucks use right lane. I don't know. I guess there's only one lane open. Only one lane open. Stop. Proceed when instructed. All right. All right, Axel. Hello. Passport? Yeah. The RV? Texas. We actually live in the RV, but we have our addresses are Texas. And yeah, yeah. Banff. A week. Eight days. Yeah, I was thinking 10 days, but. We did. Yeah. No, no. We just work remotely. We're in tech, so we can work remotely. No, no firearms. No. We've got two bottles of wine, two bottles of wine and a half a bottle of vodka. Yeah, yeah. We have some bear spray. No. OK, thank you. Well, that was easy. Yeah. That felt kind of anticlimactic. Fine with me. Fine with me, too. A lot of questions, but it was pretty easy. Axel, we made it. We didn't have to declare Axel or anything. No. This is our vehicle registration. Yeah, just leave it there for now. All right, buddy, we made it. You're officially a Canadian travel dog. You made it into Canada, man. Good job, buddy. Very exciting, huh? I like that the sign just says Canada straight. I started to get a little worried when I realized that, yeah, we have a vehicle in California and a vehicle in Indiana. Licenses in Texas. All right. Here we go. It's official. OK, so as soon as we go past that sign, we're in Canada. Is that it? We're in Canada now. No, not till we reach the sign, I don't think, right? A welcome sign. Maybe maybe this is the demilitarized zone. I like that. Canada, USA. Welcome to Canada. Look at this old bridge you get to go across. Well, that was exciting. That was. All the signs are in kilometers per hour now. Uh oh. How fast do we go? I don't know the conversion. We don't have it on our thing. I'll have to look. You don't know the conversion? I don't know off the top of my head. I know it's a lot slower, so 60 is probably 40. I'm surprised this doesn't switch and do both. Most do both. Really? Yeah. Oh, you know what, there probably is a setting in here somewhere. I'll convert it for you in just a sec. No, no, no. Hang on. Pretty cool feature we just found on our RV. You can actually change the miles per hour to kilometers per hour. No, it changes all the units to metric units. So now I know that we've driven 7,429 kilometers on our rig so far and we're going 72 kilometers per hour. Oh, that's 60 kilometers per hour. Then it tells me I have. No, it's 90 kilometers per hour. It's 1247 kilometers. We get better fuel mileage now in Canada, 1247 kilometers to empty. Let's just make sure you're not speeding in Canada. I know you like to get your tickets, but I don't care to get a ticket. Yeah, the speed limit is 90, 90 kilometers per hour. Oh, it's 70. No, that's when it's snowing. Oh, I'm nervous. What can I say? I don't want you to get arrested in a foreign country. I'm not going to get arrested. That was seriously painless. I can't believe it. They just asked us a couple of questions and then we were out there. I think we thought it would take 30 minutes. I don't think it took three. It did. It took three minutes. That was it. It was pretty easy. So now that we've officially crossed into Canada, we've got 220 miles to go, about another four and a half hours. So we should be getting into Banff into the campground. How many kilometers do we have to go? Well, I don't know. It's a 220 miles. So I don't know. Must be about 400 kilometers. Something like that. So we should be getting into Banff around two or three p.m. mountain standard time, and then we'll get all set up and get to go enjoy Banff. So we just stopped off at a rest area here in Canada. We've been driving for about two and a half hours, so we're pretty much halfway there. And this has got to go down as the most beautiful rest area that we have ever been to. It's right along the lake. And the view from here is absolutely stunning. You walk up a hill and you get to see the mountains and this incredible lake. This is the view that we get to have right from the rest area. It is absolutely gorgeous. The water here in these Canadian lakes and rivers is so crystal clear and blue. It's just beautiful. Sorry, Axel was pulling me the other way, but it's such a pretty view. What do you think, bud? You like Canada so far, huh? All right, buddy, let's make a quick bite to eat and then we'll get back on the road. A couple more hours. Come on, Axel. All right. Come on. Up and up. Up up. Good boy. All right. Canada's finest meal. I guess your first meal in Canada, really. American in Canada. Served on a paper plate. Thank you, baby. Leftovers from last night. At least the food should be good. I can't say the paper plate makes it look good, but it should be good. I know the food's good. Of course, Axel's always nearby. Huh, buddy? You think you're going to get a bite, don't you? I'm licking those lips. Didn't overcast, huh? Pretty good lunch at what I would consider to be one of the most beautiful rest stops we've ever been to. We've been to our fair share of rest stops. So I thought you were going to say one of the most beautiful restaurants we've ever been to. Rest areas. And it is a pretty nice restaurant, too. Well, Restaurant de la Hillary. That's right. With good views. Nice views. OK, buddy, you ready? A couple more hours and then we'll be there. This has been a really pretty drive to the scenery here. It's just been amazing. The water. I'm just so amazed with it. It's crystal clear Caribbean blue. It's so pretty. Yeah, I can't wait to get the van. Definitely recommend doing this drive if you have time. It's gorgeous. Ready? I'm ready. OK, let's go. It unleveled itself. Oh, somebody's trying to pass me. And the cloud should help with the heat a little bit. Yeah, it's warm, but it's not hot. It wasn't warm there because the sun was really strong. All right, I'm going to run this stop sign. Coast is clear. Yep. Come on, Molly, we'll get up and go. That extra 30 mile an hour run helped. I just can't get enough of that. Like the mountains are so pretty. What lake is that? Columbia Lake. It's so blue, I couldn't get over it. Is that the source of the Columbia River? I don't think so. It could be. It could be, but I don't know. It does start up in Canada somewhere. Some of our rivers don't look like that in the U.S. As soon as they cross the border, they get infested with pollution and turn brown. The Canadians keep their stuff cleaner. True. This is a little tight. This is the coolest canyon I've ever driven through. Driving the RV through a tight canyon. Don't hit that wall. The speed limit's like 60, or 50, and I'm doing 27, I think. And it said it was an 11% grade. That's going to push Molly to her limit. 11% is pretty serious. 11% is seriously serious. I'm a little concerned. Are we going to make it? Yeah, this is still not very steep. It's going to get worse? Yeah, this isn't steep. This is barely 6, probably. Huh. And it did say we could go this way. It did. I'm a bit nervous now. You're in charge of GPS. I don't know if it did. I verified it on three different GPSs, and we just saw an RV come this way, so it can't be that bad, right? Because remember that place in Breckenridge we went up to for the massage? That was only 10%. That was seriously steep. Oh, no, not Breckenridge. Park City. Well, we're just going to have to go slow. Wow, if it's truly 11%, that's the only option we have. It's pretty. Chris is cool as a cucumber, as usual. We're driving 10% grade, very narrow roads, tunnels that barely fit the RV, and he's not even breaking a sweat. Oh, I think it's awesome. This is like when we drove to Big Bear, and you loved it. No, it's just more interesting. It's more interesting, but for me, it's nerve-wracking. No cell service. For 105 kilometers. Oh, ----. Let's hope we don't have trouble. Well, we have Starlink. What if we need to call emergency services? Starlink. Okay, now I am nervous. This has probably been one of the most amazing drives I think we've ever done. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. We got 12 cars stacked up behind us. Oh, no. We're going speed limit. I think we can pass when we get in the passing lane, but we can't go as fast as they can. I am going the speed limit. And the views here are just amazing. That little pond lake thing we just passed, it's like the clearest, greenest water I've ever seen. Everything is so crystal clear. 7% grade. A little steep. Look at how tall those mountain peaks are. Yeah, those are pretty tall, but there's not any snow on any of them. I'm really surprised. There's some snow on those far ones over there, but yeah, I thought there would be more snow for sure. We are about 15 minutes away from the campground, so we are staying at Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court, which is one of the few places in Banff that actually has full hookups, including 50 amp electric service, which is really important for our size rig. So as soon as we get there, we're going to get unhooked and we'll set up and we'll show you around the spot. I'm just hoping it won't be a problem because they say that it can only fit up to 35 feet and we're a little bit bigger than 35 feet, but I've been told from other people that have been there that 45 foot will fit and that the Rangers will let us in. So we'll see. Town of Banff is hiring. There's a Tim Hortons right there. This is a pretty cute little mountain town. I've heard it's beautiful to walk around. It looks pretty cool. Okay, so this next street you can go left on is where we're going, at the light, I'm assuming. It looks pretty darling to me. It looks like a tiny little road to be driving this RV on, it looks like. Well, it said it was RV safe. We'll find out. You're going to test your driving skills. They need to be tested. We'll pull in there and get gas. Oh God, no. You can make this. No problem. Right? Yeah, I'm not worried about this. I'm a little nervous. I'm just always worried more about low hanging power lines and stuff than anything else. And people walking in front of me. I mean, it says it's safe on three different GPS systems. It didn't say to go a different way. Like, this is the way they all said to go, so. It'll be fine. I feel like we're driving through, like, downtown Banff right now. It just doesn't feel made for this big of a rig. No, it doesn't. This right here, I mean, I'm going to take up this whole bridge. We are less than a mile away. Getting really close. It was definitely tight driving through downtown Banff. Don't recommend it. I think we took the wrong way. We had about 100 people staring at our RV. Like, what are these crazy people, this giant rig doing through here? I know. All the people are eating lunch or something right there on the road looking up at our window. Just a little tight. I assume there's a sign somewhere. Yeah, right there. Tunnel Mountain. It says trailer court. Village 2. We're going to trailer court to the left. Axel, we made it, buddy! Oh, gosh. That bit rough. We made it, buddy! What do you think? You excited? Oh, this must be the line for RVs. Someone warned me about this. Big line. Yeah. Because it opens at 2, so. That's not that bad. All right, bub, we're going to have to wait our turn in line. Hopefully this won't take too long. How you doing? I can't check you in here. I'll just speak to some people around the room. Once you get to that check-in desk there, we'll sort you out. You're the good dog there. What's the name? Axel. Axel, hello. He thinks anybody through a window has a treat like a drive-thru. I'll just hand you this, and I'll just quickly speak to him. It's nice and easy. Checkout's by 11am on whatever day you leave. Careful. Didn't see that. Bonjour. 412. Okay. Thank you. That was easy. Do you know where we're going? I guess I'll figure it out. I think we just go straight and do the left. Why does that take any time for anybody? I don't know. I don't exactly know where we came in. Are we in Village 2 or Trailer Court? We're in Trailer Court. That says go to the right. Okay. Then maybe that's what it is. Yeah, that makes more sense. Okay. To the right? I guess, yes. Let's go to the right. We should unhook somewhere. Oh, yeah. 412. So follow the signs. There's 400 to 850. So we want to go right in here? Because it says 401 to 450. Yeah, I think so. Awesome. They didn't seem to care at all that we were over 35 feet. No. This is, we're like 85 feet right now. Oh, my gosh. But yeah, see, these are the sites. I'm not quite sure how we're going to fit. Oh, that'll be easy. We'll see. We can fit in there easy, babe. Okay, so 412. We're going to be on the left, I believe. Oh, yeah, even. We want to turn around. Oh, no, no. Yeah, we're going to want to turn around and come back the other direction for 412. How the hell do we do that? I bet there's a place to turn around up here, but you see all this. Oh, yeah. So what we might do is unhook. You want to just pull in right here and we'll unhook real quick? Is this ours here? 410 is the next one. Yeah, let's do that. Okay. And then I can turn around up there. Holy cow, they don't really, you're not out of the road, baby. Well, we finally made it to our RV site here in Banff at Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court. I think I know why they recommend being under 35 feet to fit in these spaces. Our RV is a little bit big for this spot, but we made it work. So the nice thing about this is it's a pretty quiet campground. We've got our big windows here, which overlook the pretty trees on this side. This side, we've got total privacy. So you can't really see because the TV's up right now, but we'll go outside in just a second. So it's a nice, private, quiet spot. I definitely think it's better if you're under 35 feet, but hey, we made it work. We made it fit. It wasn't that bad. The best part is that we have full hookups with 50 amp, so that helps a lot because it's a little bit warm here. So we'll go outside and show where we're parked. Axel's already made himself very comfortable outside. Huh, buddy? You like it out here, don't you? We've got our mat set up, our chairs. But yeah, I mean, it's pretty private. We've got lots of trees all around us. It's kind of one of these weird side pull-in type lots. So she fit barely, but she does fit. You can kind of see the end is right in the trees there. But, you know, close enough. And I'll show on this side. This is where it was a little bit tight. So the hookups are on the street side here. And so this is why it was a little bit harder to get it to fit. And our tires were off the ground, so we put our leveling blocks down there, which helped. We also used our stack pads that we got from SnapPad back here. So this helped a lot with our rear jacks because this side was really, really high up. Is this side low or high? This side is low. This side is low compared to the other side. So we had to jack it all up. So our stack pads that we got from SnapPad really helped there. And also our yellow leveling blocks that we put underneath the tires. So not the usual way we have to set things up, but, you know, it works. And the great thing is we just drove through Banff to get here, and it's like five minutes away from downtown Banff. So awesome location. So now that we are finally all set up and settled, we can actually go explore Banff and enjoy our eight night stay here. I can't wait. There's a lot of stuff. See the gondola and creeks and the rivers and the hikes and the waterfalls. The hikes and the bears. Oh, my. Is that a song or what is it? I don't know. It has been a long time coming. We've been wanting to go to Banff ever since we started RVing four years ago. So this is definitely a bucket list trip, and we could not be more excited to be spending the week here. So we're going to be documenting all of it. We'll be sharing it in future videos. But as always, if you have any questions, drop us a comment. We'd love to hear from you. Hopefully we'll be able to share a lot of information about Banff after this trip. And Canada. Canada has been great so far. It's been beautiful. We absolutely love it. The drive-in was amazing. It really was. So to our Canadian neighbors, thank you again for the hospitality. And we're really excited to check out your beautiful country. All right. Well, we're going to get off to exploring. But until next time, see you.