Touring - passport requirements

After reading a tour report I thought this passport link would hopefully clear things up or muddy things up.

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cbpmc/cbpmc_2223.html

The proposed implementation timeline has two phases:

Beginning January 23, 2007, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling by air between the United States and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda will be required to present a valid passport, Air NEXUS card, or U.S. Coast Guard Merchant Mariner Document.

As early as January 1, 2008, ALL persons, including U.S. citizens, traveling between the U.S. and Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Bermuda by land or sea (including ferries), may be required to present a valid passport or other documents as determined by the Department of Homeland Security. While recent legislative changes permit a later deadline, the Departments of State and Homeland Security are working to meet all requirements as soon as possible. Ample advance notice will be provided to enable the public to obtain passports or passport cards for land/sea entries.
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So the way I read it is passport required if traveling by air starting Jan 07.

Passport is required if traveling by land starting Jan 08.

By air yes. Requiring a passport between Mexico and US for surface travel will most likely happen.
Passport requirement between Canada and the US either won't happen or may be reduced to what they are calling" passport lite" There is a lot of cross border commerce between the US and Canada, a lot of US border towns depend on business from Canadians especially in the Northeast . There is a big fight going on now to prevent the passport requirement.

I go to Canada all the time . I usually carry my passport along with my drivers license because it gets me through Customs a lot quicker.

To enter Canada on land, what is required (car insurance, registration, etc.) and how long can you stay? It might take a while to tour the Canadian Rockies.

I have had a passport for many years and it has come in handy on a couple of occasions. Two occurred most recently: First incident I was going thru airport security at RIC and my driver's license is a fairly beat up and scarred, hard to read clearly. The security agent asked for an alternate ID, passport was the best choice and no questions asked. Second was just yesterday, I managed to get out of the house without my wallet (wife was driving) rode my bike to the local medical clinic, needed picture ID...fortunately passport was in my briefcase at my wife's shop, so ID was only 6 blocks away instead of 25 miles:rolleyes:

Aaron:)

To enter Canada on land, what is required (car insurance, registration, etc.) and how long can you stay? It might take a while to tour the Canadian Rockies.

You require passport or some other form of identification. (http://www.amcits.com/enter_canada.asp)

As far as how long you can stay, some people come up and apply for landed immigrant status, some just never go back. Three months should do it! (You can stay up to 6 months as a visitor.)

Also, you can leave Canada pretty easily since much of the populated part of the country, and much of the country that has roads, is within a few miles of the US border, so you can pop back and forth thereby refreshing your entry date, or cutting off corners. For instance when I rode from Toronto to Halifax, I was pretty much within 20 miles of the US the whole way, a few exceptions, but not a bad generalization, until I crossed through the middle of New Brunswick..