Vancouver - US border crossing
 

I plan on doing my Black Friday shopping in Vancouver this year. My question/concern is, will the US customs check all my packages in my car? Are they going to open all the boxes? None of it will be wrapped up. It's just going to be a bunch of toys and clothes.

Thanks.

Dizzy

There is no way to predict what Customs Agents may or may not search. They may just wave you through without any inspection at all aside from screening questions or they may direct you to a secondary screening area and search everything in your car. I'm sorry not to be more informative but your question cannot be answered with any reliability.

I ditto what dwooddon says - and if they are at all suspicious - they can tear your whole car apart looking for things- so it pays to be honest with what you have and have all your receipts available to show them

I appreciate the responses. I'll have the receipts for all. Never been to Vancouver and I am driving there tonight to visit old childhood friends. Since I will be there during Black Friday I was going to get all my xmas shopping done too.

I hear horror stories about US customs, so I have this mental image of them just ripping apart and opening all my store bought items and gifts.

Thanks again!

Hello dizzy, as the others have said, who knows? We use to go to BC almost every year and we never had a problem when returning to the states except for the time...we were in beautiful Victoria and during breakfast found out the ferries were going on strike. We rushed breakfast, got to our lodgings, packed up, threw every in the trunk of our car and got to the ferry pier to wait in line for the next available ferry. We finally got on a ferry after hours of waiting and arrived in WA. Why I don't know but that was the one and only time US Customs decided to zero in on us. I don't remember how long it took but I do remember that we had to take everything and I mean everything our of our car including the blanket our young daughter was using in the back sleep. We were tired, hungry and also cold and we had no idea where we would find a room for the night. They searched under our car, and at one point my husband (who had been a US Naval officer) thought they were going to cut the lining of our trunk, thankfully they didn't. Anyway, long story not so short, it was a nightmare. That never happened before and never happened again and to this day I don't know why a married couple with a little girl caused them to zero in on us.

No doubt you will not have any problems but at least you will not be caught unprepared as we were those many years of ago. Enjoy your time in Vancouver, I love that beautiful city!