Americans travelling to a riding vacation or just to see Europe as a tourist will not simply “disappear” at the border with no process or explanation: European nations still follow the rule of law. Come over, you will be very welcome!
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I’m sure of this!
And the same thing applies to Canada. You would be welcome here, American friends. No one is ‘disappeared’. And your dollar goes further.
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Yes, the ETA is essentially a visa even thought they say it isn’t. And I think it will be a lot like the year the canadians got access to american criminal records and started denying entry to people with very old convictions who had routinely crossed the border for years or decades. Chaos ensued. A lot of people are going to be denied entry at least initially and no-one really knows what drives that decision.
We felt very welcome in Ecuador on a recent trip to the Galapagos.
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We canceled our trip to the UK; we are sure we’d be welcome there, but it’s getting back into the USA we worry about.
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Are you a citizen with a valid passport etc? Why would there be a problem?
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Unfortunately that does not seem to be a guarantee that you won’t be detained for hours/days. There is little trust in Freedom of Speech and Habeas Corpus at this time, and something as legal and innocuous as social media posts that the administration doesn’t like can get you slapped with charges. If you’re lucky, you don’t get disappeared. All they have to do is get into your devices and find something “suspicious”, though there’s plenty of other non-documentation related reasons they may try.
(Obligatory Not A Lawyer but… This is illegal - you do not have to grant access to your devices. They can be confiscated, but you do not have to grant access. This is a downside to fingerprint and Face ID - all someone has to do to unlock your device is hold it to your face or forcibly use your fingerprint. Passwords are much stronger. Protect your data, y’all - especially if you keep banking and identification data on there.)
I will refrain from taking this further into politics, but it is very wise to be thinking twice about traveling to (or out and back in) the US right now. Especially for non-essential purposes.
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My friend who lives abroad is planning a trip home next month. She is thinking of bringing a burner phone and leaving her real phone home. They are trying to decide if her DH should come with her or not. He is not a US citizen.
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Went to Badminton in May with a group no one had any issues returning to the USA. I will say I was a bit concerned getting my ETA and if I’d be flagged since I’ve made a slew of phone calls to various members of congress and senate over the past months…
My nephews are in Central America visiting family so will be interesting to see if they have any issues returning to the USA.
**Edited to add: Nephews returned from yesterday from Honduras with nary a problem.
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Completely unrelated to Horses, but I have traveled four times from California to Montreal in the last six months. Just last week I was picked up at my hotel curb in Montreal at 6 AM and by 6:20 AM I was through customs and waiting for my flight at YUL. A new land speed record (granted I have global entry but my colleagues that do not were only 10-15 min behind)
[Edit]
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Adding: I will say that the flights to and from Montreal are getting smaller and emptier. I traveled there the first week of Jan and it was a 2-3-2 configuration and full. In April and May down to a 3-3 configuration and plenty of empty seats. This trip 2 weeks ago a 3-3 configuration and plenty of people had the whole row to themselves.
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I was in Hawaii last week, and the Air Canada check ins were deserted
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Does it seem to be fewer going to CAN from the US or fewer going from CAN to US? Or about the same for both ?
Discussing potential travel logistical issues is fine, but let’s avoid getting into discussion regarding political protests.
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We traveled to iceland, just got back on the 4th of June. the plane there was full to bursting, on the way back to the US is was maybe 1/3 full. The three of us each got our own row, and many others also moved to their own rows, but there were still empty rows.
It will be both as it’s mostly affecting how many tourists are visiting the USA.
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I guess that’s sort of what I was asking. I should have been more specific if it seemed to be more Americans visiting Canada or Canadians visiting America, business travelers etc but I guess it’s not easy to know
According to Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/06/10/canadian-tourists-to-us-down-nearly-40-in-may-new-data-says/ it is both ways, but biggest impact is Canadians traveling to the USA falling off a cliff. From the article:
The number of Canadians taking road trips into the U.S.—representing the majority of Canadians who visit—dropped by 38% last month compared to May 2024, according to new data from Statistics Canada.
There was also a 24% decline in air travelers from Canada year-over-year.
May was the fifth consecutive month of ever-steeper declines in inbound Canadian travel, following double-digit year-over-year drops in car travel and air travel to the U.S. in April and March.
Even a 10% drop in Canadian inbound tourism could see $2.1 billion in lost spending and 140,000 jobs jeopardized in the hospitality and related sectors, the U.S. Travel Association (USTA) warned in February—the new data suggests the losses could be triple or quadruple that forecast.
Fewer Americans traveled to Canada in May, with car travel down 8% and air travel down 0.3%, per Statistics Canada data.
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In Vermont, we’re essentially at pandemic-level declines in in-bound Canadian tourism, which will have ripple effects across the state’s economy if this extends into the fall/winter seasons.
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It appears people who are lawful permanent residents with green cards are having trouble getting back into the US when travelling so there have indeed been problems even if they meet all the things needed for reentry.
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