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I'm going on an almost 6 months trip to the US and Canada.

As a Danish citizen I can use the Visa Waiver Program to stay for up to 90 days in the US.

I will start my journey in California and leave the US to go to Canada within the 90 days and will not come back since the a Canada side trip won't reset the 90 days allowance. I will fly from Canada to Europe without even transiting in the US.

Questions are:

  1. To prove my intentions of not staying in the US more than the 90 days, will a bus ticket out of the country after say 80 days from Buffalo to Toronto (they are the cheapest) combined with showing my ticket leaving the North American continent suffice?

  2. Do I actually need to exit the way that I intend at first - or could I go from Seattle to Vancouver if I somehow find myself going that way instead?

  3. When exiting overland to Canada do I need to do something special at the border in order to be registered as having left the US inside the 90 days?

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  • They often don't even ask for proof of onward travel. My wife (a Spanish citizen) last time entered the USA, and was not asked for proof, although we had bought a cheap (refundable) flight on Orbitz to show them, just in case.
    – Flimzy
    Aug 24, 2015 at 21:35

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Canada is a whole separate country from the United States, (and in particular there is nothing like Schengen) so yes, a bus ticket to Canada is sufficient to prove onward travel from the US.

You are of course not required to use that ticket; if your travel plans change, you can always exit somewhere else, provided that you don't overstay.

As for something special that you need to do, you will want to have your departure recorded. If you leave the US by air, this is done automatically from airline records. But if you leave via land or sea, this doesn't happen. To deal with this, you can, when you arrive in the US, inform the immigration officer that you are leaving by land and request a paper I-94 form. You then turn this in at the Canadian border. If you don't do this, you can also prove your exit by keeping records of your bus and plane travel outside the US, or any other records, which show that you departed the US and when.

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  • This answer is INCORRECT. The VWP rules explicitly state that a ticket to Canada is NOT sufficient to meet the return/onward ticket criteria for entry to the US under VWP except for residents of Canada. A ticket to outside of US/Canada/Mexico is required.
    – Doc
    Jan 31, 2016 at 23:40

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