Travelling to the US Via Canada

Hey folks,

I'm British, my wife is a US citizen, with ILR pending. Following the return of our documents we're planning trip to the US to see family. We normally travel directly to her town in rural MT but this time we thought we'd try something different as it looks like flights to Calgary, Alberta are direct and significantly cheaper than all the little hops and skips across the US.

Do any of you know if we'll have any border crossing issues from the US to Canada and back again? We're perfectly within our rights to do this aren't we? Any of you done something similar before?

Many thanks!

I can't see why you'd have problems, afterall, both times your just 'in transit'.  I have no personal experience though, so maybe someone who has done this will pipe in 

I've done it before: flew to Toronto from London, spent a week in Canada, then flew down to the US to visit relatives and then went back to London via Toronto (I'm a UK citizen).

Only difference immigration-wise between going via Canada instead of directly to the US was that we went through US immigration in Toronto before we boarded the plane to Memphis instead of going through US immigration after we landed.

Thanks for the info folks

Also, if you're switching flights in Calgary, you'll clear customs/immigration in the Calgary airport before boarding your US flight.   

When we got married, my in-laws flew to Toronto and then drove down to PA. They got asked to park the car and go into the office, where they had to sit for several hours and were questioned multiple times about why they were coming into the US and why they hadn't flown directly into the US. My MIL says it was a nightmare and really had her quite scared.  But, YMMV and I have a feeling if one of you is a US Citizen it probably will be a lot easier.

Back in 2007 when my husband and I crossed the border in Buffalo they didn't even look at his passport even though I told them he was a UK citizen.  We crossed back in to French Canada and got a ton of issues from the Canadian border guard about not having a stamp. 

Of course, this will all have changed due to the need for the passport for US citizens.