I seriously doubt my fiance can possibly remember every visit he has ever made to the US, which I'm assuming is pretty common for Canadians (I could never begin to list every visit I made to Canada--granted, I grew up in a border town and he did not, but I know he has been here probably hundreds of times). Do they really expect him to be able to list every visit he has ever made to the US in 50 years?

Yes, it is going to be a loooooooong time before we need to fill this out, but I am looking ahead at what we will need because there just isn't anything else I can do at the moment. I got tired of looking at wedding planning stuff.

just list the major trips he can remember... then for the others what I did was put something like " various and numerous trips were made to the US from ______ to _______"
"
I think they realize that Canadians make a lot of trips to the US, seeing that the majority of Canadians live close to the border....

I just put a list of whatever I could recall for Mom and Dad. I added a page to the form and put a big disclaimer, "This is not an exhaustive list of all visits to the US, only those occasions that could be documented or I could clearly recall." That should do it. On the form itself, I just put "see attached." I think most Canadians are in the same boat.

Ta, thanks. That makes sense. He can probably give the dates of any in the past few years because he has the stamps in his passport, and he can at least give the year for two or three long road trips he made long ago.

They also ask for every address he has had since the age of 16. He may actually be able to answer that one easily, but I would sure have a hard time with it. I'm actually curious enough to try to list every address I've had since I was 16 now.....

IF I remember correctly, you only need to list places that you have lived in for longer then 6 months...

you can just list each month & year and how long approx each trip was

like:

March 2007 (1 week)
May 2007 (5 days)

that can be a problem... I lived about 20 minutes or so from the border and I could never recall all the day trips i made to the US

I think just making a broad statement like I mentioned , is good enough....

example : I made numerous trips to the US from 1980 to 2007

but I would list all the major trips you made, that you can remember....

I just did the best I could from memory and wrote them down.

Same here. But he is from Edmonton, so maybe he would be able to do what Liz suggested. I think at the very least he might need to say it is not an exhaustive list, though. I think he went to Montana pretty regularly, even if it wasn't as much as those of us who really are from border towns.

I don't think it is a big deal if you can't remember all the dates....

well, that's how I did it and they didn't bat an eye

I just meant that I had been to the US so many times I couldn't even do what you suggested...

For me I just put various crossings and listed the few ports in my area....heck my house is 1/2 block from the USA line...good grief as if I could remember. I don't think you will have any problems with it.

I have a best friend at the Montreal U.S. Consulate.
He/She goes by the name "Operator Number Five" (I like to spell it out).

Here is part of an email and response from them:

Me: Having grown up in Montreal and then having lived in Vancouver for 12 years (and now I am back in Montreal ), I have visited the U.S. countless of times, maybe numbering in the hundreds (mostly driving in, sometimes flying and via sailing). How will I account for each visit from the time I was born to the present on your DS-230 form number 25 on page two?

Op No 5: Just list numerous visits on the forms