Don't Be a Bus Hater: It's Actually a Great Way to Travel

A picture-perfect, old-school bus ride (Photo: Getty Images)

The $2.50 fare paid, I settle back in my seat. Knees splay out into the wide fluorescent-lit aisle; my backpack, half-zipped, rests at my side. The cool night air rushes past my window. Other passengers sit, minding their own business. There’s quiet contentment as the rumbling wheels jostle us up and down, up and down.

Round and round, round and round…

Years of inner-city commutes, mad-dash airport shuttles, and long-distance trips have somehow managed to fuel, rather than diminish, my love for bus travel. I must have ridden in more than a thousand buses. Relationships come and go, seasons change — but the one certainty in my life? That I will always, without fail, wind up back on a bus.

And to be honest, nothing makes me happier.

Buses take their time. Sure, trains will zoom you from A to B in a matter of seconds. And the leisurely rhythm of a bike ride is one of life’s simplest pleasures. But buses are unique: They give you time to recharge — one might even say surrender — before you get to where you’re going.

Who wants to speed past something this incredible, anyway? (Photo: Getty Images)

Sure, the onboard experience can get a little … colorful, depending on where you’re traveling. But maybe that’s what I find so rewarding. Call it living on the edge. And hey, it beats standing in line at airport security any day of the week.

From Megabus bonding to Greyhound trips gone awry, here are a few tales proving why buses are the best, weirdest, most fun way to get around.

You can get up close and personal with the scenery

Get up close and personal with gorgeous scenery along the Amalfi Coast. (Photo: Thinkstock)

Bus rides can offer up-close, vivid experiences of a place. I’ll never forget my first trip to the Amalfi Coast. It was a high school trip, and we’d been touring up and down the country for two weeks. Suddenly, we were hurtling along this narrow cliff ledge, barely the width of two medium-sized cars, with the Mediterranean Sea glistening 200 feet below. With every zigzag turn, I was sure we were about to go plummeting off into the rocky abyss, but we didn’t. I grabbed my disposable camera and began snapping furiously. It was a front-row seat to one of Europe’s most famous ocean views.

WATCH: ITALY’S AMALFI COAST

You can meet your soulmate-for-the-moment

You might get a cute neighbor. (Photo: Getty Images)

You never know whom you’ll meet on the bus. My friend had one of the most thrilling romantic encounters of his life on a Greyhound. It was a trip from Washington, D.C. to New York City. For almost the entire two-hour journey, no words were spoken between him and the attractive blond guy sitting to his right. Then, somewhere in New Jersey on I-95, their knees touched. Taking advantage of their intimate surroundings (more cramped than an airplane, yet somehow more discreet than a train), they locked eyes, and before you could say “PDA,” they were getting friendly in row 17. Upon pulling into Penn Station, they went their separate ways and never spoke again.

You witness the beauty of teamwork

New York City’s Port Authority Bus Terminal is a madhouse during the holidays. (Photo: Andrew Mace/Flickr)

Sometimes riding the bus is not the easiest choice, but bus people band together when they face adversity. It was after the holidays in December, and it seemed as if half of New York had turned up at Port Authority, everyone clamoring for the same seat on the 8:45 p.m. to Boston. Even though two backup buses had been brought in, there were still 40 of us stranded in the station. Finally, an hour later, we breathed a sigh of relief as a final bus materialized — a Christmas miracle! Or so we thought. It wasn’t until we had all boarded that the driver, plucked from some obscure reserve list, addressed us on the mike: “Just so you all know,” he boomed, “I’m from the South and don’t really know my way around up here. But we’re gonna get to Boston — together.”

Despite the unsettling announcement, passengers worked together with their GPS devices and smartphones and directed him onto the highway. Sleep wasn’t really an option (if I closed my eyes, I was afraid I’d wake up in Vermont), but there was plenty to keep me amused. It was maybe the only bus ride I’ve been on that could legitimately be called a team effort.

You can go off the beaten path

Enjoy the ride. (Photo: Corbis Images)

Why not take the long way there? You can study your guidebook, or prepare for a business meeting, or just sleep. In college, during a January trip to Switzerland, I took an hourlong bus ride from Malpensa to Lugano. The bus pulled off the highway and began its gradual passage through the winding streets — outside, giant snowflakes were swirling down over the rooftops and piazzas. Bill Evans’s “Like Someone in Love” chimed in my earphones. Though I was excited to see my friend who was waiting for me at the station, I actually stepped off the bus wishing the ride could have lasted a little longer.

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You can have mega fun for minimal money

Sit back and enjoy the free Wi-Fi. (Photo: Getty Images)

Megabus has done a great job spreading the gospel of bus travel’s subtle pleasures: the comfy little seats equipped with Wi-Fi and power plugs, the seamless departure from a curbside stop. And, of course, those single-digit fares. When my friend and I needed to get to Boston this summer, I practically jumped at the chance to book our seats. He didn’t share my initial enthusiasm. But freed from having to trek out to the airport in Queens or linger in a crowded subterranean station, he began to embrace the idea. After several inspired rounds of Mad Libs, some light book reading, and an hour spent sharing songs from our iPods and watching the small towns of Connecticut roll by, I think he was completely converted.

You can be part of a community

Who’s your new bus bestie? (Photo: Getty Images)

As anyone who’s done a Birthright trip to Israel knows, bus life is a constant, inextricable fact of the 10-day experience. Traveling in such close quarters over so many hours results in a complex social ecosystem. There are rows corresponding to different cliques within the group, often centered around a pair of smiling Israeli soldiers (one of whom may, after a drunken night in Tel Aviv, end up on your lap). There’s the resident Broadway star, up at the front, leading a group sing-along. And the harried tour guide, endeavoring to give a synopsis of the entire Israel-Palestine conflict while most are either dozing or playing Cards Against Humanity for the hundredth time. What’s not to love?

You can people-watch

If you are paying attention, you might witness something very special. (Photo: Corbis Images)

If casinos are a seedy netherworld for lost souls, then the Los Angeles-Las Vegas shuttle bus must surely be a modern-day Charon, ferrying the hapless to their penny slot machines across the River Styx. Needless to say, I wasn’t harboring any high hopes for the four-hour ride that I was about to embark on during a West Coast jaunt several years ago. It was the scenery that first got me — the flat, open highway stretching long into the sunset-tinted desert. Then at a rest stop midway along I-15, I saw a woman lean across the aisle and tell a solo female passenger — in the most noncreepy way possible — how beautiful she looked while she was sleeping. Still groggy-eyed, the young woman responded, “Was I drooling?” “No,” the woman murmured. “But you’re really beautiful. God bless you.”

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You can have an authentic experience

There’s nothing to lull you like a night bus ride. (Photo: Getty Images)

Of all my motor-powered adventures, nothing beats an after-dark bus ride on Martha’s Vineyard. The island’s bus system, the Martha’s Vineyard Transit Authority, maintains a healthy fleet of white-and-purple buses for its seven-days-a-week, year-round service. And on a quiet summer night, passengers get what I like to call the “red light special.” Heading south from Oak Bluffs along Sengekontacket Pond, the driver usually switches off the main compartment lights, leaving a few red emergency bulbs for ambiance. The radio might be tuned to an oldies station, so you’ve got Sam Cooke in one ear and the sound of the ocean coming in through the window. You don’t talk, you don’t fret, you just let yourself be carried into the clear, balmy night.

You can be the turtle, not the hare

Sometimes the slow pace of a bus travel pays off. (Photo: Getty Images)

Faster isn’t always better. There was that early-morning bus to Heathrow with my family, when I realized with a cold horror that I’d left my passport behind. Luckily, my dad, who balances ruthless practicality with a perpetual sense of impending disaster (maybe the two work together in some way?) came up with a fast plan: hire a local taxi to go to my apartment in Oxford, where my roommate (bless her!) would retrieve the passport from my desk and hand it off to the driver. A gut-wrenching 45 minutes later, we pulled into the terminal, where the taxi driver calmly waited for us outside the departures hall. For once, the bus’s slowed-down pace actually worked in my favor. (Though my blunder ended up costing us an extra £120, thereby offsetting the reasonable £23 fare.)

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