Yes, deliberately excluded coaches. Basically the rule was to only use routes that a older persons concessionary pass can be used on (I’m too young for one, but it’s a useful yardstick!), which excludes most express coach routes.
You’re right. Your post inspired me to look up oed.com, which is the “full” OED and available through many British public libraries.
The quality of that definition seems to be rather terse and restrictive as well. It’s got a lot of references to obscure and historic meanings of “coach”, but sense (e) is quite simply “a single-decker bus” with some references.
And even good old Megabus (a budget coach company) has double-decker coaches[1].
There is something very romantic about this - obviously there are other ways to make the trips, but somehow is feels more free and a bit furtive, like if you had to sneak out of town for some reason it's a good thing to know.
I'm in Canada and I can't think of any meaningful distance you could cover in this way. Maybe Toronto-Barrie. Our cities are all so far apart, they are mostly isolated hubs and spokes.
Curious in the US, would there be any regions where you could get anywhere by this method?
My hunch is that the best odds to get about as far in the US by bus would be the NE corridor, specifically from Washington to NY (which is about 225 miles / 362 km). Most of these cities have transit authorities that cover their metro region, and they'll probably all have bus service into the adjacent one.
I mean, if you're including the 317, you could already get on it in central Philadelphia (its other terminus). That's sort of my point though - those buses are big Greyhound-style intercity buses, not the hop on / hop off city buses from the british experiment.
Depending on the timing of the bus schedules, you could just about make it from Maine to Florida in a day—actually over 30 hours but definitely to the Carolinas from Maine within 24 hours.
Not really. They are buses with multiple stops rather than direct city-to-city coach connections but the X buses (eg X6, X7 from the route in the OP) are intercity routes.
The long distance coach to e.g. Leicester starts at the same place, but takes the motorway and doesn't stop until it gets to Leicester. Maybe it will then continue to another city, e.g. Manchester. (I've done this trip.)
The OP took intercity / intertown "local" buses, but they stop at many larger villages and towns along the route. This is much slower, as it usually involves leaving the large road and winding through narrow roads to the centre.
If i was trying to sneek put of london i'd be more interested in how far i could go in 24h without being spotted on a camera. Canada would probably win that race.
Could you go 10 feet? I think the best thing to do to sneak out would be to put on a few of the correct type of items to make facial recognition difficult, and have enough options you could pop into a shop and discreetly change outer layers while exiting different doors (where possible) to slow the tracking down.
Since they all have cameras, you couldn't go on a local bus or train without wearing sufficient clothes to obscure your face. For example, a hoodie + cap.
Cycling while avoiding roads with lots of shops is probably the best bet. In practise, private cameras aren't an issue except in very unusual cases. (E.g. with runaway children there might be a request for shop owners in a specific area to check their recordings.)
Depends on the company. The US has no dearth of characters. And most of them seem to travel by bus. One time I ended up next to a dude who would excitedly point out every prision along the highway he had been a guest at. Another time a "paranormal investigator" with a 2 inch thick binder of haunted houses and she wanted me to go through every page.
When people at the state prison, which is in my town of residence, are released they are given a set of clothes and a bus ticket back to the major city. Some of them are nice to talk to - polite, and very happy to be outside again. I can only think of once while riding the bus that there was a guy I was concerned about. The “normal” clientele tend to be far worse behaved than the folks just getting out of the system
I've taken the Go bus from Toronto to Barrie, I think the transfer stop was in Bradford.
From the Barrie bus stop you need to get on Ontario Northland to go further, but that is a regional bus and is significantly costlier. I paid over $90 each for the regional bus to Toronto - compared to some of the pre-pandemic flight deals: Abbostford BC to Hamilton ON for $17! Greyhound is no longer in Canada - you used to be able to cross the country using Greyhound. The Bolt Bus and others can be good options, I've gone overnight from Toronto to New York. I've also taken these buses in Europe, and yes you do transfer in Lille.
Our hack was to take the CasinoRama bus from Toronto to Rama for $5, or on the first trip it was free and they gave us play money to spend at the casino.
Say that’s interesting as there (pre-pandemic) was a Bolt bus from Seattle to Vancouver- so I’m hearing you could theoretically get from Seattle to NYC via Canada… seems logical now that I type it, but guess I’d never really thought about it. Would be more that 24 hours I assume, but maybe not
Except for that supercheap Abbotsford to Hamilton flight, it was almost always cheaper to take the bolt (or amtrak) bus from Vancouver to Seattle (or Bellingham), and fly quickly and cheaply to Newark, or other airport hubs in the US.
I think you’re right, the current record for fastest coast-to-coast drive (NYC->LA) is around 27 hours. [1] And that’s going well above the speed limit the whole time without stopping!
The SF Bay Area allows this possiblity, though it would be most feasible by including local rail; a walk-on north-south trip between Santa Rosa and Monterey could be done by going SMART->ferry->BART->Caltrain->Hwy 17 Express->SC Metro bus. If you were very patient there are bus routes that would cover the SF-Peninsula leg.
I would have to check to see if Sacramento is possible without resorting to rail or coach.
Edit: actually, going to Big Sur looks to be possible with the MSC bus system. It's been a while since I rode in that region and Monterey isn't part of the SC Metro system anymore. From Big Sur I could imagine it's possible to get even further down the coast.
Note: the UK has long-distance bus services which could get you a lot further. The challenge here was to use only local bus services (defined as those on which people over 65 get to travel for free).
The National Express! I was too poor to afford the train so would use the busses. Often the bus was faster than the trains for London - Edinburgh, usually for weather related outages. The train is way nicer.
>Megaloping has only three simple rules. One: All vehicles used must be operated by a public transit company. Two: Using regional or long-distance transit systems is forbidden. Three: No megaloper can walk more than two miles.
In Russia it was at some point possible to go from St. Petersburg (Atlantic coast) to Vladivostok (Pacific coast) using only regional trains ('electrichkas'). With some skill, paying for the ride could be avoided entirely, but it would take ~28 days.
Whereas a proper sleeper train does that in "just" 7 days.
That’s impressive. AFAIK in the US, the only two major cities you can get between on regional trains (i.e., without using the national train operator Amtrak) is New York and Philadelphia (New Jersey Transit from NY to Trenton, then SEPTA from Trenton to Philly).
NYC and Philly are so close that they could almost be considered the same metropolitan area, so it’s not very impressive!
Edit: also Baltimore and Washington, but those are even closer.
You're somewhat close to being able to do it between Boston and New York (and then all the way to Philly); there's just the gap between Wickford Junction and New London.
(MBTA's Providence line, gap, CTRail's Shore Line East, Metro-North’s New Haven Line)
SEPTA will take you as far south as Wilmington DE, and then Maryland’s MARC train goes as far north as Port Deposit, but that’s the gap that breaks up NY to DC.
Neat! I wouldn’t have expected this to be possible anywhere in the Southwest. There’s no connection — not even Amtrak, between Phoenix (where I’m from) and Tucson. I didn’t even know San Diego had regional trains.
You could extend the distance, but it wouldn’t get you to another major city.
I guess if you were touring Ivy League schools, you could see Yale, Columbia, Princeton, and Penn with only commuter rail networks (if you allowed yourself small local connections).
Really interesting. As someone from the USA, I didn't realize that this was only local buses not cross-country and was surprised he only got 339km in 24 hours. Reading the comments here it now makes sense. I don't know if you could replicate the journey in the USA with those rules
As discussed elsewhere in this submission, if you want real mileage by road then it’s by coach you have to go.
I used to be scared of flying (technically still am but I’ve since learned to manage that fear) so over the years I’ve travelled great distances by road and rail. I’ve used coaches a lot to travel the U.K. and Europe. 12 hours has taken me from London to Amsterdam. I’d wager another 12 hours would get you as far as Eastern European, possibly even Russia.
But such a journey would have to be pre-booked coaches. You couldn’t get there on buses.
In Europe, trains are far more comfortable, usually faster, and with better networks in most places. They are more expensive, but if you are in your early 20s (up to 25 or 27) the Interrail ticket is an all-summer (or several weeks, as you chose) pass to travel as much as you want, over most of Europe.
"Better" network is an interesting choice of words if you're listing it as a separate quality from speed. Better in what way? I doubt anywhere in Europe has a train network with denser routing or more stops than the bus system.
There are many, many cities and villages that are only accessible by regional buses. I doubt the residents would consider the train networks to be "better".
...and my perspective may be both local and outdated. Intercity coaches were actually illegal here in Germany until 5 years ago or so, intended to protect the train services (and, I guess, roads and the environment).
Interesting that the Prague journey is 7 hours less than Berlin which is closer. Is this just because the number of stops is greater on the Berlin route or something else?
It could be that Berlin is the "end" of a trip around Germany, but Prague is the beginning of a trip to Czechia/Slovakia/Hungary/wherever-it-ends-up.
I had a friend who took the bus from London to Poland after each term at university. It was about 20 hours to the first stop in Poland, then another 12 or so going around Poland until it got to his city. (This was decades ago.)
Possibly, though the location of the stops might matter more (ie the Berlin route might be a greater mileage but less direct). The change over likely doesn’t help either.
Technically you could probably get to Vienna, Austria in less than 24 hours by bus, and still have time to visit a Wiener Würstelstand and the opera, if your timing and access to a shower is good. London -> Paris: 2hrs 25 min, Paris-> Vienna: 17 hr 53 min.
I was puzzled by the fact that this person seems to have remained in England and didn't even make it to Scotland. I guess they were taking only public transport service busses and not express long distance busses. Seems a bit arbitrary to me.
I remember way back when the Megabus from Edinburgh to London was the same type of bus as the one I used to go to school on :) And it cost 1 quid (plus 50p booking iirc).
I took that coach often and when I finally started making money I decided to splurge on the sleeper train and in time upgraded to a cabin. what luxury compared to megabus!
I think the confusion arises because in the US we call anything that is a bus that takes you somewhere else “traveling by bus” which apparently long haul trips are called traveling by coach in the UK.
So as an American my first thought was “heck I could probably get to LA from Kansas on a 24 hour bus trip” and to see this person traveled only a few hundred KM was confusing until that was clarified for me.
I thought maybe they were gonna end up in Russia or something crazy because I have no sense of how big Europe is.
Europe includes a lot more water than the USA (North Sea, Baltic Sea, half the Mediterranean Sea), which is obviously a barrier to a land journey, and makes a direct comparison difficult.
But otherwise, something like Lisbon to Moscow is very similar to the distance of LA to NYC.
Google's driving directions for these are 45 and 41 hours, respectively.
It takes about 2hrs to drive to the tunnel from London. The high speed train does London to Paris in 2hr25. I’m guessing it takes about 7hrs by express coach.
“How far can I go on just local trains” is a fun game to play here in Japan. I’m not sure my body could handle the bus version here, unless the roads of England are very straight and smooth!
I did this by accident from Tokyo to Kyoto. My idea was that I didn't want to take a bullet train to Kyoto and what I wanted was a slower train with a restaurant and a bar car. So without speaking Japanese I tried to buy that ticket, and the train office were slightly surprised then they did the ticket processing to make it happen. Turns out what I got was a local train all the way to kyoto. It fucking sucked. It was like riding a subway train for 11 hours. There was no restroom ,it was cold, the seats were uncomfortable and there was no food. When I think back on it, I don't know why I just did't quit. For food at a station I ran to get a bento within five minutes. At another station I raced to use the toilet. My eventual destination was Suntory distillery in Yamazaki and I got to drink 25 year old whisky so eventually it got better, but if you made it this far, yeah I had a good idea, that turned out to be stupid and I stuck with it because I don't know why.
Just wanted to say that trains without restrooms are the work of the devil. Actually access to restrooms is one of the major things which makes me prefer trains over buses, that and being able to read on a train because on a bus I get car-sickness pretty quickly if I try do to that.
One of my most exciting bus journey was on a very straight and smooth road which the driver did probably above 80/100 Km/h regardless of the speed bumps we encountered along the way. My ass got some air that day (in the skateboard sense).
> unless the roads of England are very straight and smooth
Hahahahaha nope.
(English country lanes are great for cycling. They are not ideal for buses. I write as someone who has spent too much time on the very winding S3 Charlbury-Woodstock service in Oxfordshire.)
It was pretty easy to travel from Moscow to St.Petersburg only using local trains („elektrichka“), but I also heard stories about traveling entire Transsiberian route this way in 1990s. As of 2017 this seemed already impossible, but still quite close with only few gaps, as can be seen in this story where it took author only 24 days and just 400€: https://www.yaplakal.com/forum2/topic2130672.html
> I’m not sure my body could handle the bus version here
Why is that, hairpins up mountains or abrupt driving or so?
I hate buses for long distance (1h+) as well for what it's worth, would much rather catch a train even though the Netherlands has some very straight and smooth asphalt, but technically my body could handle it!
From my experience with the Shishun 18 Ticket one could easily get from Fukuoka to Tokyo and even further in around 12 hours or so. It's awful after couple of hours when you hit those smaller trains with benches that have not been replaced in decades but definitely doable haha
Purely for the appropriateness of the lyric I give you Paul Kelly: "from St Kilda to Kings Cross is 13 hours on a bus" the kings Cross in question being in Sydney, not London.
I've done the London - Edinburgh night bus. and, the Melbourne - Sydney night bus. They both kinda suck. The Edinburgh London pulled in at the Victoria station coach terminal, not kings Cross station unfortunately
You should be able to get north of Aberdeen in the time limit on a regional.
For non-UK readers, the significance of this restriction is that a person who are over 65 years of age would have been able to make the entire journey free of charge.
> he managed to pre-book his return trip train for £40.90
Those discounted fares are often tied to a specific train (i.e. a particular departure time on a given date). Kudos to the author for their faith in the ability to execute on the bus journey and get to the train in time for departure.
If you check out the end of the thread you can see that they stayed overnight in a hotel in Morecambe and took the train back the next morning. There wouldn't be a train to catch at gone midnight when they arrived in Morecambe (the last sensible train option to London leaves at about 20:00 and takes three hours).
I wonder if they had a plan B for accommodation if they'd missed that last bus to Morecambe, though...
Despite them not intentionally misleading I was excited to read about someone’s trip to Italy on a bus or something. I rarely travel in the US because every place is kind of the same. Why travel 400 miles when I can get some McDonald’s right here?
Where have you been that you consider every place the same? The pit stops on the highway yes, but the difference between San Juan, NYC, Idaho, and Fairbanks is immense.
