Travel by Bus
Bus travel lines vary considerably from one country to the next, in some parts of the world, such as South America it is by far the best way to get around, with the odd exception. In terms of America bus travel is possibly the most famous way of getting around overland due to the success of the Greyhound bus company. In Europe it is usually the most economical form of transport as you can see from some of the advertising on the right hand side of this page!
Most bus routes in the world are covered by small local operators so it's often difficult to find the information you want on the internet but that's part of the fun of slow travel. This is particularly true for the developing world which was a key reason behind us developing the plan a journey search engine for this travel website so that users could share firsthand slow travel experiences on routes that are not covered by mainstream websites.
For the developed world it's a little easier to categorise key bus operators who cover the majority of the major bus routes. As a starting point we have provided a list of bus travel websites where tickets can be booked online for specific regions of the world;
Europe
Europe is still well served by local bus operators, the following companies have the largest multi-country networks;- Eurolines - They provide an unlimited bus travel pass (15 & 30 days) that can be used between 41 European cities, countries covered include; UK, Ireland, Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands among others.
- Busabout Europe - They have a bus travel line network that covers 33 destinations in 9 countries across Europe. They specialise in hop-on hop-off tickets for backpackers and independent travellers. They also have connections to North Africa.
- National Express - The largest UK bus travel line operator, covering England, Scotland and Wales with over 1,000 destinations.
North America
- Greyhound - Probably the most famous bus company in the world! Serving more than 2,300 destinations with 13,000 daily departures across North America. They also provide links to the Canadian and Mexican Greyhound bus websites.
- Coach USA - A good alternative to Greyhound, Coach USA offers city sightseeing and bus tour opportunities to customers in the Midwest and Northeast United States.
South America
- Ormeno are Peruvian bus line who offer regular basis routes across most of South America. Unfortunately their page is only in Spanish for those English speakers among us. Thanks must go to Raul Daza for telling us about this great site.
Australia
- Greyhound Australia - Australia's only national bus service, providing services to all corners of Australia, travelling to over 1100 destinations daily. They offer some useful long distance multi-use passes.
New Zealand
- Intercity - New Zealand's largest bus travel line under the country's premier bus networks of Intercity Coachlines and Newmans Coach Lines. They connect to more than 600 destinations across New Zealand, with over 150 services every day.
There are dozens of other bus travel websites available but we are uncertain as to how reliable these companies are, so we are reluctant to list any further travel websites preferring that our users look at the plan a journey section of our site to get firsthand reviews and recommendations from other users. If you can't find what you are looking for on our website a number of additional bus companies are listed on the Eyeflare & BUG websites.
