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The European Travel Planning Tutorial
These coaches are up-to-date and clean featuring video monitors, comfortable reclining seats and restrooms. They are designed for long-distance touring. They are not the school or city buses you might be familiar with. Eurolines is the largest group in Europe offering scheduled services, a consortium of 35 coach operators working together in 27 countries from the Atlantic coast of Ireland to Bulgaria and from Norway to Southern Spain… Bus travel is available in all European countries, it’s popular…and in some countries like Switzerland you may have to take a bus to get to your final destination.
In these cases bus travel may be exactly what you want…
You can travel by bus in every European country… let's talk about the major operators
It provides regular one-way tickets for trips throughout Europe in addition to 15- and 30-day passes for unlimited travel. It also offers big savings on all types of accommodations including hostels. Eurolines provides many direct services in Europe with no need to change. Other bus services from this company use “interchange hubs” in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels and a few others. The Eurolines’ partner in Great Britain operates scheduled services to over 1000 destinations in England, Scotland and Wales. Remember that in both Ireland and Great Britain bus travel is popular with foreign travelers. Why…it’s the driving on the left and all those funny little “round-abouts” you may have heard about. Megabus operates a much smaller and even less expensive bus service in Great Britain. The yellow buses you can see all over Switzerland are used for transportation and for sightseeing. The spectacular Four-Pass Alpine Tour is a scenic bus trip from Meiringen over the Grimsel Pass, the Nufenen Pass, the Gotthard Pass and the Susten Pass…all in one day… Let somebody else do the driving through the mountains…so you can relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery… Since Switzerland has lots of mountains there are several smaller towns and villages that you can only reach by bus. Saas Fee, where I spent one winter working in a hotel close to Zermatt, is just such a ski resort… Note: All Swiss Postal buses are included in the Swiss Rail passes. Germany’s partner in the Eurolines group offers day and multi-day tours on the famous Romantic Road between Frankfurt and Munich from spring to fall. The hosted multi-day tours are very scenic. They eliminate you having to drive for a couple of days. If you plan to pick up a car in Frankfurt and drive the Romantic Road yourself, better take a 2, 3 or 4-day trip and pick the car up in Munich. It's a lot more relaxing. This European country has no trains at all…transportation is by air, car and bus. Iceland offers many discount passes…the Iceland Circle Pass as well as passes for specific periods…1, 2, 3 or 4 weeks. If you don’t want to drive in Iceland…but want to see more of the country than just Reykjavik, you probably should book an escorted tour, take a public bus or use a combined air-bus pass… one way by bus and the other way by domestic air. If you’re a young person or backpacker looking for a good time and a chance to meet like-minded travelers, you’ve probably heard about Busabout. It’s a flexible “hop on hop off” bus line that offers “loops” of major European cities. You purchase a pass and you’re bused from one city to the next – usually about 12 cites for each of the three different loops. It’s a great vacation for many, however, if you’re an independent traveler and want to go from Point A to Point B you should avoid Busabout. If such is the case you need to take the national bus lines or Eurolines. So…what is the best and simplest way for you to book bus travel in Europe?
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