Express coach travel

givememoney

Has anyone travelled overnight by express coach to 🇮🇹 Italy?

How did you find it, would you do it again?

Brambling

I did this about 25 years ago and swore never again, in fact i think the words I used were I can afford to fly why am i torturing myself.  To clarify it was a one week holiday to Tuscany and did take hours to leave the UK! we did notice that most of us regardless of age or size had swollen feet and ankles by the time we reached the ferry on the return trip.  I loved Italy but not the trip for just 4 nights there.  We didn't stop on the way down other than to visit services which were probably every 3 or 4 hours so a case of being woken up and having no idea what country you were in, there was a loo on the coach but they didn't really want you to use it! 

A lot could have changed since then and I did do trips afterwards in Europe which were not overnights and they were easy to deal with

Savvy_Sue

I've recently read a review of the Cambridge to Amsterdam coach service: https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/trips-and-breaks/i-took-28-bus-amsterdam-27777910  I only read the review as I have relatives in both cities ... 

I know it's not the same but it may help you make your mind up ... depending on who your coach operator is! 

I'm in the 'Never again' camp, and that's just from Durham to London as a student, many moons ago. I sent DH on a coach for 3 hours during one of the recent rail strikes, and he'd join me in that camp - and that was with a spare seat next to him. 

Maybe, if I didn't have to do anything on arrival or return for at least 24 hours, and I really couldn't afford any other way. 

Rosa_Damascena

I've been on an 18hr bus ride (this was in my twenties) and wouldn't do it again back then. These days I am wedded to a level of comfort so if I can't afford that I wouldn't go, simple as.

givememoney

We use Shearings for coach travel and the coaches are comfortable and air conditioned.
Earlier this year we went with them to Holland near Amsterdam this was a day drive. We didn't mind it. We didn't travel overnight though so wondered how that worked out. 

twopenny

Have you been on long distance coach travel before?

It might be worth trying a long one in the UK to see what you think before you commit what would be a lovely holiday to a journey like that.

Mr.Generous

Did a coach holiday when I was 18 - to Lido Di Jesilo, Italy.

Never again. I'd rather walk.

Yawn

I did as a teenage and would never again. Worth looking at trains maybe, if you're concerned about flying?

hugheskevi

Having spent many, many, hours traveling by bus recently across Central and South America on coaches that are usually nicer then European vehicles, I would say that anything more than 6 hours on a coach is tiresome, and 12 hours the absolute limit.

When traveling overnight, the sleep isn't great but okay, the main thing is the arrival time - you will be fully awake not long after dawn, and if you still have hours of the journey left they go very slowly.

Internet roaming and downloaded TV/movies are helpful, along with packed food, but even so, I try to avoid anything more than about 7 hours unless there is no alternative.

For Europe, it wouldn't even cross my mind to take a coach further than Paris.

FlyingDolphin

Back in the 1980s I used to travel on the overnight coach from London to Paris (and back), when it was significantly cheaper than flying (£10 on the bus one way vs £60-plus-transfers on the plane). I figure with transfer times factored in, it wasn't THAT much slower because I lived in Lewisham and getting there from Heathrow was a pain. However, it was almost always out of season, and I was slim enough, and flexible enough, to sleep on the floor in front of the back row of seats, and of course it was broken up by the ferry journey.

I think it would be torture to do more than 8 hours sitting upright in a coach.

I am aware that Japan and California (SF to LA) now have overnight 'sleeping buses' with lay-flat beds and curtains. My kinda travel, so long as there aren't bedbugs.