Greyhound Coaches vs National Express

Hi there,

I left the UK for "real" Europe 15 years ago. I still have some anglophone friends in Europe and quite a few american colleagues, but none of them have been able to answer this question well, so here it goes... How comparable is US Greyhound Coaches to UK National Express? I found them worlds apart...

I've never been to the US - until last year. I had repeating business trips to the US which often brought me to Ohio for stays of 2 weeks at a time. I don't drive (gasp!) and have managed perfectly fine with public transport until I arrived in the US and got well - caught out...

On one trip I decided to the stay into a weekend and do something which I've done in Europe dozens of times over and over again - travel overnight by coach/train to another city, save the extra night's hotel and airport stress and get the most hours out of my city day visit/weekend visit... I've done it with National Express, Eurolines and Interrailing and its always very safe and normal non-deadbeat people use the service every day...

So I made the arrangements - work colleagues drove me tö Detroit Greyhound station, and I was supposed to get the overnight coach to NYC arriving early morning. Clearly I was deluded - because romantic hippie images of travelling the US on a shoestring by Greyhound it certainly wasn't...

I took one look at the Greyhound "check-in" hall and literally turned on my heels - I didn't feel safe there at all and I'd only just walked in the place. Imagine UK chavs, scum and general deadbeats all rounded up in one place - but worse - with guns!

I thought there's no way I'm travelling on a coach. I thought to myelf, I just have to open my mouth once and everyone knows I have a weird accent from Europe. Cut to me several hours later with a gunshot to the head, pockets emptied of wallet etc... in a coach rest stop half way along the greyhound route to NYC.

So I reconsidered, jumped back in my colleagues car and drove to Detroit airport, and took a rickety old about-to-fall-apart-any-minute airplane to NYC.

Don't even US students dare to take the greyhound anymore? Or was that just bad luck in Detroit?  I'd been expecting something like National Express, not Death Row Express...

As soon as I reached NYC with its subway system, and its Chelsea district things got better. I did check out the Greyhound Station there and it did seem safer, so maybe it was just bad luck in Detroit.

Anyway, US expats, is Greyhound really that bad?

The stations are usually scary, but the buses tend to be safe or no one would take them.

I sat next to a heroin addict who kept getting up to shoot up on a night bus from Glasgow to London.  It is the sort of thing that can happen on a bus.

I think that you have to take into account exactly where in the US you were as well. My sister and I regularly took buses from San Diego to Santa Barbara or LA.  But, that was San Diego, Santa Barbara, and LA...not Detroit.  Plenty of my friends took them while we were in university as well, but that was on the East Coast, so...., yes, I think you may have had a very regional experience in terms of the station.

Yeah, Greyhound isn't nice... IMO, nothing like National Express. The stations are usually in the bad sections of town (cheap rent)...I took Greyhound (not my choice) from CA to Alabama & return (I had an ex that was afraid of flying amongst other things that was weird about him) so, yeah, not a pleasent experience in any of it.

I always go Amtrak if I can.  It's not just because buses can be seedier, I like reading (which I can't do on a coach), and the pricing is about the same.  It doesn't go everywhere though, and you can get delayed significantly if you have to wait a long time for freight to pass.  But part of the romance of riding the bus in the US is the danger and seediness.  I never really encountered the bums with guns that you did, but yeah, it's not always nice.  If you think that's bad, you should see how my dad used to cross the US.  He did the freight train thing back in the day, and it was dangerous.  But romantic enough to helps spawn an entire school of literature in the US.

That said, I only had a car for part of my adult life.  Granted, some of that was in NYC, but most of it was in cities that didn't have as good of public transport and in the country.  It can be done, but it is totally not easy.  The US (and Canada to an extent) are much more car-centred, but part of that is definitely because things are further apart.

That said, if a city has public transport, it seems to be better than what I've encountered in London, at least on an inner-city level.  The continent is much better in that regard, at least in my experience, miles better than the UK and better than America as well.

How comparable is US Greyhound Coaches to UK National Express? I found them worlds apart...

They're not comparable. 

Remember that the distances between major cities is a lot longer in the US than in Europe, so public transport is necessarily less effective.  But I think you saw the worst of it in Detroit.  The airport there isn't fantastic either, and the city itself has a reputation for drugs and poverty.  

That said, I avoid Greyhound at all costs.  It's slow, uncomfortable, dirty, smelly, and inconvenient.  The train is far better.  I'd probably choose the train over the coach in Europe too, though I have had reasonably good luck with National Express between Bournemouth and London.  

Greyhound runs Bolt buses, which have Wi-Fi and plugs and all that, but it is an East Coast thing. 

It is a lot easier to have nice buses if you know they are going to last longer because they are doing less miles.   

My brother took a Greyhound from New York to Los Angeles back in August and he said it was the worst 3 days of his entire life and that he would never go on a Greyhound ever again!

He didn't eat anything for 2 days (that one was his own fault though), there were no electrical outlets, no WiFi, his knees were wedged against the seat in front of him for 2 days straight and there were some odd people on the buses!

I've taken the Amtrak from LA to New York though and that was a nice, comfortable journey - large seats that recline right back with foot and leg rests, TV carriage, toilets, dining car, sleeper cars and a snack bar as well. I recommended to my brother that he might like to take the train instead as it was a similar price, but he insisted on the Greyhound... and totally regretted it afterwards!

Thanks for the comments.  Its funny, but everytime I see that tv show "Hung" (amonst other things) I think, well that's not the Detroit I experienced. :-(

Will definately take the Amtrak next time - sounds just like the overnight train from Milan to Cologne or Paris to Madid :-)

Yeah I would say it depends on the location.  The DC-NYC route is pretty decent for buses.  There's a lot of competition (Bolt as mentioned above, as well as several others) and it's a route which is a decent one for driving.  (ie, the cities are close enough that getting to an airport, going through security, flying, disembarking and getting back into the city again actually adds up to about the same amount of time it takes to grab the bus and get from downtown to downtown)

Something long haul, like Detroit to NYC, I'd expect to fly.  I think most people I know would.  So I'm not sure what group of people are left over, taking the bus, but in my mind they're along the lines of the shrieking people you see on that TV show based on SouthWest airlines.   

I did live near the Greyhound station in DC for a while, and (in the early 90's at least) it was pretty similar to your description of the Detroit station.

I've taken both Greyhound and the train from Cleveland, Ohio to NYC.

The stations are scary, and a bit unnerving. I just made sure to stand near the ticket window in Cleveland until they started to call for my bus. It seems a lot of non-passengers hang out in the stations. I've only taken it overnight, and would do so again if I found myself in that situation in the US.

I would not, however, take the train again unless things dramatically improved. From Cleveland, Ohio to NYC - a drive of about 7ish hours - the train took 12. That's because they don't go in the straight line across the country from Cleveland to NYC, they go along Lake Erie and up into update New York before heading down towards the city. And the conductor got on the announcement loudspeaker at daybreak to yell GOOD MORNING! Breakfast is being served.....". I never did get back to sleep - and I boarded the train at 3something in the morning. Longest train trip of my life, and I've done quite a few overnighters on the continent.

I took the Greyhound from Gainesville (a smallish town in north-central Florida) to Miami, Florida and it was definitely my worst "bus" experience ever. Ugh! I was stuck sat next to what appeared to be...maybe a bum, and he smelled terrible and was obese - overflowing into my seat.

:-( The bus journey took over 10 hours (takes about 5 and a half to drive normally) and was just plain miserable. The bus stations where we stopped occasionally (and I would get off to go to the bathroom) were scary, dirty and frequented by really questionable looking people.

I had to take the bus as my grandfather had just passed away and I had to get down to Miami quickly but didn't have the money for a flight. I would never recommend it to anyone if they could avoid it.

I do have to say though that I never really felt in any danger, it was just unpleasant.

Well, I've been on Greyhound bus rides from Dallas to Los Angeles and DC to NYC and back.

Honestly, the trips were absolutely fine. Bus rides or transport in general are never cozy, but it was definitely quiet and not too bumpy. The stations were fine, nothing dodgy. Maybe, I've had good luck with Greyhound

The stations are scary, and a bit unnerving. I just made sure to stand near the ticket window in Cleveland until they started to call for my bus.

When I was a young teenager (back in the olden days  ) my cousin and I would ride Greyhound to visit each other, a 2 hour trip.  Our mothers always said the same thing, "SIT BEHIND THE BUS DRIVER!!"  I guess that was the safest seat.