Slow Travel By Bus from Bus Trips To Coach Holidays + Packing Tips

Buses must be the most unglamorous and unromantic form of travel, but they can be super handy, are increasingly comfy, are very affordable. And there’s nothing like gazing out the window all day as fascinating landscapes rolls by, settling in with a good book or music when they aren’t, and engaging with your fellow passengers. Here’s our guide to slow travel by bus plus packing tips.

We’ve travelled on a lot more buses than we normally do over the last year – mainly for the convenience, sometimes because there were no other options. Those journeys have got me thinking about slow travel by bus, everything from the bus trips that get travellers from A to B to multi-country coach holidays of the kind my mum used to love to take in Europe.

If Terence and I aren’t road-tripping, trains will usually be our first choice when it comes to transport – it’s really the best form of transport for slow travel. But after years of taking trains in Europe and loving them, a frustrating time on the tracks a few summers ago, marked by constant strikes, cancellations and overcrowding, put me off train travel.

You expect no-shows and booked seats to be taken in developing countries, but you’re often paying very little for the fares so are more forgiving. When you’re paying a small fortune, you have the right to get riled when the air-conditioning doesn’t work and you have to sit on your luggage. When you’re 20, it’s an adventure, when you’re older… well, it’s just not.

Here’s why slow travel by bus is increasingly appealing, with tips if you’re considering bus trips or coach holidays.

Slow Travel By Bus – From Long Distance Bus Trips To Coach Holidays + Packing Tips

Don’t get me wrong, there are many more great train journeys I’m still dreaming of doing. The Trans Siberian/Mongolian tops the list. I’d do any of Australia’s transcontinental train journeys, from The Ghan to The Indian Pacific in a heartbeat. And we loved the luxurious Eastern & Oriental on their Epic Thailand trip, even though organised travel travel was never really our thing.

That had something to do with the luxurious private cabin with butler, welcome glasses of bubbly, interesting whistle-stop tours, gorgeous Thai countryside, and sunset gin and tonics in the observation car, and twice-daily gourmet meals.

But unfortunately that brief renewal of affection for train travel was curtailed a couple of months later after two appalling overnight trips between Hanoi and the hill-town of Sapa that involved the possibility of sharing sleeper cabins with strangers (again, getting too old for that sort of thing), horrible food, hard beds, and horrendously dirty toilets.

My romanticisation of Vietnam’s Reunification Express (not one train, but an epic route of daily trains that run between Hanoi and Saigon) was quickly proven to be just that when we boarded at Danang for the never-ending trip to Nha Trang to find the carriage stinking of vomit, the floor and seats littered with rubbish, and the bathroom even more putrid than that on the Sapa train.

We were relieved to find the just-abandoned seats and table that were covered in puke and food were not our seats, but unfortunately we were sitting right behind, close enough to still be able to smell the stench.

If it hadn’t been for the pushiness of the family allocated those last four seats, the conductors would have been very happy to leave the mess as it was for the rest of the days-long journey. Other fellow-passengers, passed out or wearing face masks, didn’t seem fussed.

Determined to continue by land, we decided to try buses for the remaining legs of our Vietnam travels and were relieved to find coaches were not only more convenient – the buses collected us from our hotels (yes!!) and staff swiftly took our luggage and secured it underneath.

There was no need to drag bags across train tracks and haul them up onto the train then luggage racks, risking injury to the Vietnamese passengers who often insisted on helping us – there’s always one amongst a crowd, thankfully.

Buses in Vietnam are also more affordable, the seats are usually more comfortable with pretty good legroom. While we didn’t enjoy the ‘luxury’ lie-down bus that one of our hotels booked for us – we have no interest in sleeping all day when there’s lush scenery to take in and books to read, but our Vietnamese companions seemed to love it – the seated buses were just fine.

The sweet-natured hostesses handed out bottles of water and snacks, continually collected rubbish, and occasionally delivered amusing tourist guide-like commentary. On the bus trip between Saigon and Phnom Penh we were given lunch boxes and the hostess distributed immigration and customs forms, collected our visa fees and passports, and took care of border formalities. Bliss!

After years of being fans of trains, associating buses with the sort of long distance travel we did as young backpackers in Latin America (i.e. cheap), I’m suddenly finding buses more appealing. Getting old? Getting lazy? Or just getting more picky?

Luxury trains aside, has bus travel improved so much that it’s now better than train travel? Or is it just the case in Southeast Asia? And Latin America. Because even 20 years ago the buses were brilliant in countries like Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, with clean toilets, meal boxes, and kitchenettes with soft-drinks and coffee machines.

What does this mean for overland travel for us in the future? If we don’t want to fly, and, for whatever reason, we don’t want to drive, will I start to consider buses? And what about holidays when these two travel writers eventually retire?

We’re not fans of organised tours at this stage in our lives, so a bus tour is not an option. But what about later on in our lives, I’m starting to wonder. I travel very differently now to how I travelled in my 20s. How will I travel in my 70s? Will we always self-drive when we really want to see a country? Or might we consider a bus…?

After my dad died, I took my mother to Europe for a two-month summer holiday so that we could grieve and heal together. When I returned to work in Dubai, mum stayed on and did some coach holidays in the United Kingdom, Scandinavia, and a multi-country trip around Europe.

At the time I questioned mum’s choice, as she and dad had always travelled independently. They took my sister and I on a five-year road trip around Australia in a caravan and 4WD. I have to confess that I felt secure that someone was looking after mum. To my surprise, mum absolutely loved it, seeing iconic sights she’d long dreamed of visiting, and making loads of new friends in the process.

Mum loved it so much, when she returned to stay with us in Dubai she said she could easily go straight back and do it all over again. She wasn’t tired, she wasn’t stressed; it was all too easy, she said. Could coach holidays be in my distant future? I’m not so sure. Ask me in 20 years. Though after our recent train travels, slow travel by bus is certainly sounding more appealing than trains.

Tips for Long Distance Bus Trips to Coach Holidays – Packing Tips + Other Essentials

• Travel light – only take as many bags as you can carry; one bag to go under the bus, and another to fit under the seat in front of you or the luggage rack above, although best to keep valuables in a bag at your feet.
• Pack essentials only – these days you can buy anything anywhere, so don’t worry about toiletries and clothes lines (remember those days?!). Instead make sure to pack chargers and have power banks. Two things I find essential for long bus trips in developing countries: a portable water filter and one of these headlamps (I’ve travelled with one since my laptop went missing on a night bus in Bolivia! It slid along the floor all the way to the back of the bus!).
• Lock and label baggage – although some do, not all bus companies use the sort of sophisticated baggage tagging that airlines do, so make sure to clearly label and lock your bags, and pack an Apple Air Tag or a similar tracking device.
• Buy travel insurance – after you’ve booked your tickets, buy travel insurance. We recommend Safety Wing Insurance as it covers travel delays, lost checked luggage, emergencies, natural disasters, and personal liability.
  Book accommodation in advance – if you’re not on an organised coach tour with lodgings included, book accommodation in advance, not on the bus, as we’ve been known to do, which can be stressful if you lose your internet connection mid-booking!
  Book transfers in advance – some bus companies in Southeast Asia will actually pick you up from your hotel to take you to the bus station. Accept if your bus is departing during peak hour, as you can then be assured the bus will wait for you. If you prefer to make your own way, book a transfer in advance, instead of calling a taxi at the last minute.
  Buy an eSim – many long distance buses offer WiFi these days, but in case they don’t, buy an eSim and forget international roaming and the exorbitant costs you can rack up if you don’t get the right plan. See our guide to eSIMs if you’re not sure what an eSIM is.
  Take a book – don’t rely on your devices (which you might not want to flash around if you’re travelling in a developing country), and instead do your eyes a favour and take a good old-fashioned book to read.