By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Travel Blogger
Tired of crowded planes, fed up with long TSA lines and the other unpleasant factors about air travel?
There is an alternative for short trips, and it’s not Amtrak. It’s FlixBus.
FlixBus is big in Europe and is just getting its feet on the ground in the U.S. While it’s been around for a few years, it just bought Greyhound and operates buses that, well, go to where Greyhound went, tho in a more comfortable way with modern coaches as opposed to what comes to one’s mined when you think of Greyhound. It also offers something no airplane does: dropoffs in the middle of cities, at college campuses and in isolated towns.
It’s a budget way to travel and a lot of its passengers are students and low-spending people without cars.
So is FlixBus worth it as an alternative way to travel? I will answer that question for you here as I have taken FlixBus a few times.
Flix Bus Expectations
The biggest thing with riding FlixBus is to manage your expectations. Therefore, when things go sideways, as they often do with FlixBus, you won’t be caught off guard. With that in mind, it’s important to know this is a budget travel outfit. (Tho not as budget as it used to be so keep reading.) There’s no first class seating, no early-boarding privileges, has a third-world country check-in situation, no friendly operator waiting on the other end of an 800 number to call, the buses are not there waiting for you like an airplane, the stops are mostly on streets without facilities and while comfortable it’s certainly not a luxury method of travel. If this doesn’t meet your standards for travel, then FlixBus is not for you.
The Flix Bus Experience – The Boarding Process Is Chaotic
Here’s what you need to know about FlixBus and having this information in advance will save – tho not eliminate – some of the headaches that come with traveling on FlixBus.
For starters, FlixBus is notoriously late. I’ve taken it half a dozen times and it’s been an hour to two hours late each time. Once, shortly after we got moving, the bus broke down and it took another two-plus hours for a replacement to arrive (the bus driver felt helpless as she had no information to give us, nobody could reach FlexBus to get any kind of update and for a long time did not even know if another bus was coming. We were left to fend for ourselves. Some people got in Ubers and took another method of transportation to get to their destination. This was a rare occurance but it does happen).
This, plus other issues, can lead to a lot of aggravation.
“Flixbus cancelled my 4 hour ride to Chicago the evening before departure and put me on an inconveniently scheduled 6 hour Greyhound instead,” a frustrated rider posted on Reddit. “has this happened to you? Is the Amtrak a safer choice to avoid crap like this?”
On my latest trip I was expecting things to be running late because rain had hit Southern California that morning, and that proved to be the case. Fine, even airlines have delays. The problem with FlixBus is that it picks up on a street corner with no signage and, as I and other passengers learned, they have buses going all over the place. Even to Mexico! There’s no signs on them telling you their destination and the buses are all different colors and styles so you have to inquire about its destination every time one arrives. As a result, the driver is swarmed with people holding out their phones with their QR code reservation. How they don’t lose their minds, I don’t know.
Imagine being at an airport being told to go to a gate and having half a dozen planes show up there. It’s chaos and it happens all the time.
I always tip the driver because he or she deserves it for this alone.
One good thing I had not experienced before was that an employee was on the scene to try and sort out things. Every time a bus came up, he would say “that’s not your bus” to people who would suddenly crowd around the driver. Without him, I can’t imagine how out of control the situation would have been there. Actually, I can but, would rather not. In order to ride FlixBus you have to have patience and be able to mentally handle these challenges.
FlixBus has its feet on the ground in the U.S., all right, but can’t get a firm grip on how to efficiently operate its business.
Riding The FlixBus
Once it finally gets rolling, traveling on FlixBus is nice. The buses are clean, the seats are comfortable, there’s good WiFi, a bathroom and the other passengers pretty much keep to themselves. You can relax, you can work and you can sleep. Most of the buses make one or two stops on the way out of, and on the way into, a city. But when it’s rolling along the highway it’s doing so at highway speeds. It does – eventually – get you to your destination. If you’ve to the right attitude, then the myseries of the chaotic boarding process can somewhat fade away in the calmness of the ride.
How Much Does It Cost To Ride FlixBus?
One-way tickets are around $30 with all taxes and fees to one destination. That seems like a good price, although it’s not much less than Amtrak ($35 each way from San Diego to LA, for example). It’s also double what it cost a year ago.
FlixBus has also taken a cue from the airlines and charges $1.50 to reserve a seat. At first I said “well, I’m not going to fall into that trap” because the buses are rarely full. Now I go ahead and do it because I don’t want to be sitting comfortably only to be disturbed by some nerdy person saying “hey that’s my seat” and having to move. And then maybe having to move again at another stop. If you don’t pay then you’re automatically assigned a seat in the very back of the bus next to the bathroom which on any bus, can have some of that bathroom smell.
You get one bag for free – it’s just putting your luggage in the lower cargo hold and to charge for it would be a real cheapskate move – but are charged for more bags. You can carry on a backpack but there’s not enough room for an airline-sized carry-on so that counts as one “checked” bag
Conclusion
So back to the original question: is FlixBus worth it as a traveling option? My answer is yes, for short trips and as long as you know what to expect beforehand and can manage your expectations. I take it when I need to go to Long Beach because it’s the most direct way to get downtown.
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