I learnt this summer that you never really know a country until you spend 83 and a half hours travelling around it on buses. For those of you who don’t know much about America, Greyhound buses are America’s answer to the Megabus, you can travel to pretty much any town or city in any state on the Greyhound.
Something you should know before you embark on a Greyhound trip however is that the cheapness of these busses attracts an incredibly interesting array of people and situations. So, if you really want to know what America is like, let me tell you a few stories about my experience…
The first America lesson, and life lesson, I learnt was when I travelled from Philadelphia to Boston on the overnight Greyhound. Which yes, was as horrible as it sounds, but me and my friend did it to save money on a night in a hostel. Which made sense to us at the time, but it also made sense to a bunch of other people, meaning our bus was packed with bags cluttering the walkway and a foul smell coming from the bus toilet.
And what my friend Alice and I failed to realise in our naivety was that the bus was not direct. We in fact had to change busses with a four-hour wait from midnight until 4am, in New York City Bus Terminal. Which I can tell you is one of the scariest places I’ve ever spent the early hours of the morning. There were people in sleeping bags everywhere, people drinking, people fighting, and one man was even shaving his head. Yes, In the middle of the bus terminal.
It’s safe to say when we arrived in Boston at 9am with no sleep whatsoever, we had never been happier to see a hostel bed. I learnt that day that although New York is seen as the greatest city in America, its bus terminal is not part of that ideal. I also learnt that no matter how much money you might save, it is never worth spending four hours in NYC bus terminal.
Greyhound buses can really smell
Another important lesson I learnt about America from travelling on Greyhound buses is that American people literally move homes, cities and even states on Greyhound buses. I was in Baltimore when I met a 25-year-old man who told us about his move to Arizona to set up a tattoo studio. He informed us that his bus journey would take “eh maybe up to about 40 hours”, which he seemed completely un-phased by.
I met another couple who were moving from Rhode Island to Indiana and they had all their worldly possessions in 2 large cardboard boxes and five incredibly full black bags. Which they were very angry to discover they had to pay an extra $25 to put on the bus, which lead to security having to come and talk to them. Yes, bus terminals in America have security, but that isn’t my lesson.
My lesson was that although America is one of the wealthiest countries in the world, I saw hundreds of people moving homes on buses, because they didn’t own a car, or they didn’t have money for a rental van, or they couldn’t afford a plane fare. And I learnt that this is normal for Americans, to be spending hours and days on buses. It’s just a part of life.
The final lesson that I learnt on the scariest journey I have ever embarked on from Charleston to Atlanta, is that I never want to ride a Greyhound bus in America again. After a long wait in a small Georgian town bus station, my friend Emma and I were ready for our next, six-hour journey to Atlanta. Optimistic that we would get seats next to each other because we were at the front of the queue, as soon as we stepped foot we discovered that the bus was already pretty much full. Never a good start, and two of the only seats we could find close together were at the front of the bus.
Emma hopped into her seat which was behind mine as I clambered over and old man who refused to move from his isle seat to let me sit next to the window. The journey started off ordinarily enough, I was happily watching Netflix (thank you Netflix for creating downloadable episodes) when I started to overhear the conversation between the people seated in front of me, one being a heavily tattooed middle-aged man and the other an elderly woman.
It turned out they were discussing how this man had recently, as recently as … two days before … been released from prison after serving fourteen years. It took a few moments for his words to sink in and then I realised that I was going to be sat behind this gentleman, a recently free convict, for six hours. And that was just the start of the journey, his conversation with this woman only got more bizarre as they started discussing how he made “excellent prison weapons” and how he needed to get home because his daughter had recently been arrested and that he needed to “sort her out”.
This journey became scarier when an hour before reaching Atlanta, a drunken man from the back of the bus tried to get into the driver’s seat when the driver had stopped to get some bags out, and was yelling about how he wanted to drive the bus because “how hard could it be”. When Emma and I arrived in Atlanta it was safe to say we were glad we never had to step on a Greyhound bus again. I learnt that America is a much more troubled and diverse place than I thought it was.
Most importantly, I learnt that my fear of driving on the wrong side of the road, which lead me to deciding to travel on buses, was a lot less scary than what Greyhound busses turned out to be.
Edited by Angelica Beier
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