Now that I’ve started college in New York and live far away from my family and friends, I end up flying a good amount of times throughout the year. We all know how expensive flying can be. I look for the cheapest flights possible on every website that lists reliable flights. Every time, the flight still manages to cost me a couple hundred dollars. I just can’t justify spending this much money on a flight!
For Spring Break, I was planning on visiting one of my best friends from high school. She is going to Point Park University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh is decently close to New York City, so I thought I would try out the bus to travel between the two cities.
On the day I was going to travel to the bus station I woke up around 5 AM. I took the subway with my backpack and suitcase in hand. I made a rookie mistake and didn’t make it through the turnstile with my suitcase the first time, so I had to pay twice. The subway stop that I got off at thankfully let me off directly outside the ticket booth for the Greyhound. I bought my ticket in advance, so all I had to do was get a tag for my bag. Even though there were only about six of us waiting in line, I probably didn’t get helped for another 30 min. After waiting in line for an extremely long time and getting skipped by an old lady, I finally was ready to board the bus.
I didn’t think Pittsburgh was that far from New York City, but boy was I wrong! I sat on the same bus for 9 hours straight. The first couple of hours were fine, but then the bus started to smell like the bathroom in the back of the bus. Things just went down from there. I sat beside at least five people on the bus throughout the trip. For some reason, people always sat beside me first, but I was internally hoping they would sit somewhere else, so I could have the row to myself just like everyone else. However, I kept myself occupied by listening to music, podcasts, reading a new book, and finishing up some homework. I’m sure you can imagine how relieved I was to finally get off the bus in Pittsburgh.
Once I got into Pittsburgh, I stayed with my friends for a few days, but then it was time to get back on the bus to New York City.
This trip back somehow managed to be four hours longer. Twelve hours on the bus. Everything was fine until we got to the first big city stop. I wasn’t supposed to switch buses, but the bus driver told everyone we had to get off our bus and switch to another bus. I had no idea what I was supposed to do because I was previously told that I had to stay on that bus for the entire ride.
The bus driver told us that the bus we should switch onto wasn’t going to arrive for another 10 hours. There was no way that I was going to wait at the station for that long and arrive in New York City around 2 AM rather than 8 PM. I quickly made friends with a few other teenagers that were on my bus and we figured out another bus to get on to that was leaving in 15 min. Thank goodness we figured out a solution because I would have been stuck in the middle of nowhere for at least 10 hours. The rest of the bus ride went the same as before and I safely made it to New York City. I was so relieved to be back home and off the bus.
I did not expect to have so many issues when traveling on the bus, but at least I learned that the Greyhound bus is not for me. For anyone that is looking for a cheap method of travel, I would recommend trying the Greyhound bus, but if you are planning to travel a long distance maybe think about paying the extra money for a train ticket. All in all, at least now I know that the Greyhound bus service is not the most dependable service.