by Paul Lines

Created on: January 29, 2009

Travelling by bus has a number of unique advantages over using any other form of personal and public transport. These can be defined within the context of tourism and discovery, cost and flexibility and environmental benefits.

* Tourism and discovery

In terms of tourism, public transport bus travel is one of the best options for really discovering the unexplored gems that exist in a foreign country, especially those that are off the normal tourism routes, and that also applies to ones own country as well. Unlike trains and organised tour excursions a bus serves the local populace, which means that it will often travel a route that takes the passenger away from the main areas and through the streets of little towns and villages that one would not be able to visit with the more formal organised tours.

This flexibility of bus route allows one to view areas of the countryside that would otherwise remain foreign to them, see the real culture and community structure that exists within the urban and rural areas of the country. Furthermore, if one is prepared to interact with other passengers, you will also meet ordinary people who do not necessarily have a vested interested in the tourism industry.

The benefit of bus travel in terms of tourism therefore, is that it allows one to look beyond the postcard charade of the tourism vision and experience the country through the eyes, hearts and minds of the indigenous population, which in the view of the author provides a much better understanding and appreciation of what that specific country offers.

* Cost and flexibility

As a public transport option bus travel also has its advantages over both the automobile and other forms of public transport. The first of these is cost. For example, if one considers the cost of travelling from home to your local town and even around that town the bus will be cheaper than personal transport. What many consider it lacks in terms of convenience it more than makes up for in terms of financial and time costs.

Financially, a bus is normally considerably cheaper than an automobile when one takes into account the fuel, wear and tear and parking costs of doing the same journey. Furthermore, often the bus companies will offer concessionary daily or weekly tickets which increase that cost differential. Similarly, bus travel is almost always cheaper than rail transport, especially when comparing these against distance of up to around 100 miles or so. For example, a bus journey in the UK for this distance

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