I've done it. Its only unsafe if you are a girl... I don't mean that in a bad way but in a lot of ways its true.
Can that be a true story? mmmmm i don't think so. It's an excellent story, yes, but i don't believe it could be true!! That would be HELL!
By travel alone, I mean by motorcycle. Crashing in the middle of nowhere without others to go for help = teh bad.
MAn, I'm going to Houston from Mobile sometgime in the future.. I'd much rather Amtrak, but It's out of service or whatever around here.. Fucking hurricanes. :$
I love Amtrak. I use it a lot to go to Chicago and back... I also took it from Kansas to Chicago and I taught a little Amish girl how to braid hemp. It was cute...but I think I might have damaged the culture for life LOL.
i prefer amtrack its less crouded since you can get up and walk atound plus they have a nice viewing car that has huge windows and stuff plus it is alot less smelly.. another thing i've come across is on southwest airlines you can get cheap $99 dollar one-way ticket to a lot of places this has saved me a lot of money when i just don't have the time to go on a 2 day amtrack trip
I was doing homework on the way up, so I didn't get up to walk around and check out the other cars! Oh well...guess I'll just have to make another trip to do it! Sprout: man...you're Greyhound story SUCKS! That's a terrible experience! When I was in PA with my dad a few years ago, we went and checked out some Amish commuities...it was really interesting.
Amtrak, baby! i took a train to and from Boston twice, and had a crazy time both times. we drank, smoked, i led a four hour sing-a-long with my geetar in the smoking car. good times. i wouldn't wanna travel any other way (besides a road trip, of course)
So the concensus is ghettohound sucks ass....and I completely agree. I usually ride amtrak from southern Colorado to Kansas City, but they dont have service from Denver to KC (bullshit) anyway, last week I had to take greyhound back home from Denver to make a previous engagement. If at all possible take amtrak or book a cheap plane ticket a few weeks in advance. I had been looking at plane tickets previous to this trip and really wish to hell I had shelled out the extra $45 in advance for a plane ticket from DIA to KC instead of riding hellhound.... I am tall and there is absolutely no room to breath on those busses. In Denver they overbooked the bus....which is a testament to their stupidity in itself, but then there was some poor girl outside the bus not being let on and she was crying cuz she was going to miss her grandmother's funeral, until the bus driver offered to have someone stand or sit on the stairs so she could have a seat. Now, Im a pretty selfless person but I was not about to volunteer to stand for 12 hours, but low and behold a 65 year old man and veteran of vietnam stood up and offered his seat it really tugged at my heartstrings i have to admit. Myself and another man ended up trading places with this man so he could sit on a real seat periodically during the trip through the boring wasteland that is western and central Kansas.
Greyhound all the way. Rode it pretty much coast to coast. Full of the scum of the earth, greyhound is~ I loved it. I got on the bus without a dollar, and had a great time. My only beef was the high passenger turnover- leaves pretty few people together a long time. Means you meet a heck of a lot of interesting people, though. No question it's gonna be my number one way to get around the country. ...except Salt Lake. those guys for some reason are uber-paranoid about 'terrorists'- they'll probably be doing cavity searches pretty soon. Stay the heck away from utah!
I've only been on a greyhound once or twice in my life... and i dont like it... no room what so ever... i love amtrak!! can walk around and do whatever... smoke drink.. does Amtrak still have smoking cars? i havent been on one in a couple years.. but a buddy was telling me Amtrak got rid of smoking cars... that sucks
MegaBus doesn't serve my area, or even anywhere on the West Coast. I wonder if there is a chance of them expanding.
Well, in the area of Texas that I live in (Houston area) Amtrak has one train that goes east to west and vice versa, and passes through Houston. It starts in Los Angeles and ends in Orlando. Going each way it comes through three times a week. Whoopee. There was a north-south train that went daily from Houston to Chicago, but that got discontinued a few years ago. Once that train was discontinued it was almost totally impractical to take the train to really get anywhere. I happen to love trains, but in this part of the country there's just no commitment to keep trains running. I've taken the greyhound bus a few times, and I never will again. The bus was full of scrungy, hoodlum-type people that I wasn't too comfortable being scrunched up next to for any period of time. I'm not a snob, but it was a little too much for me. If I can't take the train somewhere or drive, I guess I'll have to fly, but the greyhound really isn't an option for me.
I'm really considering taking Amtrak from Boston to Georgia for winter break. I go to college in Boston but I'm so petrified of flying that I avoid it as much as possible, down to not going home for Thanksgiving or my two Spring breaks. It's only an 18 hour trip, which isn't too bad honestly, and it's cheaper than flying. I'm just a bit concerned about being a teenage girl going down on my own.. but whatever.
Greyhound is seriously uncomfortable and unpleasant, and I've encountered some really rude and unhelpful people who work for them. They don't care, and as long as there are no other bus companies or Amtrak in your town (like there aren't in mine), they don't have to care. The best bet is to avoid Greyhound if possible when the largest number of people are traveling. I went from Ohio to Greyhound on a full bus in July on one of the hottest days of the year. There weren't any empty seats and the air conditioning wasn't working. We had to make extra stops to let the bus cool down, and taken off the bus in Philadelphia so we could be on a bus with working air conditioning. Then after we had all boarded and our luggage was on, we were told that we had been put on the wrong bus and had to start the whole process over. Not much fun. Greyhound staff at Port Authority in New York assume everyone is a terrorist. My bus was scheduled to depart at 12:00 midnight. There was a long line of people and then security officials appeared and began a long and tedious screening process with everyone. Once again, Greyhound employees screamed at people and treated us as if we were in jail.
I went from Lincoln City ,Ore to Palm Beach,Florida with one of my sons(4 yrs old).It took about 5 years ,or so it seemed.Weird people--parties with alchohol--bus driver said nothing--they were Marines.Scary people-dumb ass people-low-rent people.I'd never do it again.Would like to take the train tho.
