Review: MegaBus & BoltBus

So while living on the East coast this year has not brought nearly as many exciting travel opportunities as Italy and Morocco did, I have still managed to move around some. For thanksgiving I traveled from Baltimore, Marland to Providence, Rhode Island where I spent the holiday with my Aunt Lois and Uncle Jim and the rest of their family. In order to do so I had to travel on buses (MegaBus & BoltBus), as I do not have a car out here. Thus I thought I would share my thoughts on the experience.


Cost: Both BoltBus and MegaBus are quite cheap. For four bus trips (Baltimore to NYC & NYC to Providence each way) I only paid around $50, and this was at Thanksgiving when everything is full and expensive. If you plan ahead you can actually like they say ride for $1 each way, although even full price tickets are only $15-$20 so they are overall very affordable.

Wifi & Outlets: Obviously the biggest promotion these companies offer (other than $1 seats) is the free internet and outlets for you to use while traveling. My advice though is not to count on it. Sometimes the internet worked sometimes it did not or was too painfully slow to use. The outlets sometimes had power and sometimes did not. Basically its great if everything works, but that is not most of the time.

Comfort: Traveling on buses is not 1st class travel, but it is not terrible either. While it is great if you can get two seats to yourself, I was not uncomfortable with someone sitting next to me. Overall the buses were nice enough and seemed reasonably new.

Travel Time: None of my buses were on time. Two were close though while the other two were around 1-2 hours late. Like driving a car if the bus hits traffic, get comfortable because there is nothing it can do about it. Being late in NYC is basically a fact of life due to the awful traffic there. So if you are like me and you are taking multiple buses to get somewhere make sure you leave plenty of time for connections as missing a bus could be a bit of a nightmare as the companies do not work very hard to help you out (even if you were riding both routes on their bus line).

Overall: You get what you pay for. It is a easy cheap way to get from A to B. It might not be on time and all of the amenities may not work or be top of the line but ultimately it gets the job done!