Cross Country Climbing Trip via Greyhound

johnnymuir wrote: But you cant sleep there.

Oh I beg to differ.

Totally forgot about this thread;sounds like my initial thoughts have been confirmed: awful, horrible, terrible, and something everybody should do at least once.

Any word on bus travel with a rack or rope or both?

Chet Butterworth wrote:Totally forgot about this thread;sounds like my initial thoughts have been confirmed: awful, horrible, terrible, and something everybody should do at least once. Any word on bus travel with a rack or rope or both?

The baggage folks at G-Hound care less about your stuff than the airlines do. In fact, after you bus it, you will never ever in your life complain about flying again. They at least care if you live or die there. With Greyhound, its probably as close to living like cattle as Americans are gonna experience.

"he told me you could buy a month or so pass for Amtrack for a reasonable price. You could go wherever Amtrack went and as many trips as you wanted for that one price. I want to say it was around $500-$600."

This would be awesome if true... But I suspect it's completely not possible. Just from knowing the prices for Amtrak, it would be absurd. The other problem is, not having a sleeper car for Amtrak travel. Pretty rough sleeping sitting up! Although I guess you could camp and then hop the next day's train..... fun

Russ Keane wrote:"he told me you could buy a month or so pass for Amtrack for a reasonable price. You could go wherever Amtrack went and as many trips as you wanted for that one price. I want to say it was around $500-$600." This would be awesome if true... But I suspect it's completely not possible. Just from knowing the prices for Amtrak, it would be absurd. The other problem is, not having a sleeper car for Amtrak travel. Pretty rough sleeping sitting up! Although I guess you could camp and then hop the next day's train..... fun

limited rides but it is true. 600-900 bucks, 10% off with AAA

Well, time to search climbing crags near train stations!!!!

climbing coastie wrote:I was talking to a guy last week and he told me you could buy a month or so pass for Amtrack for a reasonable price. You could go wherever Amtrack went and as many trips as you wanted for that one price. I want to say it was around $500-$600. But not too bad if you wanted to see multiple places.

Too bad that Amtrack hardly goes anywhere.

Russ Keane wrote:Well, time to search climbing crags near train stations!!!!

And it's still a royal PITA when you get there and have no local transportation.

I've taken Greyhound twice, in different decades. Once to visit Berkley for a college campus visit to see if I wanted to attend there. This was 1980's. It was the sort of crowd between LA and Oakland that you might imagine.
I dropped down the dining tray in front of me and put a napkin out, picked my nose, align the boogers on the napkin, scribble names below them and talk to them each in animated tones to try to convince everybody on the bus to leave me alone. This did not work. They were like: "Oh, one of us!"
At least we got there on time due to the driver going 85 in a 65 area the whole time... with a police escort... because the bus had been shot at... by a striking greyhound worker. Think that over for a moment.

The second time was on 9/13/01. As in 2 days after 9/11. Went from Seattle to Denver, thinking that was the only way home at some point... I thought that the situation might make it better, as the demographic on the bus was disrupted by the lack of air travel possibility. Well, that was true, but the stations and employees had not changed.
That second trip was not much better. Our driver walked off the bus in the middle of the drive in Western Colorado on a mountain pass. The other riders were debating driving it. I went and talked to the driver for a while and he got back on and drove after an hour. Getting him to drive and getting the other folks not to involved a lot of discussion about felonies and good life choices.
Turns out most knew about felonies already, but good life choices was the sort of thing they'd not given a lot of thought to.

If you decide to criss-cross the country by bus, leave the cameras rolling. You will end up with some interesting footage.

I've done a cross-country Greyhound trip once, years ago. It still ranks as the single worst travel experience I have ever had the misfortune to undertake.

It ain't no adventure. It just simply SUCKS. I would never even consider doing it again.

PS- protip/life hack: Pick up the yesterday's newspaper off the seats in the station and take them with you to put on the seat once you are on the bus.
That will keep the springs coming out of the seat from poking you in the butt, or the urine/vomit/spittle/feces from soaking into your clothes.

I think that the buses in SE Asia are much nicer, generally speaking.

Chet Butterworth wrote:...and something everybody should do at least once.

No. The internet exists to prevent us from making the same horrible mistakes others have made in the past.

I'd think the train and hitchhiking/uber would be the way to go, that will save you from witnessing skank fights once a day. I saw one fight actually get bloody once BITD, good thing the bus hadnt left Richmond VA yet and the cops came and hauled them off the bus. Its much worse when the bus is moving.

Russ Keane wrote:"he told me you could buy a month or so pass for Amtrack for a reasonable price. You could go wherever Amtrack went and as many trips as you wanted for that one price. I want to say it was around $500-$600." This would be awesome if true... But I suspect it's completely not possible. Just from knowing the prices for Amtrak, it would be absurd. The other problem is, not having a sleeper car for Amtrak travel. Pretty rough sleeping sitting up! Although I guess you could camp and then hop the next day's train..... fun

A 12-segment 30 day pass is $689.
See here for more info:
amtrak.com/take-the-trains-…

Tony B wrote:PS- protip/life hack: Pick up the yesterday's newspaper off the seats in the station and take them with you to put on the seat once you are on the bus. That will keep the springs coming out of the seat from poking you in the butt, or the urine/vomit/spittle/feces from soaking into your clothes. I think that the buses in SE Asia are much nicer, generally speaking.

yeah, thats up for debate. at least you dont have to worry about springs poking up in the seats, at least the ones I rode had no springs in the seats to begin with.