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USA on a shoestring??!!?? (hopefully...please help!)
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Hi all
OP here - thought I would update as was requested.
So, I'm currently still in the US - only a week into my trip as yet. However, I have already taken 4 greyhound busses and I am - some of you will be surprised - still alive! :-p
I'm actually posting from a greyhound right now!!
I will give a very honest account of my experience so far ...
Bus trips I have taken have been Toronto - Niagara, Niagara - Toronto, Toronto - Detroit, Detroit - Chicago.
Some people warned of busses not showing up. Thankfully this has not yet happened. We have arrived to bus stations 2 hrs before each trip to ensure we got a place. Nothing has been overbooked except the Toronto - Niagara bus and they put on a second bus for the extra passengers so that everyone left the station at the time they were meant to. One negative here however is that there doesn't seem to be a civilised queuing system and everyone just congregates around the bus. I think greyhound could improve this very easily though having said that it hasn't been an issue as nobody has been left without a place on the bus and nobody seems to get uptight about the lack of a queue.
Some people mentioned the lateness of busses. Of the 4 busses I have taken, only one left on time - this is true. However two others were only 5 mins late and the Niagara - Toronto was 45 mins late but this was because it came from bthe states and was delayed at immigration and we were forewarned about this.
Some people mentioned rude staff. Yes - I can see this. I thankfully haven't been on the receiving end of much of it because we ensured to have all tickets bought and printed off so as to minimise the dealings we would have with staff. On some of the occasions that I had to deal with them I feel they could have been friendlier. And I did witness some horrible workers. But having said that, I witnessed some great customer service too. One guy who had lost a ticket and had to buy a new one but then subsequently found his old ticket was refunded without any trouble at all. Also I witnessed a staff member call back a driver for two passengers who had missed their bus. While on-the-ground staff can be rude the drivers are amazing. I've been very impressed with their personalities.
Not to sound condescending - I am fully aware that my greyhound experience is not yet over and could go horribly wrong - but I think a lot of people are very quick to slam public transport in America. Mainly Americans who probably haven't used it in 10years or more. There are no drunks, crazies or homeless people on these busses. It's not the lower rungs of society either. There are a lot of decent people taking these busses. College students, families, regular joes. I think that the USA is a country which is best accessed by private vehicle and that is how most Americans do it. Which is completely understandable as I travel the same way in Ireland. However, to be fair to Greyhound they have clearly come a long way since posters on this forum have been using them.
Last night I took an overnight to Detroit and there wasn't a sound on the bus. I slept like a baby the whole way. More leg room than a plane, I've my own plug socket. There's too much air con on the busses though - they are quite cold. Too cold almost. Also Toronto bus station last night - I wasn't 100% relaxed in the bus station at 1am waiting on the bus - but I think that was more my paranoia than any actual threat. Very effective and efficient security working all night.
Worst experience so far has actually been dept of homeland security. not nice at all.
Anyway - that's my update so far. Has the good, has the bad. It's honest. Will update further in a week or two.
Sent from my Greyhound
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iusedtoknow wrote: »The only thing that gouges me is rent, but thems the breaks.
You just live in the wrong part of the country
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iusedtoknow wrote: »You can...you just won't have the best time. Life here rolls on convenience. Convenience costs money.
I think some people can. Some can't. It's all down to the individual.
I said few posts back (I know it was a long time ago though) that 'shoestring' was probably a bit of a dramatisation. I won't spare expense on things that I value - for example paying to go up CN tower, go into Niagara Falls, all that kind off thing. But for me - my mode of transportation doesn't bother me as long as I get there safe. If I can do it cheaper on bus than I can on train, I'm going to do that.
Regarding food - I rarely eat burgers (though I did today) My rule is that I eat out once a day when away. I bring a cheap version of my nutribullet away with me and have very healthy juices in the morning and afternoon. The bonus with using hostels is that you can cook your own food too - again - some peoples idea of a nightmare when on holiday, but I love to cook and love to keep healthy. Fruits and veg can be bought at local street markets in small quantities so that nothing rots.
This might come across as incredibly arrogant and I really dont mean it to be - but the last thing I demand when I go on holidays like this (backpacking) is convenience. I like the moving from place to place, the excitement of the unknown. I actually quite enjoy getting lost and having to find my way. Today I got lost leaving Chicago greyhounds station and walked 20mins in the wrong direction with a 20kg backpack on and a rucksack around my front. All I thought when I realised I was lost was "mmmm I can eat my burger tonight guilt free with all these calories I'm burning" Without sounding like a total dick, if I wanted convenience I'd go on a package holiday to an all inclusive resort in Tenerife for 2 weeks.
People are different. I say you can go to USA on a budget (can't change thread title now) and you can have a great time.
However, I acknowledge iusedtoknow's point as I have a relative doing a states trip shortly and she is nothing like me and would never be able to do what I'm doing. All her movements will be done via internal flights. All her accommodation are minimum 3star hotels. I feel that there is no adventure to that but she would say there is no enjoyment in my trip. The thoughts of staying in a hostel disgusts her.
Really you can't do USA on the same kind of budget that you could do Europe with. But you can still cut costs majorly. Theres a lot of unnecessary spending that goes on in holidays in my opinion.
I was asked about accommodation - have booked mostly hostels for the trip and one stay is via airbnb. One stay is via expedia and the rest are via hostelworld. You really have to shop around. In Chicago was going with an 8bed dorm for 550 for three nights!!!! Then had a look at airbnb and got a private room in exact same location for 260!! Euro prices quoted. And the airbnb suggestionwas from a boardsie so thank you very much to them!!.
Yes of course it must be noted that 3 out of 4 of my trips on greyhound have been in Canada. I might be back here next week giving out yards about the American employees 0 -
OP here
I'm back with my latest update. So, last night we had our final greyhound journey and to be honest, we are actually kind of sad about it!! lol
I will post a review only about the bus journeys as that seemed to be the most focused on thing in this thread, but we found loads of things to do for really cheap or free in all places so if anyone is wondering about things to do in..... just ask!
So, last time I updated we had just arrived in Chicago. So, journeys from there have been:
Chicago IL - Cleveland OH - The bus journey itself was totally fine and completely safe. It was busy enough but was also fairly easy to sleep on the bus. The bus station, however, was as close to the horror stories that were posted here online as we got. When we arrived to the bus station there was a guy who, in my naivety, I thought was just extremely drunk. He literally could not sit up straight in his chair and kept falling over. He was sitting in a seat behind us. It was only when the Chicago Police and an ambulance came into the station, strapped him into a chair and HE DROPPED HIS VIAL!!!!!! that I realised the gravity of the situation. Nobody picked up the vial (I'm naive, so maybe they weren't meant to/maybe it was no longer dangerous as it was empty/maybe nobody noticed it) but I was pretty freaked out at the thought that this guy most likely still had needles on his person somewhere and had been sitting so close to us. Also there were a lot of children in the bus station. It just seemed terrible (but obviously not shocking to anybody but me - obviously happens a lot) The guy wasn't allowed onto his bus by the way. I know this should be a given but just pointing it out for the anti-greyhounders. This was an overnight bus.
That was the worst of it thankfully, so if ya don't want to read the positives, stop here
Cleveland OH - Washington DC - Bus was great - all electrical sockets work, was very comfortable and not packed so we got two seats each and was easier to sleep. Come 7am however, it got very cold on the bus. This was our last overnight bus.
Washington DC - Philadelphia PA - Again, bus was great. My only gripe with the DC and Cleveland stations were their baggage storage areas. In Cleveland they didn't have one but instead would store your bags behind the counter for 8 dollars a bag. Quite expensive, but not as bad as DC, which for 2 backpacks and a rucksack wanted $48!!
Philadelphia PA - Boston MA - This was a lovely journey. It was actually two express busses, one to NY and then another from there to Boston. No issues whatsoever except that the first bus to NYC had no aircon, it was broken.
Boston MA- Albany NY - again, no issues.
All busses were on time and actually better organised than the Canadian ones. In my last post I was complaining about how there was no real order to how people lined up or got onto the busses. However, in USA all busses were boarded according to the boarding numbers on our tickets which was brilliant as due to our bookings being made so far in advance we were always among the first 5 people onto every bus.
I know people will say that we got lucky and maybe we did, but I do think that the service must have improved over the years (just as the service of Dublin Bus has improved since I last used it 5 years ago) To be fair to Greyhound, with their expansive coverage of USA by bus they are definitely doing their bit for American tourism as we have met a lot of people who have said that they wouldn't be here if cross country public transport wasn't available.
Anyway, I need to log off now and go enjoy myself but like I said, if anyone has any questions just ask - I just don't want to be unnecessarily and annoyingly detailing my entire trip
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Bananaleaf wrote: »Same here! Spent so much that time I even paid the excess on two extra suitcases that we bought and filled! And it was just as things were starting to crumble here in Ireland so we were kept in denial about the recession for that bit longer
I remember coming back to Ireland in 08 and telling family about The Crash and being met with amusement.
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InTheTrees wrote: »Thanks for the updates. Its really nice to hear how people got on, and I'm glad it went well
I dont think I criticised greyhound on this thread, but for me the bus stations were the most dangerous thing about greyhound. And my biggest grip about busses would be the inability to get off the freeways and see the countryside. Especially out west where the scenery is everything.
SO how did it go with the budget? How would it compare to a cheap rental car and camping?
Well .... We are still here, but, the budget has gone very well so far
Overall our public transport costs will amount to 650€ each. For two. So that's €1300 on transport.
Accommodation will have cost €750 (EURO) each so for two that's €1500.
We picked a number out of our heads of $40 (DOLLARS) Per day spending money to try and stick to. Thats each. Although some days we did go over that amount, on average we barely spent $30.
I suppose when you look at it it's not really a budget as much as it is just sensible spending.
Tbh I don't know what renting a cheap car would cost so I'm not sure how our budget fares in relation to that. Our public transport costs do factor in the 3 day public transport card we purchased in Chicago - the only city we used public transport in. The other cities we walked around.
Edit: I should add that we are 5 weeks here in total and will continue on to Montreal before finishing back up in Toronto for anyone who is interested in trying to figure out an approximate cost for car rental. I did notice that in a lot of places car parking for the day cost between $5 and $10 and noticed that if you went to 2-3 attractions in different parts of a city you could be paying that 3 times in that one day.0 -
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