A Bus Ride From Hell.
Is FlixBus Worth it? An Honest Review.
Jordan and I needed to travel from the Exeter, near the bottom of England, all the way up to Harrogate in the north. It’s pretty far, despite my long-held belief that the UK is a small country. Even by train, typically a time efficient option, the journey would take around six hours.
We would have been happy to go by train — were it not for the price. Even with our discount rail cards, tickets for both of us came to around $260, which felt outrageous for one trip. Now, I understand that we were traveling quite a long distance, but the price still seemed ridiculous to me.
While Jordan was stressing out about our finances, I looked up “Cheap coach travel in the UK” on google and found MegaBus. I found that we could make the trip for around £40 (about $50), a significant savings. I kept searching and found an even cheaper option—FlixBus. For both of us, the tickets would cost just £35, though the ride would take 11 hours instead of the six hours by train. But when compared to the £200 train, was worth it no matter how bad or long the bus ride was.
There was no direct bus to Harrogate, so we’d have to get off in Leeds and catch a train for the final stretch. In what can only be described as mental insanity, we decided to take the 1 a.m. bus to save another £50 on accommodation for the night, thinking we could just sleep through the ride. A great idea in theory (one which Jordan would argue was well executed).
Our airbnb in Exeter had us check out at 10am, leaving us with 14 hours to kill, a pair of heavy backpacks, and our carry on luggage. Luckily, my cousin let us store our bags at his apartment, freeing us from lugging around dead weight all day. We picked up our luggage around midnight and made our way to the bus stop.
When the bus was a few minutes late, I started to panic, convinced we’d been scammed. But eventually, it did arrive, and we began our marathon journey. First, we traveled from Exeter all the way in the west of the UK to London in the east, a five-hour ride. After a quick coffee shop stop during our layover in London, we boarded another bus for the five-hour journey north to Leeds.
By the time we arrived in Leeds it had been a very long day — well really two days, and I was beyond relieved to be done with bus travel. I hardly slept on either leg of the journey, despite the fact that the itinerary clearly stated we would sleep through the first part. Unfortunately, the reality of bus travel didn’t quite match the plan.
Overall Experience
Now, I know I referred to it as a “bus ride from hell,” but in reality, that was a bit dramatic. Did I have a miserable time? Yes. But was that the bus's fault? Probably not. After all, it's just a bus—it never promised to be a luxurious way to travel. Really, the fault was mine for assuming I’d be able to sleep on a bus when I’ve never even managed to fall asleep in a car.
Jordan, on the other hand, had no trouble at all. That’s partly because he physically can’t stay awake in any moving vehicle, whether it's a bus or a car. So, if you're someone like him, who dozes off as soon as the wheels start turning, you'll probably have no trouble catching some sleep on an overnight Flixbus trip. Especially if you have a girlfriend to hold your head up while you sleep for two hours.
That said, when it comes to ease of use, Flixbus is probably the most straightforward of all the bus lines in the UK. It has an app that makes booking and storing tickets simple, which is super convenient.
One thing to note is that Flixbus itself doesn’t own or run the buses; it’s essentially just the website, app, and branding. They contract out to local operators to run the buses. So, my experience with Flixbus in the UK might not reflect everyone else’s, especially if you're traveling through other parts of Europe or beyond.
Tickets and Luggage
When we booked our Flixbus tickets, they included one in-cabin luggage item, which is similar to a personal item on a plane, like a backpack. For any additional luggage that needed to be stowed under the bus, we had to add that to our ticket. Luckily, using the Flixbus app made this really simple. When we boarded, the driver just scanned our tickets, saw that we had paid for two bags to be stowed, and tossed them under the bus.
When we arrived in London, the process was just as smooth. We got off the bus, pointed out our luggage, grabbed it, and walked over to our next bus stop.
What was interesting—and very convenient—was that when we boarded our second bus in London, we used the same QR code we had used back in Exeter. Despite needing two buses for the trip, Flixbus only required one QR code, which made things much easier. Normally, for a journey involving multiple transfers, you would expect to manage several different tickets, but this single QR code covered everything.
It was an unexpected convenience, especially since, with the app, managing multiple tickets wouldn't have been difficult for me. But I really appreciated not having to shuffle through our trips to find the separate tickets.
Inside the Bus
Jordan and I rode on two different buses during our trip, and both of them were fairly nice and clean for the most part. I will say, we did have to clear our seats of half-empty beer bottles, so I don’t think they clean the buses between routes.
Our seats were pretty standard as bus seats go, although I think we got some of the nicer buses. They were comfortable enough to sit down in them for five hours at a time. Plus they had a better recline than any airplane I have been on!
Another added bonus is the buses have free wifi, it was spotty in most places but it did work. I never pulled out my laptop to test the capacities of the wifi, but for what I was doing on my phone it usually worked despite being a bit slow in some areas.
Should I book with Flixbus?
Overall, Flixbus is a great budget option to get you from point A to point B — after all, thats what it’s all about. It doesn’t have any frills, it’s usually relatively on time and does its job.
I will say, if you need to get to point B on a rigid time frame, ie. you’re making a connection or catching a flight. It may be worth it to get a more reliable and on time form of travel to make sure you reach your final destination.
Even though I didn’t have the most fun on Flixbus, I would definitely consider booking with them again, especially if the price is better than catching a train. I probably wouldn’t catch an overnight bus though, even though it was a time saver, and often the cheapest ticket.
I would recommend Flixbus for a cheaper transportation option, if the prices on trains don’t work for you. After all, it is just transportation, the real memory making begins once you get off the bus!