On The Bus

A Journey Through Greyhound America

Introduction

It Beats Walking

Over the Christmas holiday in 2022, I got caught up in the Great Southwest Airlines meltdown, when thousands of flights were cancelled due to terrible weather across the country. I flew to St. Louis from Washington, D.C., to be with family, but, unable to get a flight back, I ended up taking a 29-hour Greyhound bus trip to get home.

Numerous people expressed curiosity about my Greyhound experience – OK, two people – so I decided to publish my travelogue. I've documented the trip with text messages, photos, screenshots, and a running commentary track written afterwards.

My stream-of-texting revealed the unreliable narrator in all of us.

You’ll find my complete review of Greyhound at the conclusion.

My trip was scheduled to leave St. Louis, MO at 1:45 PM Central Time, Thursday Dec. 29, and arrive in Union Station in Washington, D.C. at 7 PM Eastern Time, Friday, Dec. 30. The trip was scheduled to take 28 hours and 15 minutes; actual travel time was 29 hours.

We made four stops en route to Nashville, changed buses, then made nine stops on the way to Richmond. We changed buses again and then went non-stop into DC.

Google maps says driving this route would take 18 hours and 21 minutes; a faster route by car, through Columbus and Indianapolis, is estimated at 13 hours.

The night before my trip, I began texting with an old friend who was curious about Greyhound.

Note: All text screenshot times are an hour later than actual time sent.

I had just turned 60 on Christmas day, so here come the Old Man jokes.

"Today's Greyhound Bus"

I did my research, trying to manage my expectations. The Greyhound site offers a "virtual tour" of their bus features. [Note: it appears Greyhound has modified their site since I wrote this section. The images below are gone, and the descriptions are somewhat different.]