It's okay to admit that you travel by bus, or even better—by $1 bus specials. The era of cool bus travel has arrived, when it just no longer makes sense to fly between New York and Philadelphia when the bus costs under $20 and usually takes under 2 hours, and it has free WiFi and power outlets. Take that, regional jets!

Not only are there new bus lines springing up every so often, like Megabus, Boltbus, TripperBus, and NeOn Bus, but even Greyhound is getting a makeover with the WiFi and outlet additions on select routes. With stops in 13 states and one Canadian province, Megabus is moving right along as the pioneer of cool bus travel. And with more people opting to take the bus, we feel the need to remind you of the bus code....

After the jump, our Top Five Tips For Surviving Budget Bus Travel ]]> JetSetCD 2009-10-12T10:23:36-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/8/17/163331/985

This last weekend, while randomly hopping down to Atlantic City for the day, we did not expect to be treated to the plushness of one of Greyhound's new buses. We say "plushness" meaning it's pretty nice for a bus, you know.

According to the Greyhound website, the premium coaches—outfitted with free WiFi, outlets, more leg room, and fresh interiors—are only found on their NYC to Montreal, Toronto and Boston and DC to New York, Boston and Montreal routes. We got lucky and spent the 4-hour-long, one-way trip (thanks, Saturday traffic) charging our phones and napping. We now see potential for Greyhound to equal the amenities of Megabus and Boltbus, but they'd have to do it fleet-wide and therein lies the rub.

Related Stories:
· Will You Ever Go Back To Greyhound? [Jaunted]
· Greyhound Blows Out 95 Candles On Their Birthday Cake [Jaunted]
· Greyhound Coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Jaunted]]]> JetSetCD 2009-08-17T17:32:17-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/5/22/64351/7713

Let's all watch the above soothing video of shiny Greyhound buses in honor of the company's 95th Anniversary.

With a birthday as big as this, expect 2009 to be the year of deals from them, and we're going to go ahead and guess that they'll be coming from Twitter and Facebook, based on their statement that they'll be "sharing stories and images through social media channels while continuing to deliver on its longstanding commitment to offer the best in leisure travel."

In their press release alone, a short paragraph of the company's historical moments sheds light on how much they've been through in this almost-century:

During WWII Greyhound was a major carrier of troops heading to the East and West coasts. At the same time, Greyhound started to train women to drive buses when more than 40 percent of the U.S. workforce was called to military service. And, in 1961, Greyhound carried a group of civil rights leaders known as the 'Freedom Riders' into the Deep South to protest state-sponsored segregation in interstate transportation facilities. Later that year, the Interstate Commerce Commission outlawed segregation in all interstate transportation facilities.

It's difficult to think of a time when women didn't drive buses; boarding a bus these days just wouldn't be the same without a stern lady driver reprimanding us for not printing the right confirmation email. Here's to another 95 years, Greyhound.

Related Stories:
· 95 Years and Millions of Miles [Greyhound Press Release]
· Bus Travel Coverage [Jaunted] ]]> JetSetCD 2009-05-22T09:21:58-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/4/22/124645/292

We don't rave about Greyhound much around these parts – we're much more partial to their shinier little sister, BoltBus. But we were checking out Greyhound's twitter feed today and stumbled upon something kinda cool.

Greyhound just announced a big price drop on their Discovery Pass – an option we didn't even know existed. Turns out Greyhound offers the option of Eurorail-style unlimited travel – you can buy a 7, 14, 30, or 60 day pass, which gives you unlimited rides throughout (most of) the U.S., Mexico and Canada. ]]> BS 2009-04-22T16:26:42-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/4/15/144137/660

We're pretty big BoltBus advocates around these parts, and when they don't have a cheap fare, we generally go with Megabus or a Chinatown line. Even though we travel between New York, DC, Philly and Boston pretty frequently, it's been a long time since we've been on a Greyhound.

So we're not sure how we feel about Greyhound's new buses—they've got free WiFi, power outlets, and more leg room—basically everything Bolt has minus the $1 fares. We know we shouldn't feel weird about considering taking Greyhound again—after all, they (very quietly) own BoltBus, so what's the difference? But there's something about it that just doesn't sit right with us. Thinking about going back to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and waiting in those cramped underground lines just doesn't seem as cool as picking up Bolt on the curb, even though we know our money is going to the same place.

Has anyone tried the shiny new Greyhound buses yet? Will you go back or are you also addicted to Bolt? Let us know your preferred method for bus travel in comments below.

Related Stories:
· Wanna Ride Greyhound? Tell Them in 140 Characters or Less [Jaunted]
· Handy Search Tool Helps Navigate the Cheap-o Bus Wars [Jaunted]
· Bus travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Greyhound] ]]> BS 2009-04-16T13:09:55-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/4/13/122423/712

Travel contest groupies get your witty Tweets ready! Budget Travel and Greyhound Buses have partnered up to give away free round-trip bus tickets via Twitter.

The promotion is part of Greyhound's celebration of its new routes out of New York City to Boston, Montreal, and Toronto along with its plans to replace older buses with new models that have free WiFi, three more inches of leg room, and power outlets for charging all of your travel gadgets.

To win the tix, you gotta join Twitter (duh) and follow @GreyhoundBus and/or @Budtravel. Then you need to post a tweet (in 140 characters or less, of course) talking about how excited you are to try out the new Greyhound buses. Don't forget to include @GreyhoundBus in your tweet along with the hashtags: #NewBus! @BudTravel and the link to BudTravel's post about the contest.

Greyhound will pick one winner each day but only for the next two days. The contest is open to anyone in the US and Canada (except Province of Quebec residents) and the round-trip tickets are good for any Greyhound route in the U.S. and/or Canada. However, you must be 18 years or older. So this is not your ticket to run away from your parents. But running away from the economy is totally acceptable.

Related Stories:
· Travel Contests [Jaunted]
· Greyhound gets fancy new buses and gives away tickets via Twitter [Budget Travel]

[Photo: Greyhound Bus]]]> juliana 2009-04-13T12:28:21-05:00 http://www.jaunted.com/story/2009/4/9/183921/5880

We can't decide whether to file this one under "best travel search innovation since Hopstop," or "damn! Why didn't we think of this first?"

The savvy folks over at the new Bus Junction realized the only thing wrong with all these cheap-o Northeast bus lines is that it can be time-consuming for cheapskate riders to browse all of them in search of the cheapest of the cheap fares. So they created a Kayak-like search engine—just plug in your date and destination, and they'll show you all of your options, including the Chinatown lines, BoltBus, MegaBus and Greyhound.

They don't seem to have it worked out perfectly yet. Most notably, there's no Washington Deluxe, one of the most reliable lines for DC to NY rides. But even so, this totally just doubled our cheapskate travel productivity.

Related Stories:
· Bus Junction [Official Site]
· BoltBus versus MegaBus, Round Two [Jaunted]
· Bus travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: kenudigit] ]]> BS 2009-04-10T08:41:35-05:00 Search Jaunted string http://www.jaunted.com/search/