The journey to a place is something I truly believe is part of the travel experience and over the years I have amassed large amounts of time sitting on all kinds of trains and buses going to new places. Shoe-string budget travel is usually good for an anecdote or two and once you’ve recovered and got over the brutality it can put a smile on your face. British YouTuber Backpacker Ben often gets content from going on cheap and very long bus or train journeys which got me thinking about some of the ones I’ve done.

The rules are that this doesn’t include flights or car journeys and can include multiple forms of transport combined as long as the transit time is very limited. I’m sure there are one or two notable absentees from this list but this is what I can remember. I do not have pictures for many of them as one doesn’t always bother taking a photo of their transportation.

• Please note that times are approximate.

Bonus: Fatephur Sikri to Jaipur, India (2007) – An absolutely packed train and amazingly I got on quick enough to get a window seat which I dare not give up for a moment so I could not take any toilet breaks. As is the way in India, it was a very lively experience including lots of chat with the locals on board and even through the window when it stopped at stations en-route.

Duration: 7 hours by train.

10. Phnom Penh to Siem Reap, Cambodia (2015) – The well-worn tourist route between these two places. On my previous trip with some friends we did this journey by taxi but for some reason I decided that my wife and I would do it by bus. That was a big mistake as she does not travel well (by car is still not good for her but bus is far worse!) and was inevitably feeling very sick on the ride. We took taxis to all other Cambodian cities after that!

Duration: 7 hours by bus.

9. Granada to San Jose, Nicaragua/Costa Rica (2013) – On a trip full of lengthy bus journeys this was the longest one I can remember taking. Unlike the local buses I often used in Central America, this one seemed quite luxurious and eventually (there was a delay at the border I think!) got us to our destination after a days travel.

Duration: 8 hours by bus.

8. Tokyo to Osaka, Japan (2004 & 2011) – The overnight bus is the cheapest way to get between these two big cities. I’ve taken it a few times and though it may save on a night’s accommodation it is not easy to sleep on it and so you arrive feeling very weary in the early hours of the morning.

Duration: 8 hours by bus.

7. Tokyo to Sōma, Japan (2018) – The trip that gave me a taste for long distance local train travel. Sendai was my actual resting place at the end of the day but I stopped off in Sōma beforehand which is about 60 kilometres south and located in Fukushima prefecture. All-in-all it took about eight hours with trains being changed at Ikebukuro, Utsunomiya, Koriyama, Fukushima and Iwanuma.

Duration: 8 hours by local trains.

6. Hanoi to Sapa, Vietnam (2013) – A long night train between Hanoi and Lao Cai was followed by a very winding one hour bus ride until we finally reached our terminus. Together with two locals we shared a four-person cabin, and my wife was disgusted by the toilets but I can remember very little about this experience. The bus part was rather brutal and I’m sure my wife was sick!

Duration: 9 hours by train and one hour by bus.

5. Tunis to Tozeur, Tunisia (2009) – It was quite the start to my maiden African adventure on my arrival into Tunis on my birthday in the north of the country where I immediately set out on what should’ve been a seven hour bus ride down to Tozeur. The bus was 40 minutes late to start with but generally all was going fairly well until it broke down. What followed was a wait of two hours by the road in the middle of nowhere in temperatures over 40 degrees celsius until a replacement bus arrived. We were still five hours from Tozeur at this point but amazingly that then broke down too four hours later. The wait for the third bus was about 40 minutes and that did get us all to our destination. More details here.

The first bus that broke down!

Duration: 9.5 hours by bus.

4. Melbourne to Sydney, Australia (2001) – Absolutely nothing of note happened on this bus journey between Australia’s two biggest cities. I did this journey three times and it was fairly smooth and comfortable with very little of interest to be seen outside of the window, and that includes the capital city Canberra which was the midway point!

Duration: 12 hours by bus.

3. Zagreb to Dubrovnik, Croatia (2010) – I left Zagreb at 9:30 pm and was lucky enough to be in a cabin with just one other person which meant that we could have three seats each and get a fair bit of sleep during the eight hour journey. On arrival in Split I went next door to the bus station and took a fairly immediate bus down to Dubrovnik which pulled in at about 11:00 am having travelled through some stunning coastal scenery on the Adriatic coast albeit with a quite rude Polish guy constantly leaning across me to take  photos through the window.

Duration: 13.5 hours by train and bus.

2. Tokyo to Hiroshima, Japan (2019) – A challenge that I really wanted to do thanks to the Seishun 18 pass which allows any five days of travel on local trains for less than 2500 yen per day. The day began at my local station just after 5:00 am and changes followed in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, Atami, Shizuoka, Hamamatsu, Toyohashi, Ogaki, Maibara, Himeji, Aioi, Itozaki before I finally arrived in my destination shortly after 9:00 pm. More details here.

Duration: 16 hours by local trains.

1. Cairns to Darwin, Australia (2001) – More than double the length of #2. By far the longest I’ve ever done and an absolutely mammoth journey. We left Cairns Transit Centre at 1:00 am and arrived at around 5:00 pm the following day so it was basically two nights on the bus. There were changes of bus in Townsville about five hours after setting off and then again at 3:00 am the next day in Mount Isa. There were a couple of stops at Tennant Creek and Katherine. I was on this trip with my mate Andy but he moved from alongside me to get an empty seat down the back. However, someone got on next to him and so I actually had two seats to myself for the majority of the journey. I cannot remember how I spent the time on board but a mix of sleeping, reading, listening to music and watching the films shown on the bus are the likely activities!

Duration: 41 hours by bus.

Click here to read ‘From Tokyo To Hiroshima By Local Trains For Just ¥2370 (£17/$21)’

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