Hacking Greyhound: How To Survive Your Bus Ride, In Style!

by Ryan Vagabundo

Greyhound sucks. The buses are overcrowded and dingy. The stations are like a combination of prison visiting room and homeless shelter lobby. The staff hates their jobs and usually everyone on Earth to boot. A few years ago, they installed less comfortable leather seats on the buses, which were at least clean ... but now after a few years of their standard lack of cleaning corners and crevices, the buses are once again filthy as F and gross. Oh, and they're unreliable too.

Tragically, at least in the United States, they have a virtual monopoly on certain routes and stops. There are some places you just can't get to using public transportation unless you use Greyhound. And though the prices aren't always cheap anymore, sometimes it's relatively affordable emergency shelter in a pinch.

I've ended up having to take quite a few trips on the Big Grey Dog in recent years ... turn my misery into your advantage with this handy guide to making Greyhound as stress-free as possible.

1) The Cheapest Fares Are Always Online (And Well In Advance)

You always get the best possible price through Greyhound.com. They'll gouge you on walk-ups and through those little ticket kiosks at the station. It's a non-refundable fare, but it's often 1/4 to 1/3 of what they're charging walk-ups, and you can change it up to the final 24 hours for a $10 fee.

Greyhound also implemented "surge pricing" a few years back. That means, the more tickets are sold on a particular schedule, the more the price goes up. So you want to book as early as possible, especially on holidays or a high-traffic route.

You don't necessarily need to have a credit card to book online, either. You can choose the "will call" option to pay at the station with cash, and you may be able to pick the tickets up with cash at a nearby 7-11 or ACE Cash Express. The only hink here is that I don't always see this listed as an option on certain routes, and I don't have any idea what the criteria is for it to be offered or not. If you don't have a credit card, don't immediately write it off, however - it's worth a look to see if buying online at the discount price is an option with "will call."

2) Sign Up For Their Rewards Program, And Look Into Discounts

The value of Greyhound's rewards program varies depending on how often you take trips and how long they are. The basic deal is that for every 16 tickets you buy (round-trips count as 2) you get a free round trip anywhere. There are also some milestone discounts like 15% and 20% off a ticket along the way to the 16 trip threshold.

Since every trip is counted the same, regardless of distance or cost, this benefits you way more if you take shorter, cheaper trips on the heavily discounted "hub to hub" routes. For example, the $8 ticket from San Francisco to Sacramento or LA to San Diego is just as much one "trip" as a journey from Nebraska to New York. You could probably even arbitrage your way to a cross-country ticket at a discount this way (paying like $150 total for the shorter trips instead of the normal $300+ for a trip that long) ... that is if you can survive three days non-stop on a Greyhound bus.

The reward program is usually worth signing up for anyway, unless you plan to take so few trips in a year you won't even reach the first useful threshold (usually a 15% discount or the free companion ticket). Just be aware that all the trips you've accumulated expire on your sign-up date. So if you sign up on July 1, you have from July 1 - July 1 12-month period to get 16 trips in, or you lose them all for the next year.

Also, look at the various discount partners they have to see if one that you qualify for and that makes sense for you to sign up for. Most of them, like Veterans or Students Advantage, require you to pay an annual fee to be part of the program, but that fee is often a good investment if you travel enough to recoup it (and then some) each year. These organizations offer up to a 20% discount on every ticket, and discounted tickets still count toward the reward program.

3) Have An Emergency Plan

So you got your ticket all squared away online? Well, you're not entirely safe yet.

Greyhound has very little in the way of redundancy measures for emergencies. If a driver no-shows for their shift, or a bus en route to your station for pickup breaks down somewhere, very rarely do they get a new driver or send a new bus. Their usual solution is to just make you wait for an opening on the next available schedule ... which could be 8-10 hours away or in the morning at a station that doesn't stay open overnight.

This is just a reality of Greyhound you have to accept and prep for. If you're taking a long trip, find out if the stations along your route are open 24 hours. If they aren't, and Greyhound sticks you in a city overnight with no other recourse, they DO have a voucher program for nearby hotels in some cases ... but you have to be REALLY aggro about it and insist that the staff give you one, they will almost never volunteer this information on their own and take initiative to check on passengers. They would rather just make a garbled announcement over the loudspeaker and hope you wander out into the hobo night and be as little hassle/expense to them as possible, you have to be prepared to demand they treat you fairly when they fuck up (and make sure things get squared away before the station closes or you are screwed). If you're stuck at a 24 hour station they generally refuse to give vouchers, unless you can show you have a medical condition that makes it dangerous to spend the night in a chair at the bus station.

Another thing to check for is possible inclement weather along your route. Greyhound can and will shut routes down at the first sign of snow and ice. A notorious place for this is the mountain pass between Sacramento and Reno, which they'll cancel routes for even when the authorities haven't yet closed the pass to tall vehicles.

4) Know The Station Etiquette

The biggest thing about stations is to understand how the lines to board the bus work.

The "old school" informal system was to find out what door your bus is departing from, then put a piece of luggage or some other object in line to mark your place. Boarding was typically first come - first served.

Greyhound instituted a "priority boarding" system a few years back that was supposed to put an end to that. Basically, you get a number on your ticket, and they are supposed to call these boarding numbers to keep things orderly. However, most stations still don't bother doing this, and still use the old "mark your place in line" system, so come expecting to do that.

Even if they do use boarding numbers, they don't call each individual number. They have three lines, usually in intervals of 15. It still goes first-come first-served for each of these lines, though. And you'll usually notice 35 people in the 1-15 line because a lot of people like to play the "I'm confused" / "No English" card and act like they can't read basic-ass signs.

The main thing that varies from station to station is the security practices and their policies on sleeping in chairs / being on the floor. These policies can change on a dime at individual stations.

Most have no security, except for maybe a chokepoint to check tickets before getting into the waiting area in cities where the local homebums would bomb the station out 24/7 otherwise (places like LA, San Francisco and Vegas). A few years ago, some stations were wanding people and even tossing bags just to get in, but I think mass customer complaint backed them off of that. The only one I still know of that wands is Salt Lake City, but they don't do it until you are in the boarding line, and I'm fairly certain the wand is just for show as I had hell of metal in my bag and it didn't go off for me or anyone else.

Each Greyhound station is also individually managed and can set their own security / sleeping policies, so don't count on anything at one station being true at another, or for one station to be the same as it was a few months ago when you were last there.

5) Sleeping On The Buses - Not A Reliable Strategy

So you might be thinking, "I'll roll my travel and shelter costs into one and sleep on a bus overnight!"

Yeah, nice strategy on paper, not so much in actual reality.

Greyhound buses are frequently jammed to the hilt, and not with passengers you want to go unconscious around. They're basically the only transportation service used by prisons and county jails releasing inmates, and homeless charities doing a "Homeward Bound" or other type of emergency ticket. They're also the favored transport of pimps, prostitutes and drug dealers as in most areas they do not search or sniff luggage.

Unfortunately, the highest concentration of Sketch is always on the overnight routes, and there's also tons of people who are on meth (or just stupid) and opt to stay up all night being noisy assholes. Overnight sleeping is viable on other types of buses, Amtrak and planes ... relying on it on Greyhound is a major rookie mistake, however.

If you are on a bus that isn't full and don't mind the smell (or can sleep with your nose plugged), the best strategy is to get the lone three-seater that is at the far back right next to the bathroom so you can lay out. You need to be a REAL heavy sleeper though, as people will be parading back there to drink and do drugs all night in addition to popping squats, and also the shadiest and most obnoxious MFers always seem to gravitate to the far back to avoid the driver's attention.

6) Sleeping At Stations - Actually A Somewhat More Reliable Strategy

Just about every station allows sleeping. The only one I've seen where they wake up ticketed passengers overnight is Vegas. They might periodically ticket-check people, but generally if you have a ticket you can enter whenever you want and crash out as long as you want. Many of them allow you to stretch out across a row of benches or on the floor too. Though far from comfortable they are actually pretty reliable places to catch some emergency Z's, just use standard op-sec and don't leave anything valuable out in easy grabbing distance as they are frequently prowled by beggin' / snatchin' homebums.

Definitely bring some kind of padding for your hips and shoulders, as their standard metal chairs are even harder on your body than the floors. Preferably something light and small you can quickly fold up. Also some kind of a small travel pillow helps, I like to bring one to put on top of a neck pillow, which makes for a very comfy headrest in any situation.

7) Want A Power Outlet On The Bus? They're In The Back Half

Some buses have outlets in the front seats, but the majority don't have outlets until you get past the removable wheelchair seats (about six rows back).

8) Boarding Number =/= Seating Number

Every trip I see at least a couple people slumming it who think the bus works like the airplane - i.e. the number printed on your ticket is your seat number. Nope. There's no assigned seating on any Greyhound schedules, you sit where you want. That number is just for boarding, though Greyhound doesn't help the confusion by rarely actually using it for its intended purpose.

Anyway, that's why it's important to get there early and stake your place out at the head of the line.

9) Bring A Surgical Mask

Pick up a pack of those basic surgical masks people wear out in public when they are sick.

This serves two purposes. First, it won't help you on a completely full bus. But on a bus that's mostly full, a lot of people will take a pass on sitting next to you when they see that thing.

Second, even if it doesn't help you get a full seat to yourself, it'll protect you from all the people who are actually sick on the bus. I caught the worst flu I ever had in my life from Greyhound a couple years ago. It was a packed-full bus and the lady behind me just kept hacking away for hours without covering her mouth. Not surprisingly, two days later I had a sore throat and the sniffles. But then it developed into a knock-down drag-out flu that laid me up for three days straight, and screwed up my travel plans costing me a bunch of extra money. Since then? I always at least have one surgical mask tucked into my bag somewhere in a plastic ziploc bag.

10) Freeze Your Bowels, Bring Some Emergency TP

Long trip? Few bathroom stops? Worried about getting the squirts?

First of all, bring some emergency TP. The bus toilets don't always have it, and even if they do it's usually gone quickly. I prefer tucking one of those small travel packs of facial tissue in my backpack.

If you're really worried about Wile Bowels, I suggest investing in some Loperamide. This is a common over-the-counter medication that stops diarrhea by basically stopping the peristaltic motion of your bowels for around eight hours. In other words, it pretty much just freezes the pipes up temporarily. Loperamide is the active ingredient in Imodium, but you can get the same thing for half-price with generics like Walmart's Equate brand.

11) Lost Luggage? Call The Previous Station Stops

So you get to your destination, look for your bag under the bus ... and its gone.

If you stopped at a staffed station en route, what most likely happened is the tag fell of your bag and they kept it there. At the regular Greyhound stations, they pull all the luggage off and look at it, as some of it is Package Express stuff that's staying there. If they find a bag without a tag, they hold it at that station instead of putting it back on. Call the stations you've passed, ask for someone who handles luggage in the back, and describe your bag to them. Odds are they'll have it, and once you explain the situation they'll forward it to the station closest to you for free.

12) Planes Aren't Always Expensive

A lot of extreme budget travelers always write off planes automatically as being too expensive. That isn't always true, though. There are a bunch of budget carriers that basically specialize in matching or beating Greyhound bus fares. Spirit and Frontier are the two most prominent around the United States, but there are also a bunch of smaller regional ones.

Flights one or two states over can be had for as little as $40 with many of these carriers. The only catch is, they only allow you to bring one small carry-on bag, and charge you like $30-50 for each additional bag. If you just have one bag or suitcase to check that can still work out to be better than the Greyhound trip, though. And even the budget carriers have "frequent flyer" programs, and once you get status in those you're usually allowed to bring more baggage for free.

13) Pack Food, Stations Rarely Have Much Around Them

Probably due mostly to restrictions on the streets that commercial buses can be on, Greyhound stations usually wind up in some oddball semi-industrial area with little in the way of food options around it. Few of their stations have in-house restaurants and when they do they are usually poor quality, expensive and not open overnight (LA is the only one I can think of offhand that has a 24 hour restaurant). Definitely bring enough food to subsist on for your trip, don't count it being available, or there being enough time to stand on line for it even if there is.

14) Sometimes Longer-Distance Tickets Are Cheaper Than Shorter Ones

So Greyhound has a weird system where booking a ticket between their main stations is often cheaper than booking to stops between them.

Here's an example. Say you're leaving Vegas and want to go to one of the points between there and LA - Barstow, Victorville, Riverside and so on. Booking directly to your city of choice when things aren't too busy usually costs $30+. Switch your destination to LA though, which puts you on the exact same bus with the same stops - and now it's $22.

If your destination isn't a major Greyhound station, look to see if there's one further down the line, and fiddle with switching to it (on the same schedule) to see if that gets you a cheaper ticket.

15) Be Nice To Drivers, Help Them If They Get Lost

Most of Greyhound's staff sucks. The one exception is the drivers. There are hundreds of them, so of course there are at least a few shitheads among them, but I've found the drivers are usually good peeps and the best part of the experience.

Some of them get shuffled around an awful lot, though, and may not be familiar with the current route - especially in the dark. Greyhound doesn't help the situation by forbidding any distractions in the cockpit, including GPS systems. And they're not supposed to ask passengers for help when they don't know what they're doing. So if a driver clearly seems lost, pipe up and let them know (politely).