Types of Transportation to Use to Travel the World

Whether you use buses, trains, or have to take a short flight, all depends on where you are.  In Western Europe the best option is trains, in Eastern Europe you take buses, in Southeast Asia I took buses, and in India I also took buses more often because trains were either really packed and uncomfortable or hard to get a ticket for.  For instance, when I was trying to get from southern India up to New Dehli in northern India, I was naïve in thinking that I would easily be able to get a train ticket. Wrong!  Those train tickets required over half a year application in advance and a long wait list.  The train also would have taken over a day to get from one city to the other.  I then chose to take a short flight which was a much better choice.  The train ticket would’ve cost nearly the same as the flight anyways.

When booking a bus to another city or country, I either go directly to the bus station and ask about bus times and prices and book from there or I use a bus agency to book it for me.  I did that mainly in Southeast Asia and India but, I made sure to walk around town to various agencies and compared prices.  You can sometime negotiate by telling them the price that another agency offered you.  But, you must always be cautious of a scam.  I know from experience.  I booked a bus ticket from Bangkok, Thailand to Siem Reip, Cambodia.  This bus was meant to get me all the way across the border into the town of Siem Reip.  Keep in mind that the agency is usually a third-party company and not directly associated with the bus companies being used.  I missed my scheduled bus the first day because I was extremely sick with a cold but the agency was kind enough not to charge me for a new ticket and just rescheduled me for the next day.  The bus driver was shady from the beginning.  It was just a Russian couple and I who were booked on this bus and the driver tried from the beginning to get us to prepay for our Cambodian visas but we were persistent on paying at the border.  He of course called us stupid and drove us to a shuttle.  The shuttle driver drove dangerously fast for over 2 hours, stopping twice along the way for restroom and food breaks.  The Russian guy on the bus kept asking the driver to slow down and that it wasn’t safe to drive that fast.  It is known that many tourists die each year in deadly bus accidents.  The drive was scary.  We then arrived at another small agency somewhere nearby the border and were greeted by a young guy.  The guy asked for our tickets and also wanted us to pay for our visas.  After telling him no and that we wanted to pay at the border, he got mad at walked away from us.  I told him to give us our tickets back and asked if I could take a photo of his ID badge because he kept saying that we needed to pay him because he was going to be on the other side of the border to pick us back up.  He got mad at me, called us stupid, hid his badge, threw our bus tickets back at us, and told us which direction the border was at.  Well, thankfully the Russian guy knew what the official office looked like because that other guy was completely wrong and tried sending us in the direction of another border scam. 

After crossing the border, the Russian couple realized that they forgot their laptop at their hotel in Bangkok and they quickly got off of the shuttle bus taking everyone into town.   I then was the only person left with that type of bus ticket.  Most commonly used in Thailand for bus companies and tour agencies is the sticker system. This means that everyone with each specific agency wears a certain color sticker.  It’s just an easy way for them to keep track of everyone.  But, my shady bus company didn’t provide any stickers, just a cheap hand-written sketchy ticket.  When we then got to the main bus station near Siem Reip, we needed to wait in our groups for the correct bus to take us into town.  I showed my ticket and asked the office officials if they knew where I should wait for my bus and each one would look at my ticket with confusion and then told me to go sit “over there and wait a minute”.  As groups of people were leaving on their designated buses, I sat there where various officials would come to me and ask me questions regarding where I got my ticket or any information I knew about the bus company or the agency where I bought the ticket.  Unfortunately, I did not take any notes or photos of the agency or their phone number but I did remember that they were directly across from the hostel that I stayed at in Bangkok.  I had the phone number and name the hostel so I had the guy call the hostel and ask them to look across the street at the agency.  I’m not sure what happened but they were not able to contact the agency?  I was really starting to get worried because it was getting dark out and late.  The officials kept saying “we don’t’ know” and asking me “how can we help?”.  I was so confused about it all.  Then they told me that the bus sitting outside was the last bus that night going into the town of Siem Reip and that I had to purchase a new ticket to get on it.  I was angry but I had no choice.  I finally go into town and to my hostel.  I made a nice friend along the way on that bus who I spent Christmas day at Angkor Wat at so it all worked out but, when I later got back to Bangkok, I returned to that agency and told the lady what happened.  She apologized and said that they are just a third-party and don’t have anything to do with the bus companies themselves and she gave me a partial refund (partial because they had to reschedule my bus because I was sick and missed it the first day).  Overall, it’s important to just be cautious, ask around about what agencies others used, and know that it will all work out in the end and not to let it discourage you.

I've also taken many ferries.  Ferries are usually a cheap way to travel.  I took an overnight ferry from the south of Ireland to France.  I also took many short-trip ferries traveling in Costa Rica and the Philippines.  

 Tips: 

*I’d suggest emailing your hotels and asking if they offer airport pickup/drop

off for a fee.  This is best when you are arriving late at night or super early

in the morning.  If they don’t, then ask them what they suggest that you do.

*Cabs will cost a good amount so try to use them as a last resort.  Look up

public transportation like the metro trains to see if they stop near your hotel.

*Its super simple to go to the  train station and purchase a round trip ticket to go explore another city for a day and then return to your hostel in another country or city.

*People may suggest that you take a cab somewhere because they’ll

think it’s too far to walk but, I walked around in every city I went to and

everything was walkable. It’s a great way to save money and to see more stuff.

*if you don't think you'd want to walk everywhere, check to see how much a

Bus or metro pass is. It will cost less than cabs of course.