The best bus journeys in Europe & the UK

The bus goes where railways cannot: along coastal roads with the sea hundreds of metres below, through villages where the main stop is the post office, over Alpine passes that no train could cross, and circling expansive lochs lined with trees. It follows the old road, the one that was there before the motorway or the railway tunnel and the passengers are a mix of tourists, schoolchildren, commuters and people with shopping bags. It costs almost nothing, and the views from the window make up for the sometimes bumpy ride.

Below, we celebrate this unsung overland ride through our favourite routes in the UK and Europe, from the Yorkshire coast to the Amalfi Coast, the Cairngorms to the Central Swiss Alps. Think of this as your field guide to the best of them. Make sure to grab the window seat.

Best buses in the UK

The Land's End Coaster: Penzance to Land’s End (circular)

Philip Auld

The Land's End Coaster, operated by Transport for Cornwall, takes the narrow coastal lanes rather than the main road. Running clockwise in a loop from Penzance through Newlyn, Porthcurno, Land's End, Sennen, St Just, St Ives, and back via Marazion, the route is open-top in summer, and the upper deck puts you level with the hedgerows, looking straight down granite cliffs into the Atlantic. The Minack Theatre sits cut into the rock above Porthcurno beach, an open-air amphitheatre that’s worth a visit even if there’s no performance on. 

Along Cornwall's Tin Coast, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the disused engine houses of Geevor and Levant are monuments to the mining culture which shaped this peninsula for centuries. At Sennen, the Atlantic swells that roll in off the open ocean make it one of Cornwall's best surf beaches, and even from the bus you can watch the line-ups forming below. Near Marazion, St Michael's Mount appears across the bay, a tidal island topped with a medieval castle and chapel that you can walk to at low tide. With a day ticket, you can step off and back on at any point, and Penzance connects to the main line from London Paddington and the Night Riviera sleeper.

Take a trip to Penzance by Night Riviera for a day trip on the Land’s End Coaster.

Citylink 915/916: Fort William to Portree, Isle of Skye

David Becker

What makes this one of the greatest coach journeys in Britain is the variety of Highland terrain covered in three hours. From Fort William, the Scottish Citylink service heads north along the Great Glen, following Loch Lochy (dark, narrow, hemmed in by forest) and Loch Garry, before the road swings west towards the coast. Near Dornie, Eilean Donan Castle, on its tidal island at the meeting point of three lochs, is one of the most photographed buildings in Scotland. The Five Sisters of Kintail rise to the south, a line of sharp peaks considered one of Scotland's best ridge walks. 

After Kyle of Lochalsh, the Skye Bridge carries you onto the island. From Broadford, the road follows the coast north with the Red Cuillin on your left and the island of Raasay visible across the water, where a ferry runs from Sconser. At Sligachan, the old stone bridge frames the Black Cuillin ridge behind it. Further north, if the weather is clear, the Old Man of Storr is visible in the distance, a basalt pinnacle standing apart from the cliff face on the Trotternish ridge. The bus pulls into Somerled Square in Portree, the island's main town, where the harbour below is lined with brightly painted buildings and the hills surround the bay. Once you alight, head straight to Birch for your caffeine fix with minimalist interiors, in-house roasts and topped sourdough toasts or homemade focaccia. If you start from Glasgow, the full run takes six to seven hours and includes Loch Lomond and Glencoe in the first half. 

Combine the West Highland Line by Caledonian Sleeper and Skye on this trip by bus and train.

Bus 555: Kendal to Keswick

JOGphotos

The 555 has been running the length of the Lake District since 1925, and the reason to take the Stagecoach bus is simple: the top deck. From the market town of Kendal (famous for its mint cake, carried by Hillary on Everest), the bus heads north into the national park. Windermere, England's longest lake, appears and vanishes through oaks and birches along the eastern shore. At Ambleside, a small town packed with outdoor gear shops and walkers refuelling in cafes, the view up the Langdale valley reveals some of the Lake District's most recognisable peaks, including the Langdale Pikes. The bus climbs through Rydal, where Wordsworth lived for nearly 40 years at Rydal Mount, and into Grasmere, the village he made famous. The Grasmere Gingerbread Shop has been selling the same recipe from a stone cottage beside the churchyard since 1854.

From Grasmere, the road climbs over Dunmail Raise, a high pass between the valleys that marks the old boundary between the counties of Westmorland and Cumberland. On the far side, the reservoir of Thirlmere stretches out below, the flat-topped bulk of Blencathra (one of the Lake District's most walked mountains) fills the view ahead, and the wooded slopes around Derwent Water come into sight as you descend into Keswick, a slate-built town on the northern shore of the lake that serves as the base for walkers heading into the surrounding fells. By the end, you have passed four lakes, with the fifth just around the corner.

Travel through the Dales and Lakes by train and bus, taking the 555 between Windermere and Keswick.

Bus 402: Coleraine to Ballycastle

Raja Vijaya Ch

The Translink 402 follows the north Antrim coastline in Northern Ireland from the railway town of Coleraine to the harbour village of Ballycastle, and the height of the bus on the clifftop roads lets you look out over the geology as you go. Taking about an hour, the route passes through Bushmills, home to the Old Bushmills Distillery, which has held a licence to distil whiskey since 1608 and offers tours and tastings. From here, the bus skirts the clifftop approach to the Giant's Causeway, where around 40,000 interlocking basalt columns step down from the cliff face into the sea, formed by volcanic activity 60 million years ago and steeped in folklore. The coast beyond is a run of basalt cliffs cut by white limestone bands, with the sea below.

On a clear day, the Mull of Kintyre in Scotland is visible across the water, and ahead, Rathlin Island sits six miles offshore, an L-shaped island of 150 residents with an RSPB seabird centre at its western tip where thousands of puffins nest between April and July. The ferry from Ballycastle takes 25 minutes.

Explore Northern Ireland by train with a stay in Coleraine to take the 402.

Bus 201: Aberdeen to Ballater

Milada Vigerova

Aberdeenshire is known as Castle Country, and the Stagecoach 201 is one of the best ways to discover why. The bus follows the River Dee westward from Aberdeen into Royal Deeside, through riverside villages, forested slopes, and into the foothills of the Cairngorms. Leaving the Granite City, the road passes through farmland and mixed woodland alongside the river. The bus passes Crathes Castle, a 16th-century tower house built by the Burnett family on land granted by Robert the Bruce, known for its painted ceilings and walled gardens. At Milton of Crathes, just opposite the castle entrance, you can pick up the Royal Deeside Railway, a heritage line running steam and diesel services along a stretch of the old Deeside Line that once connected Aberdeen to Ballater. The market town of Banchory, known locally as the gateway to Royal Deeside, sits at the point where the Dee valley begins to narrow and the hills steepen. Beyond Banchory, birch and pine replace farmland, and after Aboyne, the first Cairngorm peaks come into view.

Ballater, with its Victorian shop fronts and royal warrants displayed above the doors, has a restored railway station (closed under Beeching in 1966) that now houses the Rothesay Rooms, a cafe and dining room using local Deeside produce. The service continues less frequently to Braemar, passing Balmoral Castle on the way. Balmoral has been the private Highland residence of the royal family since Prince Albert bought the estate in 1852, and Queen Victoria described it as her "dear paradise in the Highlands." The bus stops on the road beside it.

Travel north on this trip to Aberdeen by train with a break in Ballater by bus.

Best buses in Europe

SITA Sud: Sorrento to Amalfi, Italy

Antonio Sessa

The SITA service from Sorrento to Amalfi in Italy takes the SS163, a single carriageway cut into the cliff above the Tyrrhenian Sea. It twists through Positano, a former fishing village turned resort where pastel-coloured houses stack down the hillside to a grey pebble beach, and on through Praiano before crossing the bridge over the Fiordo di Furore, a narrow cleft in the coastline where a tiny beach sits 30 metres beneath the road between sheer rock walls. Terraced lemon groves line the hillside and fishing boats sit moored in coves at the water's edge, with the island of Capri visible offshore on clear days. Amalfi itself was once the capital of a powerful maritime republic, and the cathedral, rebuilt in the 19th century in Arab-Norman style with striped marble and glittering mosaics, stands at the top of a steep staircase overlooking the main piazza. 

The bus horn sounds at every blind bend as the driver squeezes past oncoming coaches on a road that is rarely wider than two vehicles. Sit on the right-hand side heading south for the sea views. One thing to know: you cannot buy tickets on the bus. Pick them up beforehand from a tabaccheria, a newsagent, or any bar with a SITA sticker in the window. A 24-hour CostieraSita pass (€10) covers unlimited rides between all the coast's towns and saves the hassle of buying singles each time.

Discover Italy and the Amalfi Coast by bus (and train).

RATP Bus 69: Champ de Mars to Gambetta, Paris

Skip the tourist sightseeing bus. Bus 69 is a regular Parisian commuter service  on the RATP network with no commentary, no upper deck and no frills, and yet it threads through a concentration of landmarks that any hop-on-hop-off company would charge €40 to show you. Starting at the Champ de Mars beneath the Eiffel Tower, it heads east along Rue Saint-Dominique, a street of independent food shops and bakeries in the 7th arrondissement. Hop off here and duck into Le Moulin de la Vierge at number 64, a bakery with an Art Nouveau shopfront and one of the last wood-fired ovens in Paris. 

Back on the bus, you pass Les Invalides, the 17th-century military hospital complex where Napoleon is buried beneath a gilded dome, then cross the Seine at the Pont Royal with the Louvre appearing to your right. The bus continues through the Marais, one of the oldest quarters of Paris, where medieval townhouses sit alongside Jewish bakeries and independent galleries, and around the Place de la Bastille, where the fortress-prison was stormed in 1789. The terminus is at Gambetta, near Père Lachaise cemetery, where Oscar Wilde, Édith Piaf, Jim Morrison, and Chopin are all buried within walking distance of each other. You ride through working Paris, pausing at traffic lights beside café terraces and glimpsing courtyards through open gates. Board at the Champ de Mars terminus if you want a seat, as the bus fills up fast once it gets going.

A short break to Paris by train, and explore on the 69. 

Swiss PostBus: The Central Alps Passes Route

Robert Bye

The roads over these passes are too steep and too narrow for a railway, which is why the PostBus has been running them since the horse-drawn mail coach era. The Central Alps Passes route is the longest and most demanding of its services, a circular journey covering four high Alpine passes in a single day: the Grimsel, where the road runs between glacial reservoirs dammed into the mountainside; the Nufenen, Switzerland's highest road pass at 2,478 metres; the Gotthard, which has connected the German-speaking north to the Italian-speaking south since the Middle Ages; and the Susten, where the bus stops within view of the Steingletscher, one of the few glaciers in the Alps you can see from the road without leaving your seat.

The full loop starts and finishes in Meiringen, takes eight hours and 46 minutes, climbs over 10,000 metres of cumulative altitude, and crosses four cantonal borders. Shorter three-pass loops start from Andermatt or Airolo for those with less time. The scenery is above the treeline for much of it: glacial reservoirs, sheer rock faces, and on the southern descent of the Gotthard, the Tremola, a granite-paved carriage road built in the 1820s with 24 named bends, now preserved as Switzerland's longest architectural monument. The driver sounds the traditional three-note PostBus horn (which predates the engine) at blind corners. The Swiss Travel Pass covers the full route. Meiringen is reachable by train from Interlaken or Lucerne on the GoldenPass line, and Andermatt sits on the Glacier Express route between Zermatt and St Moritz, so the PostBus loop slots neatly into a longer Swiss rail itinerary.

Travel to Switzerland via the Glacier Express route for a day trip on the PostBus.

BVG Bus 100: Zoologischer Garten to Alexanderplatz, Berlin

Christian Ladewig

Berlin's BVG Bus 100 was created after reunification as the first route to link the former West and East. Starting at Zoo station in what was West Berlin, the double-decker passes the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, its bombed-out spire deliberately left unrepaired as a monument to the war. From there it cuts through the Tiergarten, the city's vast central park (bigger than Hyde Park, once a royal hunting ground), and passes the Victory Column, a 67-metre golden-topped monument to 19th-century Prussian military victories, and Bellevue Palace, the official residence of the German president. Then comes the Reichstag, the German parliament building, topped with Norman Foster's glass dome which you can visit for free if you book ahead.

The bus turns onto Unter den Linden, Berlin's grand boulevard lined with linden trees, and you cross into what was the East. The Brandenburg Gate, the 18th-century neoclassical arch that stood directly on the Berlin Wall, appears first. Then the State Opera, Humboldt University (where Einstein once taught), and Museum Island, a cluster of five world-class museums on an island in the River Spree. The Neues Museum is the one to visit here: the Egyptian collection includes the bust of Nefertiti (book a time slot ahead). Finally, Alexanderplatz with its Television Tower, the tallest structure in Germany, built by the GDR in the 1960s as a symbol of socialist modernity. The whole journey takes about 30 minutes and a standard BVG AB zone ticket costs €3.50, with a view from the upper deck that any hop-on-hop-off company charges ten times the price for. You can also combine it with Bus 200, which goes via Potsdamer Platz and Checkpoint Charlie, for a full sweep of the city's sights.

Journey to Germany by train for a stay in Berlin, and hop on Bus 100 to explore.

FlixBus: Zagreb to Sarajevo

Damien Dan

Six and a half to eight hours, one international border crossing, and a landscape that shifts from Central European flatland to Bosnian mountain gorge. The FlixBus from Zagreb in Croatia to Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, is a long ride. The Croatian section rolls through the Slavonian plains towards the Sava River crossing at Gradiška, where passports are checked on the bus. Once in Bosnia, the road climbs into forested hills and river valleys before reaching the section that makes the journey worth the amount of time it takes. 

At Jajce, the former capital of the medieval Bosnian Kingdom, a 21-metre waterfall drops from the centre of the town itself, right where the Pliva river meets the Vrbas. Above it, the 14th-century fortress where Bosnia's last king was crowned still stands on its hilltop, and the walled old town is a mix of medieval gates, Ottoman mosques, and underground catacombs carved into the rock. Travnik, a little further on, was the seat of the Ottoman viziers who governed Bosnia for over a century, and its fortress looks down on a town of wooden mosques, clock towers, and the Plava Voda spring, where locals fill bottles from the source. From here the road winds through increasingly mountainous terrain before descending into the Sarajevo valley, the city appearing below you ringed by hills, its minarets, church spires, and Austro-Hungarian facades packed tightly into the narrow valley of the Miljacka river. FlixBus operates up to four departures daily from Zagreb's main bus station, and overnight departures are available for those who'd prefer to take in the Bosnian views in the early morning light.

Explore Bosnia and Herzegovina by bus and train.

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