TripperBus to NYC

NYC is roughly a four hours drive from DC so you'd think it'd be pretty easy to do a weekend trip. Au contraire, mon frere! Traffic at every point on the way to NYC - the beltway, around Baltimore, the NJ Turnpike, and tunnel entrances - is horrendous. Driving in the city is probably a nightmare if you're not used to it. Parking is a whole other story. The cost of driving to NYC is not cheap either. It'll probably cost you a tank or two of gas, crap loads in tolls, and about $30 a day in parking. So when I let a friend talk me into meeting up with her in NYC, I looked into alternative ways to get to NYC.

My first choice was to take Amtrak. From Union Station to Penn Station, the ride would be absolutely traffic free.  Unfortunately, Amtrak charges a ridiculous $250 for a round-trip ticket.  You could get that to under $200 if you travel at ridiculous hours, like middle of the night.  Well, that didn't save me anything except the drive so I decided to look into the buses.

I first heard about the Chinatown buses a while back from a visitor who was looking for a cheap way to get to NYC.  Well, a quick search online turned up all kinds of choices.  Apparently these Chinatown buses got so popular that competition started popping up everywhere.  These days the standard seem to be proper coach buses with A/C & toilet, as well as free wi-fi.  Prices generally range from $20-30 one way.  There were so many options to choose from though, and I had no idea which bus to use.  There's Bolt Bus, MegaBus, Vamoose, DC2NY, Greyhound, and probably a few others.  BoltBus seemed to be the popular choice but was sold out for departure times I wanted.  MegaBus had some bad reviews.  DC2NY advertises itslef as a "luxury" bus but I couldn't really tell what it offered that other buses didn't.  Greyhound seemed like a good deal if you book online, but they wouldn't guarantee that you'll get on one of the nice new buses they are introducing (and I have an image of their older fleet of buses being ghetto) on DC to NY trips (& it wasn't clear if the new ones ran from NY to DC).  Vamoose almost looked like a really good option with good reviews and departure point in Virginia (more convenient for me).  But then I found TripperBus, which seemed to offer exactly the same for $10 cheaper. 

I was able to book my tickets the day before my Friday departure, so I was very surprised to see that it was a full bus there and back.  These buses must be very popular.  Getting on at Arlington had its advantages, since you get your pick of the seats.  It's been a while since I've ridden in one of these buses, and they were about as comfortable as an economy seat on a plane (i.e. not very).  For $25 (one-way) though, you can't complain.  They gave you a bottle of water, which is good to keep you from dehydrating.  However, a pit stop doesn't seem to be guaranteed.  If there is one, it is 10 minutes.  If you're a woman, you need to rush off so that you don't get stuck at the end of a long line that forms at the lady's room.  So at the pit stop, you have a choice to pee or buy food, not both.  These bus drivers don't seem too keen on waiting for people too.  The driver on the way back acted like he was about to take off with a missing passenger but the lucky person got on in the nick of time.

Another thing about these buses is that they are probably never on time.  Buses aren't immune to traffic, yet they never seem to take it into account for their schedules.  They seem to leave on time (unless there's a problem with the bus), but my bus arrived in NYC 1.5 hours late, and arrived back in DC 30 minutes late.  The metro and/or cab rides on both ends also adds to the commute time. 
 
All in all, I wouldn't say it was a very comfortable trip.  Going in your car would probably be more convenient and comfortable.  However, the drive is probably more like 5-6 hours with traffic, and driving in traffic is no fun.  There's also significant savings with the bus, too.  Driving would have cost me over $100 if I include $60 for 2 days of parking.  The bus trip was $50.  Since riding the bus is not any better or worse comfort wise than driving, I would base any decision to take the bus on the cost factor.  If there's many of you in a car and it's cheaper or about the same to drive, I say drive.  Otherwise, these buses aren't a bad deal at all and I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for cheap ways of getting to NYC.