I Took Europe’s Longest Bus Ride (5 Days)

I'm going to spend the next five days crossing nine different countries as I take the longest possible bus ride across Europe. My theory is that this is going to be a great way to explore the best of Europe quickly and cheaply. The reviews about this bus, however, would suggest I'm wrong, but we all know people only write reviews when they've had a bad experience, not a good one, so it can't be that bad, can it? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is our bus driver doing? What? The adventure starts here at Flixbus' most northern stop in the entire world, also home of Kris Kringle. It's Santa Claus's village. Given that it's September and this is Santa Claus's off-season, I think there's a real possibility he could be driving our bus. Anyway, let's go and get on that bus. Well, well, well, the bus is here and it's on time. All right, guys, I've got some good news and I've got some bad news. The good news, this bus is really clean. It's really nice, great bus. The bad news, Santa Claus isn't driving. I know. Gutted. Other surprising things, they are not messing about in terms of, you have to sit where you love to sit. Your seat, seat 10C. This is 10C. 10C is the back of the bus. This is not 10C. We're two stops in and there's drama. Imagine what's going to happen over these next five days. I then tried diffusing the situation with a bit of small talk with the bus driver. Nice bus, this. Oh, yeah, he just ignored me. Fair play. So the route over the next five days is split up into four different overnight buses, with this first one taking us from Santa Claus's village to the capital of Finland, Helsinki. All right, my fellow bus travelers, we've just pulled over for a quick stop, not to pick up snacks. It's just to pick up the different passengers. There's actually nowhere to get snacks here, which is, it's rough, you know? Anyway, what we're going to be testing now is the comfort of this bus. It's cited as one of the worst things about this bus. The seats just aren't comfortable. But one thing that's mentioned above all of those is the temperature on the bus. Apparently, there is insane amounts, so sometimes a bit too hot, sometimes a bit too cold. I'm going to test this. I hear you ask. We're just going to be sleeping on the bus tonight, and then in the morning, I'm going to give you a full comprehensive review. Initial impressions though, this bus is pretty comfortable. I can't believe my luck. This first bus seems to be the Rolls Royce of buses. I had more leg room than I knew what to do with, a socket, a USB-A and USB-C connections, working air conditioning, a reading light, and a footrest. Brilliant. But then you pair all of this with a neck pillow, earplugs, eye mask, and coat, and I found myself with what was honestly a surprisingly comfortable sleeping setup. We trundled on through the Finland countryside, which of course, you couldn't see any of it. So here's a video I took earlier in the day. Just look at the colours. What a cool place. Before finally drifting off to sleep. Bang! Did that scare you? I hope it did, because that's the exact feeling you get being woken up in the middle of the night on a bus. Welcome to day two of five, taking the longest possible Flixbus route across Europe. I'm trying to keep it down because people are still sleeping. I honestly woke up this morning and it felt like I was in a simulation. Anytime I wake up on a bus or a plane, I wake up, it's like, what? Where am I? What's happening? Anyway, how did I sleep? Honestly, I thought it was really comfortable on the bus. Definitely more comfortable than a plane. These seats, I think because I'm on a new bus, these seats are really, really comfortable. I didn't have a neighbour as well, so that helped. I had a lot more space. The air conditioning was good. Honestly, I slept pretty well. In terms of route, we're heading down to Helsinki, the capital of Finland now. Also, the happiest country in the world. There's just euphoria everywhere here. Helsinki is also where I'm going to be getting my second bus from, but I did have a couple of hours until then, which gave me time to stretch my legs and explore the city before it. Next stop, Harbour Terminal. Thank you very much, have a good day. Thank you. All right, bus number one complete. I'm going to tell you now about the secret mission for this entire trip. They're not only trying to find out if bus travel is a real alternative to plane travel, all the money that I saved from taking the bus instead of flying, I'm then going to be able to spend treating myself when I get to Lisbon. It's obviously going to be way cheaper taking the bus. Who knows? I could save hundreds of euros here and just be balling out when I get to Lisbon. Let's see. Hey, where did we go? Days when the rains came. Stay in the hollow. Look at this. Playing a new game. Hey, hey. Skipping and jumping. And you. We are so damn back. I just spent a bit of time going around Helsinki, the capital of Finland, and I just stretched my legs, which is what I'm going to need to do if I want to survive this five-day bus trip. But this is the big plus in my head about taking the bus as opposed to flying. You get to see the places that you're going through as you're going through it instead of flying over. This next bus I'm getting on is going to be chaos. We're going to be picking up passengers along the way, but I'm going to have a neighbor. I'm going to have people in front of me and behind me. It's going to be cozy. So it only makes sense to be testing one of the other things that people frequently complain about on this bus. It's not the staff. It's other passengers. Two noisy drunk passengers. Spoiled journey. I haven't seen so rude. I'm also going to be testing the amenities on the bus. Again, something that is frequently complained about. AC never works. Power never works. The toilet never works, apparently, according to reviews. I mean, the last bus had almost everything. Oh my word, it is looking busy. The atmosphere is absolutely kicking. Look at all these people about to get on this bus. We love buses. Hi. Where are you going? Is this one? That one? Yes. There's two buses. Nice. Okay. Thank you. All right. Here we go. Bus number two of four on this five day route. This is going to be taking us all the way to the capital of Poland. Let's go. Oh, sorry. I was just taking a picture. Oh, it's bad news already on this bus. Thankfully, I'm not in this seat, but the backrest doesn't work. That's not good for the amenities. All right. This reclining chair issue has annoyed the guy behind me that much. He's moved already. We've been on the road for two minutes. I am so sorry. I mean, it's not my fault, but I feel bad, you know? Oh, gosh. Me and the driver having a right bit of banter then when I was getting on the bus. I was telling him about how I used to be a bus driver as well, but then I got sacked for going the extra mile. All right. If you're confused right now, I completely understand. We had to get off the bus because now we've got to get an amphibious bus across the sea into the next country. An amphibious bus, more commonly known as a ferry. Don't get this on a plane. I capitalized being on a short ferry trip by booking myself a cabin so I could shower and lie down for a bit. It did eat into my budget, but it was worth it in my eyes. The ferry was a nice change of scenery as well. Before I knew it, I was reunited with the bus. The bus drivers psyched themselves up before we got back on the road. Right, here we go. We're back on the bus. Don't panic. It wasn't long. Welcome to country number two of this journey. Estonia. Fun fact about Estonia. It has the highest number of meteor strikes per land area of any country in the entire world. They also invented the most efficient wife carrying technique for wife carrying races. I have to be honest. Estonia is not somewhere I had on my bucket list, but it's a very clean and nice looking country. We continued on south at the capital of Estonia and it was now time to review the amenities. Oh, it's going from bad to worse. So this is my setup I've got. We're on a different bus, remember. Okay, we've got a nice tray table. Good amount of leg room once again. Charging, but lights don't work. Air conditioning doesn't work. The speaker button. Don't know what to do anyway, but it doesn't work. And then there's also a cafe button. Really got my hopes and dreams up and crushed them instantly when it doesn't work. Can you join me in the bathroom? You know what? The toilet works. That's why I can't complain. The toilet did work on every bus on this journey, but more often than not, the sink didn't. So overall, I'm just going to give Flixbus a pass for amenities. There is an absolute tsunami of people getting on this bus right now. It's about to get real cozy in here. I thought this was cool. It was an old bus parked next to a new bus. It was a nice evening in Estonia and we were making great progress. Mainly because Estonia is only a small country, but progress is progress. I just pulled over for a quick leg stretch. It is a party on this bus. This bus is filled to the raft as you probably see by the amount of people behind me. Saying how many people are on the bus, I think everyone is incredibly polite. There's young groups of mates. They're not making loads of noise. They're chatting quietly. The people on this bus are very polite. What's blowing my mind, though, is that this single bus that we're on is going to have taken us through five countries. But that does mean, as a result, we've got absolutely loads of stops tonight. They're going to be waking us up in the middle of the morning just like this. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Rigi Bus Station. We've got a 10-minute stop here. That's going to happen to me multiple times tonight. After that stop, however, the bus driver decided to go sicko mode. Our bus driver is absolutely losing his marbles here. This car in front is going so slow. Look how close we are to it. This is very important to remember for the next bus, though, when we're going to be reviewing the drivers. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is our bus driver doing? And even after passing that car, we then went through a monsoon. I was loving the chaos. I love a bit of drama, I do. First of all, I had a great neighbour for that stretch of the journey. Big up the Flixbus community. The driver was going a bit mental. We had some really heavy rain, and he was just sending it through these massive floods, basically. You know, it's just part of the job, mate. You've got to be on time, and we're not. We're delayed. We're 20 minutes late. As far as other passengers go, though, I think Flixbus is the one. Everyone's been really polite. I had a great neighbour for that stretch of the journey. People aren't playing, like, videos out loud on their phone. Conversations are quiet. I did well and truly jinx it here. After that stop, a bunch of new people were sat around me on the bus, and the couple in front would not stop talking. They were yapping all night. I did manage to get to sleep a bit, though, until I woke up at 2.45am to the guy searching around at my feet, looking for his phone. Yeah, his phone was in his pocket the whole time. It's fine. We've all been there. In terms of all the negative reviews about other passengers, despite that last interaction, I thought the people on Flixbus were great. And that's another review busted. Good morning, bus fans. We're in country number five of this journey, Poland. We went through Latvia and Lithuania overnight. I know, because we got woken up at border control in the very early hours of the morning, but that was okay. As we go through this trip as well, each leg is going to get slightly longer. This bus trip, all in all, has been 19 hours. The next one is going to be almost 24 hours. All in all, though, I am enjoying this experience. All right, brilliant. Thank you. There we go. Bus number two complete. Two more to go. As much is absolutely popping off here in Warsaw West bus station. I'm going to go out and see what I can do in just the short two hours I've got here. People stop and stare. I can't see their faces. Only the shadows of their eyes. Do you know what? On reflection, maybe being in a nice, warm, cosy, dry Flixbus isn't so bad after all. Well, well, well. With two minutes to spare, welcome to bus number three. It's just for one trip. Cool bus, this, right? Yeah. Are you driving? Driver, yeah. Wow. Thank you very much. Thank you. Guys, the atmosphere on this bus is absolutely electric. I don't know if it's because we've got tables on this bus. Initially, I thought it was because we had Wi-Fi. But then I did a speed test on the Wi-Fi and realised that mobile data is five times faster. Now, using mobile data for five days, going across ten different countries across an entire continent, would be an issue for most people. But thankfully, I've got HoloFly. They offer limited data around the globe, covering over 200 different destinations. They also don't use physical SIMs. It's all digital eSIMs, which get sent to you in under 60 seconds after purchasing. One of my favourite features as well is that you get to keep your normal WhatsApp number. And even better, HoloFly have got a new benefit called Always On. So from the exact moment you purchase an eSIM, you have one gigabyte of backup data, which renews monthly for 12 months. So if you go to a country and you haven't already purchased an eSIM before getting there, you've got the backup data to help you. Plus, they have a 24-7 support team full of real human beings there to help you if something changes with your plans. So to make your travels completely stress-free, click the link in the description or in the pinned comment or use code HOWARD at checkout to get 5% off any eSIMs or 10% off any HoloFly plans for 12 months. Thank you HoloFly for making this video possible and allowing me to stay connected on this journey. All right, let's get back on the bus. Anyway, it was time for another seat tour because things have just gone up a notch. We now have a table. Which had an ungodly amount of cup holders in it. We also have an insane amount of legroom. I think that's because it's designed for people with mobility issues, but I didn't know that upon booking, so sorry. The seat reclined a little bit, but not as much as the last two buses. Then we've got our air conditioning and light. The air conditioning didn't work that well and the light didn't work either. But when I've got legroom like this, who cares? All right, let me tell you a bit more about this leg of the journey on the longest possible Flixbus route. So this bus is going to take us from Warsaw to Paris in France. I'm actually going to be on this bus for over 24 hours. But it's time to get comfortable. It literally felt like I was in a living room on wheels in this new seat. And it was a great feeling being able to look out of the window knowing I was saving money over flying. Despite being in the confines of a bus as well, I was seeing some incredible scenery pass me by. The bus is definitely a good way to see a lot of the country in a short time span. How long do we have here? How long is the stop? Three minutes. Three minutes? Oh no, okay. With no scheduled stop for six hours, I needed to get some food for dinner. And after seeing on Google Maps that there was a shopping centre above the bus station, I made a run for it. Because I had no idea when I'd next get a chance to get any food. Car, please. Have you got any Pringles? Is it just that? No. Oh, they're here. I'm running back to the bus now. I'm hoping it's not left without me. Literally everyone's getting on. Literally the last one on the bus. But let's not get sidetracked here. In this section, I'm testing if the drivers are really as bad as the reviews make them out to be. I mean, just look at poor Oli here. He got took in hostage, and his driver was as rude as a goblin. And after the last journey, this was by far the reviewer's looking forward to the most. Is there any longer stops, where you can like get food and drinks and stuff? Maybe 10 minutes in this Tankstelle. Tankstelle? Just one hour, 15 minutes. This bus, 10 minutes break. Okay, perfect. Thank you. It's a dinner of champions, if you've ever seen it. I'll be damned. There we go. So we did actually have a 10-minute stop. The 10-minute stop was just stopping for fuel. Well, thankfully I did find a petrol station, so I've managed to get some dinner for tonight. That was a result. Come on. Hey, if this isn't life on the road, I don't know what is. But let's not forget the mission at hand here. Gonna be honest, there's been some rashy driving today, but after spending a bit of time in Bangladesh, on their buses, it's all fine with me. But a lot of people are citing driving the wrong way down the highway, and not even knowing their route. Anyway, he's calling us. Let's get back on the bus. We're eating up these miles. France, we're coming. But there was nothing to be worried about because my driver so far had been good as we pressed towards the German border. It really felt like nothing could go wrong now. Oh, dear, oh, dear. I knew things were going too well, and that's because they were. We've been stuck at immigration for over an hour and a half now, which means unless we go pretty soon, I'm gonna miss my fourth and final bus taking us to Lisbon. Anyway, if I get another comment on my videos saying that my microphone looks like a cotton bud or a Q-tip, I'm gonna lose it. That cannot be comfortable. Surely that's not comfortable. After two hours, we were finally released from the German border. I can only assume there was an issue with one of the passengers on board. So with that, I got myself ready for bed and tried to sleep. Keyword there being tried. Obviously, I kept waking up at the stops. Good morning. And yes, I know I look and I do feel like I've been run over by a bus. I am so tired. But we're hanging in there. This is day four of five. And good news. We've made a bus station stop and there is somewhere to get a coffee. I've got coffee and some croissants to tuck into. We've made some really good progress coming across Germany. We're almost at the end. However, we are delayed by two hours. As it stands, I should make the subsequent bus. There's a risk I might not. Anyway, I think we're going again now. Let's go. I don't want to miss this bus. They would just drive off without me. I know that as well. Oh, bloody hell. I'm the last one on. Well, well, well. Another day and more miles on a bus. I'd see so many different faces as people got on and off the bus. You just awkwardly sit across from someone for a couple of hours and that's it. They get off the bus and you'll never see them again. The scenery coming across Germany was spectacular. I could have honestly spent all day looking out the window, which is a good job really. Guys, we have made it to country number seven of this adventure. France. Which is unbelievably good news because that means we made it through Germany without going on reverse down the Autobahn. It's funny now though because I'm really starting to notice the change in scenery. Like think back to when we started this adventure in Finland. It was autumn. The trees were yellow and then the trees gradually got green. And now we're going through like vineyards and stuff in France. It's cool. Just noticing how far we've come. Just under four hours away now from Paris. Fortunately because of how late we are I'm only going to have an hour in Paris before we need to get on the next bus. And where the bus stop is is half an hour from the centre of Paris. So anyone in their right mind would not try and cycle into the centre of Paris and see a landmark and then come back for the next bus. That would be stupid. But I'm exactly that. So that's what we're going to try and do when we get there. I think a bit of karma is struck for sitting in the seat for people with mobility issues. My back is killing. Literally if I could draw on my back I think it'd look like an S in both directions. Like an S for subscribe. The review that we were looking at for this stretch of the route was the driver. How did they fare? I'm not going to announce that right here because he's sat literally right behind me or probably hear me and you never know could pull me over and take me hostage at the next stop which is the last stop so maybe it's worth it. Honestly, I think the drivers were brilliant. Yes, there might have been some spirited driving at points but they were all very professional and polite. I am struggling how to see this seat can be top but for this final 24 hour journey that we've got coming up next I have picked the seat of all seats. You are not ready for this next bus. Alright, let's quickly go and explore Paris. There we go. Come on, come on, come on. I don't have much time here. I'm going to do well to even see the Eiffel Tower. My knight in shining armour. Let's go. I don't think I've ever cycled as fast as I did in this moment here trying to see the Eiffel Tower but much like buses are to countries bikes are the best way to explore a city in my eyes. You get to see the city as you're going through it plus you get the wind in your hair and it's a bit of exercise. What's not to love? Oh my days. Je suis arrivé en France. The Eiffel Tower. We made it. Okay, I need to go now because it's literally going to take me 35 minutes to get back to the bus station and the bus is in 35 minutes. Of course, at one time I need it to be late. I'm sure it won't be. Look at this. You don't get to see this when you take the plane. Alright, let's go again. That was fun. Bye Limey. Gone but never forgotten. Alright, let's try and find this bus. I did find the bus then literally as I walked up to it he shut the door to drive off. If I got there 30 seconds later I would have missed it. Oh sorry, am I late? Oh sorry. And then in all of this stress I couldn't find my passport and then I did find it and we were on our way. Bus number 4. Come on. We headed out of Paris as I consumed my coffee and waffle but then something strange happened. Well, well, this is a culture shock if I've ever had one. We are less than 2 hours into this bus journey and we've just pulled over for a 20 minute break which they announced over the the Tannoy thing. This is unheard of for Flixbus and in fact it gave me enough time to go and get myself a Burger King. I am delighted. However, I have a sneaking suspicion these stops are going to become very relevant when we start to think about the next topic. The final thing we're going to be testing about these buses it's the delays. From what I can read almost every single Flixbus gets delayed. Maybe I've been super lucky with the ones I've had so far or maybe this is going to make up for the last. Well, I say that the last one was delayed by almost 2 hours but you know what I mean the first two were on time. And of course what is the route that we're going to be taking here is going to take us through 3 different countries starting in France and I'm going to be on this bus for a total of 24 hours again. I'm so glad I left the bus station in Paris I would have gone stir crazy if not. Alright people are getting on board the bus come on let's go. It's an absolutely lovely evening coming across France. Building of an entire ship during World War 2 designing a vaccine for Covid-19 and measuring the circumference of the entire world using nothing but a stick are all things that have been achieved in less time than I've spent on this bus. Anyway let's not dwell on the past this time tomorrow we should have completed this adventure having saved loads of money and been able to go and have a great time in Portugal. But this adventure is far from over there's still a lot of things that could go wrong and things have been going suspiciously well. I'll see you tomorrow good night hopefully. It's 3am we've just stopped for a 20 minute break everyone's getting off the bus we are absolutely sending it here in country number 8 welcome to Spain. I then attempted to get on the wrong bus after a second flix bus which looked exactly the same as ours pulled up while I was inside I didn't realise thankfully though the bus driver saved me. What's going on on this bus? It's the door I'll show you OK You want me? Right Thank you yeah yeah yeah I thought a guy was telling me off I know I was so confused there's so many people getting off this bus right now there's two buses We are already in Spain yeah this is the bus we want to get on The day of all days has arrived welcome to the final day of taking the longest possible flix bus route across Europe let me show you the best seat on any flix bus ever moved I mean straight off the bat you can see the massive improvement don't worry I do have shorts on but look at the leg room we've got now but the real reason everyone wants this seat the view look at this the panorama seat so this morning we went through and briefly stopped in Madrid before carrying on which got me thinking you could really make this into a tour of Europe if you wanted to there's so many cities we've been through on this journey and stopped at briefly to pick up passengers that I could have got off the bus at and got on the next one a couple of hours later and had time to explore the city you could literally make this into a 7 day adventure and explore all the cities along the way in terms of the bad reviews that we were testing on this leg of the journey as well it was delays are we delayed? yes we are delayed but only by 15 minutes so in my book that's nothing that's on time as far as I'm concerned and as much as we're running on time I'm running on fumes so I'm really hoping we stop at a service station soon and get myself a coffee and some breakfast finally we've stopped for a break stopped at this woah jeez an insect just landed on me it was huge I got some lunch I said to the lady can I have some pasta and some meatballs I thought she said yeah anyway she then gave me two meals one with meatballs and one with pasta so I ended up with two instead of one I then tried getting a picture in the driver's seat can you get a picture of me in the seat? yes is that alright? but then the chief bus driver put a stop to that because we were late and had time that we needed to make up further showing to me their commitment to being on time no aww that is fine it's fine you know my biggest concern coming into this trip was boredom I was just worried that I was going to be bored stiff doing this and it's actually been the complete opposite I could spend forever and a day just looking at the ever changing scenery going through Europe we've just entered into Portugal our 9th and final country of this trip look I'll admit it flying would have been significantly faster almost 100 hours faster to be precise and that is despite us coming into Lisbon now having faced no significant delays this entire trip we can say the delay review is well and truly busted though anyway how much money have I saved by taking a 5 day bus trip instead of a 7 hour flight we have made it to Lisbon goodbye bus it's been real thank you goodbye okay we've made it to Lisbon but the moment of truth how much money have I saved by taking the bus instead of flying remember I didn't book the flights or the bus tickets so I have no idea what this number is going to be we saved 26 minus 20 what