Cheap bus lines offer travel between metro areas

Forget the plane, forget the train. What about the bus the next time you have to travel?

If you're old enough, you probably remember when America was covered wall-to-wall by Trailways and Greyhound. Both of those companies essentially went through the meat grinder when airline deregulation occurred. In the wake of deregulation, it suddenly made more sense to fly than drive for long routes.

Bus companies never seemed to figure out that the real market was on routes that were within a 250-mile radius of a given starting point. Eventually, one British company called Megabus figured it out and got into the domestic market. Now there are multiple competitors including Bolt Bus, which is owned in part by Greyhound.

These companies offer regional hub routes that started in the Northeast, went to the Midwest and now offer some West Coast travel. All of these new bus services offer cheap fares starting at $1 per ride for a limited number of people on each bus, while the other passengers pay real fares that are still quite cheap in the $10-$20 range.

These are not your father's Greyhound buses. They don't stop in every little nook and cranny on a route; they run non-stop between metro areas in typical four-hour runs. (Some routes may be longer.) The buses all offer free onboard wifi. They tend to be extra clean with comfortable seats. Certain carriers are introducing double-decker buses with more room and supposedly more comfort. This is a truly viable option for cheap travel.

A lot of our country will never have enough population density to warrant high-speed trains. And trains are much more expensive than buses. So if you are looking to get somewhere and your first reaction is, "A bus?!," well, think again. This can be a potential real deal.

My youngest producer Joel took MegaBus from Atlanta to Memphis (eight hours roundtrip) with his wife and they paid $12.50 in total for both of them. That's roughly $3 one way! Had they driven, Joel estimates they would have spent $90 in gas alone. MegaBus gets the thumbs up from Joel and his wife for price and timely pickup/dropoff. Their only complaint was that the free wifi did not work either coming or going as advertised.