I have to go to Houston in February, and since I'm going to be downtown the whole time I figured rather than drive and pay to store my car for a few days I would just take the bus. $35 later, I now have my very first Greyhound bus ticket!

My plan is to take Uber or a cab from the bus terminal to the hotel and back.

So Arfcom... what am I in for?

go be poor somewhere else? 

Have you seen some of the people that get off those busses?

You gon get raped.

Depends on which bus you get.

Some of them are non-stop between major cities - Reasonably quick.

Others stop at every little podunk town along the way - Can make a 200 mile trip take all day.

You'd be better off hitch hiking!

the downtown houston bus station, is not a place I'd want spend any amount of time....  I feel dirty just driving by that place.

The last time I took Greyhound, you could still smoke on the bus. The bus reeked of bums, piss, and cigarette smoke. It also took two days to make a 12 hour drive due to stopping in every town along the way. I took Megabus a few years ago. It was clean and went straight from city to city.

This will not end well for OP.
Dibs on the car which he values more than his well being.

Learn to speak Spanish or Ebonics.

Meh, my field guys take them and the Megabus when they travel city to city sometimes and down towards Mexico. And I've had family use them to transport college kids too and from school.

Sometimes people are sketchy, mostly hanging around the terminals, not on the bus, but otherwise they are fine.

Have not done. Had a friends aunt go from New York to Miami York a few months ago. She said it was horrible experience and they will never do it again. The bathroom stunk and shit on the floor. People were nasty and she cancelled her return bus ticket and flew back.

Bring a go-pro and post your experience?- Someone did it


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPjV4b_di5Q

Well, I would plan on getting both head lice and bedbugs during the trip.  Plus being in close proximity to some of the passengers, I would make sure I was up to date on my TB shots.  

You gonna learn about them soon enough.

Have you ever seen Dogma?




Travel during the day is fine. Don't be on a Greyhound at night, especially during a weekend when the "long haul" travelers are on board. Oh, and watch your luggage.

I spent a LOT of time on Greyhound buses as a poor college student.

Its just San Antonio to Houston... a 3 hour ride.

Can't be that bad, right?

Walmart on wheels

I don't think I'll ever try again.  Took a ride between Tulsa and Houston.  We went to OKC and then down stopping at podunk towns.  Guy on the bus got ejected for being an ass but it took almost an hour to get the situation resolved.

Make sure you know what the weapons policy is as I had to put my pocket knife in checked baggage half way though the ride.

They unloaded all the riders and frisked us TSA style for knives etc. in Dallas.

Lots o felons just getting out get a bus ride.

3hrs by car or 3hrs by the Dog? You done goofed son

If you have more than a couple hundred miles to ride, take a big jug of Nyquil with you. It'll help you slleep the miles away. 

As an 11 y/o kid, I did the Greyhound/Trailways "tour America" (48 continental states in 90 days) trip by my own damn self with my paper route money-this was in 1976, so.  I hit all 48, and stayed at my Uncle's in PA for a few weeks.  I would not wish to repeat it as an adult however.

I rode one from Tulsa to San Diego when I was 18(had to make a trip to tijuana).  The closer we got to California, the more packed the bus got and the more I became a minority.  A couple people got kicked off in the middle of the night in New Mexico.  I won't get back on one if I can help it.

The area around the Houston Bus Terminal is the hive of scum and beggany...  The Bus Ride not too bad,

Can NOT bring any weapn handgun or knife in with you, licensed or not, and definitely NOT on the Bus... YES - they have a TSA type screening for you and your bags in Houston for guns, knives, contraband ect... before you can go fully inside the departure arrival area of the bus terminal.

The area around the outside perimeter it is totally overrun by "homeless beggars" who will aggressively pan handle any and everybody around.  Being there on a Friday or Saturday night is surreal...  You just have to be just as aggressive with loud & Clear "NO!" "Clear OFF!"   "Get AWAY!"...  When they know you are not a soft touch they tend to flare off looking for a easy pigeon to wheedle and beg from...

You are O.K. inside the inner terminal after the security check - YES - In Houston they have a TSA type screening for you with wands and checking all the pockets and areas of your carry on bags before you can go fully inside the departure arrival area of the bus terminal.  You can do the outer area without getting the body cavity search, but not the inner "safe zone" for only ticketed passengers who have passed security.

Your goal is to get out and away from the station ASAP (unless you love to look at all those looney losers).  

There is a McDonalds right across the street that would be a better meet point for your Uber or Pick Up.   I will say McD's has more "customer issues" than any McDonalds I've ever seen before or since due to the huge numbers of homeless, bus beggers, and general criminal scum who want to hang out there (the store kicks them out)...   call your car or ride, go across the street & Buy a milkshake or soda or bottle of water or something, sit and then boogie out when your driver comes by.

On the Bus, Bring a movie or two on your tablet with some headphones.   I downloaded a few favorites or "haven't seen yets".  Many of the newer buses have WiFi so you can surf ARFCOM while you enjoy the company of your fellow internees...   You can bring your own snacks on your carry on, so a couple cans of CokeZero and some apples or snack crackers will be good.

My kids have taken the Greyhound from Austin to Houston and back over the weekend a couple of times and they were non the worse for it.   However, I told them to stay INSIDE the terminal until I was there to pick them up.   Petite Blond Girl and young teen age boy, the Bums may hassle.  Pissed Off Big Daddy giving the evil eye to eye glare with "I've love to skin your scummy ass alive" vibe = don't bother me...  meant no hassles.

Good Luck!

BIGGER_HAMMER

Question - what are you going to do with your car in San Antonio?  Leave it at the Greyhound lot??  or pay to catch a uber - lyft - buddy give a ride to and from the station?

I can think of several kinds of people that would ride a Greyhound between San Antonio and Houston.



On the bright side, we'll probably be seeing you on Live PD.

My only Greyhound bus ride was a trip by myself when I was 13 in the summer of 1974. I had been staying with an aunt and was going home before school started. The trip was from Erie PA to Detroit MI with a bus change in Cleveland. From Cleveland to Detroit I was the only white person on the bus. It was a pleasant experience and one of the black ladies brought cookies.

I took Greyhound from Phoenix to Tucson a couple years ago. No complaints.

I broke down one time in the bosses truck, his tranny went to shit, took the greyhound home 400 and some miles, I swear it was the longest fuckin ride of my fuckin life, you stop in every fuckin town, wait for fat homeless people to get on, and then you go to another stop and wait for the creepy fucker's to get off, the people that ride the bus are of a different breed than the rest of us, smelly, fat slobs, and drunks, meth heads with no  drivers license, fuckin bottom feeding fucks, never again.

Definitely not fun!

Would not ever do again!

Would rather walk!

Rode one home from Ft. Lost in the woods to middle Tn. So damn tired of stopping at every wide spot in the road I finally got off in Paducah,Ky. and hitchehiked home and beat bus by 4 hours.

I’ve only done Greyhound twice, 1 round trip. Phoenix to BFE SE Oklahoma, in about 87.
Never been back, couldn’t pay me to do it again.
2 days each way, cooped up in a bus, what was I thinking?

OK I have to say I didn't know about it stopping. I thought it was like a plane, board in SAT get off in HOU.

I spent 33 miserable hours on buses and waiting around in stinking bus station getting from Bangor, ME to Nashville, TN when my daughter was in school there.
The smell of human stench fill the air, shitty food from a machine, nasty coffee and everything way overpriced.
Snoring, loudmouthed people, cell phones ringing constantly, drunks, druggies, tweekers, hookers and every other walk of low life abounded.
Coughing, hacking, puking, sick looking fuckers that want to talk your fucking ear off and all you want to do is ignore them and have the ride over.
Oh yeah... Take Greyhound they said.. it'll be fun...BULLSHIT!
I hooked a ride with a trucker for the return to the northeast and a local bus home. Much Better....
Greyhound.....Never again!!

I think some of the passengers on southwest are freaks, Greyhound without a gun no way.  Amtrak is better.

Do you want bedbugs?  Because that is how you get bedbugs!

Look to see if your ticket is EXPRESS.   That means there with no side stops.

Three Hours would be about right for Express from San Antonio to Houston.

I would write the $35 off as loss and plan a better way to travel.

The worst marketing move EVER was when the Europeans decided to name their company and product AirBUS...  

So much for the "Glamour" of flying...

When I took my first solo trip to a big city, I went to New York from DC, and decided to take greyhound back to Minnesota to save money.

Never. Again.



Tge bus station felt like a refugee camp. Some dude kept trying to get me to give him money because he showed me the way to the main entrance. I saw how bad it was on one bus and decided to try and book a last minute flight over the phone but no luck. The staff there literally wouldn’t even tell me what the closest airport was and laughed at me.

When I accepted my fate and took the ride, the guy sitting next to me when we left at like 3 AM was sipping out of a brown paper bag and offered me pills and kept talking about how to make bombs. Another nicer old dude didn’t realize he missed his destination until we were like a full state past it. Partway through the trip we picked up some kid that told us he was running away from his dads off base military home in the Carolinas and trying to flee to Canada, had almost no money, and had schizophrenia. Oh and he was about halfway there at that point and didn’t realize he needed a passport. Some dirtball almost got into a fight with the bus driver.

It took like 24 hours total and I saved literally like $100. Some lessons are learned the hard way.

I went from Savannah GA to Palm Springs, CA once. It wasn't so bad until we got beyond the middle of Texas, then we started picking up freaks and recently released convicts. Once all of the passengers were scolded by the driver over the PA and admonished that it would in our best interests to just go to sleep.

I went from Chattanooga, TN to D.C. when I was 17 or 18, took 21 hours. Lots of stops, all late at night in the sketchier parts of town.

Bus ride back was delayed by 1 day because they didn't have enough seats. Other than that, nothing remarkable. Just not a lot of fun.

Meh...I rode the bus many times when I was in college.  Sure you get some interesting characters, but you also got elderly people, college kids, kids shipping out in the military, etc.

I'm not as soft and uppity as a lot of GD'ers seem to be.  I can mingle in with any crowd as needed.

Rode one once from K.Falls, OR to Portland for MEPS. About 300 miles.
Had to stop half way to eject a guy who was nuts and openly masturbating.
This was in '77.
I doubt it's gotten any better.

Watch out for aggressive beggars outside the stations. Tell them to fuck off or they'll follow you.

They usually stop at every town along the way. A three hour trip took six. But that was back in the day.

I rode Greyhound from Houston to Austin a while back.  The station was not someplace I wanted to hang out any longer than necessary, but the bus was fine.  It looked pretty new, and the seats were nicer than coach airline seats.  There weren't a lot of other passengers, maybe 15, and they appeared to be clean and were quiet.  We watched a movie.  Unless they've gone downhill since then, I'd do it again for a short trip.  

last time I was on one back in the early 70's, the whole bus smelled like piss and something, couldn't pin down the something else

and can you carry on a bus now?

Thanks for all the info Bigger_Hammer

Tickets don't say express on them. Depart SA @ 11:45 am arrive HOU @ 3:00 pm. Depart HOU @ 8:00 pm arrive SA @ 11:15 pm.

My wife was going to drop me off and pick me up.

I grew up in NYC so I know how to deal with beggars and bums.