Low Cost Travel Cafe

attitudetravel · Editor of attitude Travel Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 55

The OzBus set off on its maiden voyage on Sunday 16th September. The bus will cover a distance of 10,000 miles crossing 20 countries from London to Sydney.

Better yet, this is not a one-off. OzBus plans to operate at least seven similar trips next year.

Undoubtedly this is a good move in encouraging people who want to go on round the world trips to think about alternatives to flying. If demand is sufficient and the company survives then those who travel to Australia on the OzBus will end up having a dramatically lower carbon footprint than those who decide to fly.

More info: Boarding now... the bus to Sydney
_________________
Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com

attitudetravel · Editor of attitude Travel Joined: 18 Jan 2007 Posts: 55

However, I have two questions at this point:

1) Why does the bus only seem to be travelling in one direction? What's wrong with ferrying low-carbon travellers from Sydney back to London? Even if the bus were only a third full, that's got to be better than an empty bus, no?

2) How expensive is this bus?

GBP 3750 / AUS 9000 ??!

What? Why?!

How on earth do they justify that kind of price? If anything, it ought to be cheaper than flying, not four and a half times as expensive!

It seems that at this stage, OzBus doesn't have much of a reply to this. In it's FAQ it says merely:

Couldn’t I get to Sydney overland on my own?

Whilst there’s nothing to stop you, the answer is probably no! London to Sydney overland is a journey of epic proportion having been undertaken by only a few people.

Nonsense. It's been undertaken by thousands and thousands of people. And I bet they all ended up spending a lot less than GBP 3750. For heaven's sake (for the sake of comparison) it only costs about GBP 150 to travel from Moscow to Vladivostok on the Trans-Siberian - and Russia is more expensive than many of the countries the OzBus travels through.

For the moment, it seems, the OzBus falls a little short of the description "low cost".
_________________
Alan Lansdowne
Editor, attitudetravel.com