Wednesday, September 28, 2016

Scoring The Cheapest Bus Tickets In The Height of Summer With GoEuro: $ 0.25!

Focusing on the transportation part of traveling, Berlin-based GoEuro is a God-sent travel platform that anyone planning an epic Europe trip needs to know about. Since I discovered GoEuro Website in Spring 2016 (the early stage of my travel planning), finding the best travel deals in this jungle of choices has never been easier. Long gone are the days when I have to open 20 tabs in Safari, frantically searching through a huge pile of deals, just to compare bus, train and flight tickets. In my humble opinion, this search website is very user-friendly as everything is pretty much straight to the point, time-saving as it lists down all the best travel deals geared towards your preferences that you’ve keyed in on the homepage. 


bus experience in Europe, GoEuro


The travel deals’ sources on GoEuro are totally reliable. If you need some kind of proof to convince yourself, click on the partnership bar at the bottom of the homepage, which will lead you to a list of approved partners they have. Also, the website had been featured by USA Today, The New York Times and Conde Nast Travelers… with all these media giants recommending this website, I have no reason to doubt it’s credibility. 


GoEuro
Official Partners of GoEuro
GoEuro did a great job by spoonfeeding me (yea I can be really lazy sometimes) with tons of information in the simplest form, literally! Booking a bus ride had never been quicker! By using GoEuro, I managed to score some really cheap deals, saving a ton! And thanks to it, I was able to that money for FOOD (the love of my life) instead! 

The cheapest bus ride I’ve booked using the recommendation from GoEuro only cost me $0.25! What a steal! When I first revealed my bus fare on facebook, a lot of readers commented with disbelieve, questioning me if that was legit… I wasn’t able to answer that question back then, but now, I can totally sing it at the top of my lungs: Totally! It was 2 hours plus bus ride in Poland and it was a comfortable ride. 

Now, this blog post is to let you know how did I score a bus ticket that cheap and how you can do it too! Let me break it down for you in 4 simple steps: 


Step 1: Your Preferences

As shown in the screenshot above, we see a sleek homepage with simple input menu that requires you to enter your date of departure, the place you are traveling from, destination and number of passengers. Don't forget to click on "Roundtrip" if you plan to go back to where you start your trip.
If you wish to search for accommodation simultaneously, check the small boxes for ”Airbnb" or "Booking.com". Your accommodation choices will be available in a new tab.  




Step 2: Choose Your Transportation Mode


Once you are satisfied with your entry, simply click “search”. You might have to wait for a while as the website takes some time to search for all the cheapest tickets… You are able to see the search progress for all transportation mode when the result is loading. Usually, it doesn’t take too long until a list of travel tickets were laid out neatly on your computer screen. Do not interrupt it, be patient because good things come to those who wait!



Once all the results had been fully loaded, the bars become solid light blue color. The length of the bars indicates the time needed to complete each journey and the prices of the cheapest deals of all transportation mode are stated next to it. Now, start choosing your preferred mode of transportation. 



Have I mentioned about the main reason I LOVE this website? It is due to the fact that it is so user-friendly and time-saving... Just look at the screenshot above. If you would love to go by the fastest route on the bus, click on "Bus" icon at the lower column and "Fastest" at the upper column. If you would prefer the most budget-friendly option, click on "Train or Bus" (usually bus) and choose "Cheapest" instead.


This website even includes Bla Bla Car, a popular transportation mode in Europe where you can carpool with other travelers and share the cost (in this case, you have to pay the driver). To put it in a more comprehensive way, it's a more organized way of hitchhiking-cum-carpooling. 

The "Smartest" bar is one of the best features of the website. It collects the most efficient way to reach your destination, taking bus fares, departure time and duration of a journey into account. The top choice in the list might not be the cheapest option, but it sure is the best way to travel. For example, the cheapest way to travel might involve transiting in the middle of the night at some small bus stop for 4 hours (imagine if it rains...). The "Smartest" bar helps you to avoid looking like a total wreck on the next morning. 


Sceenshot above showing the earliest departure time vs the earliest arrival time.   

The "Departure time" and "Arrival time" let you choose your preferred travel time. I am the kind of person who wants to leave a city as late as possible and arrive in another first thing when the sun hits the horizons, thus, in my case, I'll choose latest for departure time or earliest for arrival time. 

So do you want to buy the cheapest tickets; travel on the most convenient route; depart on the last bus or reach a destination at dawn? That is entirely your call! Everyone has their own preference and the power is in your hands, just scroll through your wide variety of choice to choose the tickets which best suit your travel style!
  

Step 3: Book Tickets

Once you found your preferred ticket, especially when it is something that looks like this: 



WAIT NO MORE!!! Book it immediately! The $0.25 and $1.33 ticket won't stay there for long, the next thing you know, they could be grabbed by other passengers! Once you click "select", you will be redirected to the official websites of the bus companies (in the above cases: Polski bus or Megabus) to proceed with the payment. No catch, no extra booking fees.


Step 4: Look Forward To The Bus Ride

After the payment, you should receive your bus tickets in your mailbox almost immediately. In most cases, you do not have to print out your bus tickets (Please help safe those poor trees!). Best thing to do is to save your bus tickets in PDF form on your smartphone and show it to the bus driver when boarding the bus. 


Step 5: Book Your Accommodation   

If you've had the accommodation boxes checked in step 1, proceed to book your dream vacation house in the newly opened tab. If you are a fan of Airbnb, how about a free $20 credit for you? Click here to claim it Now!  


Notes


Techno Savvy folks, you can now download the free GoEuro mobile app for easier booking. It's available on iTunes for iOS and Google Play store for Androids! Once you have it downloaded on your device, you'll enter the homepage where you'll be asked to sign up for an account. It's fine if you don't feel like doing it, just click on the option "continue without signing in" at the bottom of the page. Now just what are you waiting for? Go get that free app and start planning!


Final Words: 

GoEuro did a great job making the planning for my 70 days Europe trip a breeze and I hope it’ll help you to get your dream trip all planned out in no time (the same way it does for me!). 
Last but not least, here are some divine destination I got to check out using buses and trains as suggested by GoEuro! (and oh course, ferry, when the bus needed to cross the sea, duh )!


Read Also: 


Rome

Almafi Coast
Paris
Wroclaw
Munich
Rotterdam
Brussels 
Salzburg
Köln
Cesky Krumlov
Kinderjidk
TĂŒbingen
Capri.
Procida.
Tours

📌For more travel tips, like Eat Love Travel Breathe with Miss HappyFeet. 
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Thank You for Reading! This post is based solely on my honest opinion or personal experience. 
 Feel free to share your thoughts with me by commenting below!

8 comments:

Unknown said...

I haven't heard of this site, wish I had seen it before my recent trip round Europe, I will remember it for next time as it looks so easy to use :-)

Unknown said...

Great tips for those wanting to travel around Europe in this way. Hadn't heard of this site before.

Unknown said...

What a great post! I have plenty of friends who want to travel around Europe and are looking for good deals! This seems like a solid one-stop-shop! Thanks for sharing complete details and your gorgeous photos!

Amy said...

I wish I'd have had this site last summer for Europe! Looks like fantastic info (and who doesn't love being spoon fed every once in a while during planning?)

Unknown said...

I'd never heard of this site, thanks for sharing these tips. I need to check it out!

yenor said...

This post is full of heaps of useful information. I'm currently in Europe so this will definitely come in handy! Thankssss

Gypsycouple said...

Looks like a wonderful tip to use while planning our next trip there! The pics are beautiful as well!Thanks for sharing!

Julian said...

Didn't know about some of these platforms, thanks a lot for the info!