Transportation

• The journey itself is the heart of travel — Roaming long-distance from place to place is the very essence of travel. As you range from city to city to mountain to beach, the physical movement itself should be interesting and enjoyable.
• Your travel style is a four-sided trade-off between speed, comfort, cost and enjoyment — What if you’re not enjoying your point-to-point travel? Worse, what if it is difficult and exhausting? Reconsider your travel style. Unless saving money is an inflexible principle, it might be worthwhile to bump up transport quality a notch, so that going from A to B is at least comfortable, if not interesting and enjoyable.
• Save on transport costs — For most travelers, transport is No. 2 of the Big Five budget categories (after accommodation). It’s therefore a target for money-saving strategies.
• Use public transit — Public transport is the cost-effective way to go. In most countries, it will get you almost anywhere, even if the last leg is on a pokey country bus or urban minivan. Some is easy to figure out and pleasant to use, while others (not exclusively in poor countries) are confusing, crowded and chaotic.
• Where private transport is best — For some travelers with generous budgets, taxis are the only way to go in cities. Hiring a car or tuktuk with driver is great for multiple stops during a single day. Even if your budget is modest, short jaunts out of town are often more convenient with private transport.  For longer distances traveling in big rich countries (USA, Canada, Australia…) public transport like trains and buses don’t go to many of the non-urban destinations you might visit. For them, you need a private vehicle, whether on your own or shared.
• Know your options for every transport leg — From trans-oceanic flights to crosstown buses, you need to know your options. That’s how you get the right speed and comfort at the best price. Finding such information in English is sometimes difficult.

Understanding your transportation options for each leg of your trip is incredibly important. You have to choose a balance between speed, comfort and cost.

Understanding your transportation options for each leg of your trip is incredibly important. You have to choose a balance between speed, comfort and cost. And that choice has to be made every time. Should you take that cheap budget airline from Ahmedabad to Goa, or take a couple of trains, connecting through Mumbai? Do you walk across central Rome, take a bus or the Metropolitana (subway), call an Uber or hale a taxi?

It may seem silly to say so, but it’s important that you enjoy your travel between destinations (city travel doesn’t matter so much). At a minimum, your transport should get you to your destination without excessive difficulty and discomfort (the usual problem in poor countries) or budget-busting cost (in rich countries).

• Comfort — What is your minimum standard for comfort during transport? Can you live with a little discomfort for a limited time? There are travelers who push their comfort levels down to where going from A to B is a chore to be endured. This is usually an attempt to save money, but you’ll also find travelers who are trying to appreciate the lives of local people or wish to leave a light carbon footprint. Regardless of motive, these efforts are fine as long as you aren’t miserable. 
• Speed — If your time is limited and your geographic ambitions are big, then maybe you don’t want to spend time on buses and trains and prefer to fly. Or maybe time is plentiful and the whole point is to travel the length and breadth of China by train. One option that’s good for long journeys is an overnight sleeper train or bus. While you can’t expect the best rest, you won’t spend precious daytime hours in transit and you’ll save the price of a hotel.
• Cost — If you’re trying to figure out a way to go from A to B, you will often face a confusing array of transportation choices, some of them cheap but logistically difficult, slow or uncomfortable. It would be easy to surrender to a more expensive option: direct flights, higher classes of transport, private vehicles and taxis. If your budget can support it, there’s nothing wrong with taking the easy way, except for a bigger carbon footprint. But, if you’re trying to control costs, then the challenge is to find a moderately-priced or cheap option that isn’t going to be too unpleasant.
• Enjoyment — This is really personal. Some travelers want to see the countryside unfold outside the train or bus window, while others just want to get to their new destination quickly, in order to enjoy planned activities.

You already have (or will find out) your own preferences. For example, you may prioritize cost savings over speed or perhaps comfort over cost savings. The mix changes from country to country, as anyone who’s taken buses in Argentina and then crossed the border to ride Bolivian buses knows too well.

It won’t take long in a new country before you discover what modes of transport fit your minimum travel style. Maybe you’ll try the bus with open windows and three people on a hard bench seat meant for two and realize it’s not good enough. Next time, you’ll pay more for an air-conditioned bus and a seat of your own.

Transportation is one of your Big Five travel expense categories. For most travelers, it will be No. 2, after accommodation. You can try to achieve substantial savings, but only if the savings are worth the compromise to your travel time and comfort. After all, you do want to enjoy your trip, don’t you?

Our general advice for budget-conscious travelers is to go with cheap transport in rich countries because it’s still comfortable enough. In poor countries, don’t take the cheapest transport unless you have no other choice… it’s usually pretty dreadful. For a modest cost increase, you can take much more comfortable transport. 

Here are some general money saving tips. They apply to multiple modes of transportation.

• Buy tickets near where they’ll be used — It’s cheaper to buy transport tickets near where they’ll be used.
  • Exception: for rail or bus passes, such as Eurailpass, that must be purchased outside the 28 countries where it applies.
  • Exception: if you have a rigid itinerary and can commit to purchasing discounted tickets for fixed dates well in advance.
• Save a night’s accommodation — An overnight flight, train or bus can save you a night’s lodging cost. But don’t count on a good rest, even in an airline business class seat or the high-class sleeper car on a train. Sleeper buses? Dream on! Because you won’t.
• Avoid too many destinations — If your time is limited and you plan to cover multiple locations in multiple countries, transport will eat into both your budget and your time. Ask yourself whether it’s worth it or whether a slower approach to fewer destinations would improve the quality of the experience and reduce your expenditures.

The best mode of transport for the distance

Setting aside the aesthetics of the journey (such as the superiority of trains over planes for experiencing a country and its people), what are the most cost and time-efficient means to get from A to B?

While these very loose guidelines might seem self-evident, they are not at all fixed. Transport infrastructure, market forces and government intervention can all promote or restrict a mode of transport.

Distances below are very approximate, but you get the idea.

Over water

• Aircraft — Over large bodies of water, air is the only choice for most travelers because of the speed and low passenger cost per km.  
• Ocean-going vessels — A small number of travelers choose freighters. They’re slow, but maybe that’s what you want. Daily full board rates can be reasonable, but it’s still very costly per km because of the number of days it takes to sail across an ocean or sea. Surface travel over a vast expanse of water is an experience rather than a transportation choice.
• Coastal ferries — In all countries with inhabited islands or rugged coastlines, ferries are often the only way to get around. In poor island nations like the Philippines and Indonesia, extensive networks of inter-island ferries are the cheap buses of the sea.
• Private boats — Sometimes you can pay to go on a private boat or yacht, what could be called marine ride-sharing. Other times, owners will take on crew, although you should have a skill to offer.
• River boats — Except where roads and rails don’t compete, such as in much of the DR Congo, river boats are now mostly tourist experiences.

Over land

Long distance (>1000 km)

• Aircraft — Faster and cheaper per passenger km.
• Train — Better travel experience than air. Prefer a higher class car or sleeper.
• Long distance bus — The distance is too far for a comfortable trip. Yet, in some African countries, there’s no other way. Or the only option is an expensive, infrequent and badly routed flight.

Middle distance (300 – 1000 km)

• Aircraft — A budget airline can sometimes be cheaper than a train.
• Train —Good choice if the train is comfortable. High-speed (“bullet”) trains can compete with air for duration of journey.
• Long distance bus — Get the A/C express or overnight sleeper bus. The “chicken” bus will be too arduous over this distance.

Short distance (<300 km)

• Aircraft — Including getting to and from the airports, air is not competitive on price or travel time.
• Train — Even a slow train is a good choice. Take it during the day for views and avoid night-time departure or arrival.
• Long distance bus — Although the chicken bus might be tolerable and an adventure, express is better.

At your destination

• Urban rail — Whether a metro (subway) or surface train, it’s almost always the best option. Rail routes and stations are easy to figure out. Unencumbered by traffic, they’re the fastest way around big cities, but can be very crowded during rush hours.
• City bus — Buses (or their minivan cousins) go almost everywhere and are the cheapest form of urban transit. However, routes are often difficult to figure out and buses can be crowded and not good for carrying your luggage.
• Private transport — Taxis are the most costly urban transport, but they’re safe and point-to-point. A tuktuk (or local equivalent) is cheaper, but they can’t travel on major roads and are good for a few km only.

Beyond these choices, you have an array of “self-locomotion” options over distances far and near. You can buy or rent a motor vehicle, motorcycle or bicycle. You will walk plenty around your destinations, but you can also walk long distance between destinations.

Travelers travel. And, unless your entire trip is on foot or by bicycle, your modes of transportation will produce green house gases (GHGs). The more distance you travel, the more GHGs you will produce. But you can reduce your GHG emissions through your choice of mode of transport.

Using carbon emissions per passenger kilometer (mile) as a proxy for all GHGs, here’s an approximate measure of the main transport options. Thanks to the source, Beagley-Brown Design, who offer a bit more explanation on their site.  

Make a mental adjustment where necessary. For example, coaches in poor countries rarely hold just 16.2 passengers — more like 40 or 60. So the carbon emissions per passenger are way less than in the graphic. However, many poor country buses are smoke-belching monstrosities, producing massive amounts of particulate pollution. Deduct friendly footprint points for that.

In case you were wondering, plutocrats and celebrities who fly on private jets produce 8,000 gm of CO² per passenger km (28.3 lb per mile for our American friends).

Air

Long distances are usually covered by air, since a flight is both fast and cheap per kilometer traveled. However, it entirely removes the progression through landscapes, cities and cultures that are a rich part of the travel experience. For those reasons, some travelers try to limit flights to any trans-oceanic or trans-continental segments of their trips. They then try to do all other travel via surface transport.

• Speed — Air is the fastest way to cover very long distances. While crossing oceans and jumping continents are obvious, what could be a multi-day overland trip (New York to L.A. or Nairobi to Johannesburg, for example) can also be justified.
• Cost — Air is the cheapest per passenger kilometer over long distances. Comparing and booking online is always available and fiercely competitive.
• Comfort — Most independent travelers go for the cheapest flight, which means a low-cost airline or economy class of a regular airline. Since these lack leg room and amenities, they can be quite uncomfortable. But you can put up with it for even the longest intercontinental flight if it means big savings. When compared to taking a long bus ride over the same sector, even the worst airline seat can be tolerated.

• Lack of choice — Over some routes there will be just one airline (or the airlines that serve the route collude with each other). That could mean high ticket prices, inconvenient schedules and bad connections.
• Airport locations — Most airports are far from where you will stay and do activities, so there’s both time and cost getting to and from the airport.
• Airport processes — Air travel involves long processing and waiting time in airports.
• Jet lag — Most travelers start to experience jet lag on trips crossing 3+ time zones. It’s worse going west-to-east (against the sun), than east-to-west (with the sun).
• Risk to luggage — If you have to check your main bag, there is always a risk that the bag could be lost, damaged or have items stolen from inside. Traveling with carry-on luggage and not checking a bag eliminates these risks.
• High GHG emissions — Air travel has very high GHG emissions per passenger km.

• When cheap flights aren’t cheap — Everybody knows that a cheap flight can save a lot of money. But what if the flight originates at an airport far from where you’re staying? What if it terminates in an airport far from your final destination? Even if there is urban rail or bus service, find out whether it’s still running if your departure or arrival are late in the evening or early in the morning. If public transit is unavailable, you’ll have to take a taxi — and a long taxi ride could make the total cost of the flight a bad deal after all.
• When a short flight is worth it — A domestic flight might cover in two hours what would take two days by train or bus. The extra cost of those two days may not be much, but time lost and logistical hassles may not be worth the savings. This is especially true when you don’t really care to see the country and connecting cities between your two destinations. Besides, short to mid-range flights on low-cost carriers can be competitively priced with overland transport.

Find the right flight at the right price

Ticket types / Timing / Discounts / Booking sites / More…

how to do it

Train

Passenger trains are usually a traveler’s best choice. There’s the appeal of watching the countryside roll by while not trapped in a seat. Cost per kilometer can vary widely, depending upon the country and class of the train, but there’s often an affordable option.  

In our discussion, we’re talking about regular trains for public transportation, from the creaky trains that lumber across Tanzania to Japan’s famous high-speed “bullet” trains. Luxury tourist trains, such as Canada’s Rocky Mountaineer or South Africa’s Blue Train, are costly travel experiences and not mere transport.

• Speed advantage over short flights — If the distance is not too far and the train is not too slow, rail can be faster than air over the same sector. This is partly because trains almost always go from city center to city center, so you don’t have the time and expense of going to and from distant airports. Train passengers also save time on all the processes that plague air passengers at airports. Where super-fast (“bullet”) trains exist, the speed advantage of trains can extend to trips of 1000 km or more.
• Reasonable cost — Trains are often (but not always) cheaper than air over a given distance. (This does not include luxury tourist trains.) On the other hand, they’re usually more costly than a bus.
• Seating comfort — Trains win on comfort by a long way over planes and buses. You can stand, move around and go to a dining car (if available). There’s nothing better if you have kids. Train seating varies from posh upholstered chairs to wooden benches. Except for the most crammed low-class carriage on a poor country train, there’s more width and leg room than on economy aircraft seats. Trains are quieter than aircraft and provoke less motion sickness than buses or planes.
• Amenities — Many trains have decent amenities: air-conditioning, tables for your stuff, clean toilets, food and drink for sale, power sockets… even WiFi. On the other hand, some trains in poor countries have no amenities except a wandering junk food vendor and a hold-your-nose toilet.
• No restrictions on your stuff — There are no restrictions on liquids or bladed tools. As long as you can get your bag into the overhead rack or nearby luggage shelf, the size and weight don’t matter. 
• Easier than buses at border crossings — Cross-border trains often have customs and immigration officials come on board. On buses, you have to disembark and haul out your luggage for inspection.
• Safer than road transport — Trains are much safer than buses and private cars.
• Green — Trains have low GHGs per passenger km, compared to air and road options.

• Travel duration — Over a long distance, the trip duration by train can be much longer (days!) than the same journey by air. Rail infrastructure and rolling stock is so creaky in some poor countries that the train might be unacceptably slow, even over short distances. A long trip could include one or more inconvenient changes of train. Some connections could be in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.
• Sparse networks — Rail networks vary immensely. In Europe and India, train networks are so dense that they’re the best choice for all but the longest unbroken journeys. But rail networks are scant in big rich countries (US, Canada, Australia), with the only regular service going between major cities along the most densely populated corridors. Long distance rail across the rest of the country tends to be costly tourist trains. Many poor countries don’t have trains at all or, where they do exist, they’re really slow and bad.
• Comfort — Seats often don’t recline enough to be good for sleeping — or don’t recline at all. Sleeper cars can have two or three tiers of fold-out berths, so you have to be friendly with strangers and secure your luggage. Trains can get quite filthy with passengers’ trash between cleanings.
• Safety — You have to watch your stuff, especially at night. Stations in some cities are in bad neighborhoods or have touts and thieves inside the station itself.
• Amenities — Some low-class trains have none, so you have to prepare in advance — bring food and drink, toilet tissue, fully charged digital devices and so on. Toilets in poor country trains can be filthy and are sometimes just a squatter over a hole in the floor — you can see the rail bed underneath.

• Rail passes are not necessarily a good deal — Rail passes come in many variations of duration and countries where they can be used. If you believe the marketing, it will be both liberating and cost saving to jump on a train whenever you feel like it. But a pass is only worth it if you will be covering a lot of destinations during the period that the pass is valid. For example, the famous Eurailpass has (among its many plans) 6 travel days within one month, covering 28 countries. The adult fare is € 466, averaging € 78 per day — and that doesn’t include the € 10 fee each time you reserve. Yet the Thello train from Paris to Rome can be had for as little as € 55. An even longer one, Stockholm to Rome can be bought for € 88. Are you really going to make enough long trips during your 6 travel days in just one month to make the Eurailpass worth it? There are so many plans that it’s hard to calculate the very few travel plans where a pass is worth it. See seat61 for a detailed explanation and examples.

For more about trains, check www.seat61.com. Creator Mark Smith understands the “romance of rail” and has transformed his passion into the deepest and most useful site for train travelers on the internet. 

Long distance bus

We have a generous definition of “bus,” including full-sized coaches, converted school buses, minibuses and vans, jeepneys, songtheaws and other variants. If it carries multiple passengers over a fixed route for money, then it’s a bus!

Buses are the main form of public transport in a world where most people do not own private vehicles — in middle and poor countries, there’s a bus to almost any destination. In developed countries — especially the big ones like the US, Canada and Australia — it’s just the opposite: public transport to smaller and more remote places has withered and people drive private vehicles to them. This means that you can get to that scenic village in Tanzania, but it will be in a packed minibus on an irregular schedule. It’ll cost pocket change and you’ll get very friendly with your fellow travelers whether you want to or not. On the other hand, if you pine for that scenic mountain lookout in Oregon, there’s no way to get there except by private vehicle.

For the independent traveler, buses are certainly the cheapest and often the only way to get from A to B. They also feature frequent departures, but travel times can be highly variable. Quality varies enormously, from the famous luxury coaches of Argentina (complete with in-seat meal service and wine), to the “18-condemned” minibuses of Ghana, where the traditional 18 people jam into a family-sized van and bounce over dusty washboard roads to northern towns and remote villages. 

Pros

• Go anywhere — Buses (or minibuses) serve anywhere there’s a road. For smaller and more remote locations, buses are often the only mode of transport available to local people.
• Cost — No assumptions here: buses are cheaper than other modes of transport over a given route. There is often fierce competition, making for low fares and frequent departures.
• Comfort — Quality varies enormously. It’s almost always a good idea to pay more for an “express” bus, where they exist. Get your own seat and not a shared bench. An air-conditioned coach can make an arduous journey tolerable in hot weather or where air pollution or dust could be a problem.
• Green — While buses use internal combustions engines, the carbon footprint per passenger km is moderate. It’s not so good for many poor country buses, since their dire state of repair often turns them into smoke-belching particulate polluters.

Cons

• Information on routes, schedules & fares — Information often hard or impossible to find online. This is changing as bigger bus companies put their information online and bus booking sites pick it up. For most local buses in poor countries, all you can do in inquire at your lodge or at the bus yard.
• Trip duration — In poor countries, local buses that stop again and again and again can take so long to cover a modest distance that it’s usually not worth the saving if an “express” is available. In big cities, buses can be quick if they have exclusive lanes or slow when they get mired in traffic.
• Comfort — Rich country buses may be too hot or too cold, but the seats are usually okay. The physical discomfort of ordinary (non-express) buses in poor countries is legendary. They are usually crammed with so many passengers and their stuff, you can barely move. Heat, cold, exhaust fumes, dust, body odor… the privations that local people live with every day are often too much for a coddled traveler. But it’s sometimes an interesting cultural experience!
• Safety & security — In many countries (mostly poor ones) drivers are aggressive to the point of dangerous driving. Don’t sit near the front where you get to see what he’s doing! Your luggage is at risk of theft when the bus stops and the cargo bay doors are opened. Same goes for any time your bag is on the roof.

Cost saving tips 

• Buses are cheaper than trains, but are they worth it? — A train is usually more costly than a bus. Yet, many travelers prefer to pay a bit more for the quality of train travel.