Coach travel in Australia

Save money on your grand tour. Travel Australia by bus and coach.

For long distances and frequent travel, buses and coaches can be the budget backpacker’s friend.

You’ll find buses in a number of cities (and trams in Melbourne) are often free. In others, ticket deals will save you money if you’re staying in one area for a while. For more, check our Destinations; pages or local tourist information.

If you’re travelling long distance, there are plenty of ways to save

Greyhound
The biggest and most well-known name in Australian coach travel may not always be the cheapest, but when it comes to national coverage and a wide variety of flexible passes no one else comes close.

It does pay to shop around. For a one-way trip you may find a domestic flight can work out cheaper.

Bear in mind the passes below will be even cheaper if you hold either an International Student Identity Card or Youth Identity Card.

• The Kilometre Pass: You can buy this pass up to 12 months before you first use it, so you can get it while you’re still at home and not have to worry about knowing your travel dates. Then, when you’re in Australia, the clock starts ticking the first time you use it. It’s valid for 12 months from that point.As the name suggests, you buy kilometres. The more you buy the cheaper each km is. The smallest distance you can buy is 1000 km, the largest 25,000 km and your pass is valid along any route, in any direction, provided you have sufficient remaining kilometres to cover the full distance.A 3,000 km pass, for example, will get you from Sydney to Cairns with as many stops in between as you like for around $565 AUD.You can also use your kilometres to book tours and accommodation through Greyhound.The Kilometre Calculator on the Greyhound website helps you work out how many kilometres you may need to get you where you want to be.
  Be aware that the value of a kilometre can vary (see sidebar).

• The Mini Traveller: Valid for 90 days and you can only travel in one direction (no back-tracking). It’s still quite a cost effective way of travelling Australia, though.

• Greyhound in Western Australia: The only Greyhound route entirely within WA ferries you between Perth and Broome. Other services head out of the state from either of those cities, but there’s an awful lot of space in the middle of WA that’s essentially Greyhound-free.

You can book onto tours Greyhound operates elsewhere in the state, but there aren’t the same options to hop on and off you’ll find in the rest of the country.

Coach travel in east coast Australia
Premier Motor Service’s east coast passes are well priced and worth checking out if you’re planning to tour the coast between Melbourne and Cairns. Some passes are identical to Greyhound in terms of area covered but last twice as long and cost less.

Coach travel in Western Australia
WA doesn’t get as many tourists as other areas of the country and its coach services are less numerous and frequent as a result. Integrity Coach Lines has some hop-on-hop-off routes, but it’s worth considering car-hire as a cost-effective alternative that will enable you to reach all the places you want to see.

Coach travel in Australia – survival tips
Sometimes it can take a coach trip in Australia for you to realise just how big the country is…

• Connections: Try to avoid tight schedules and connections at the end of long journeys. A 30 hour journey (between Cairns and Brisbane, for example) brings with it plenty of opportunity for disruption and missed connections.

• Stopovers: Make the most of your journey (and the price of your ticket) by stopping over at destinations along the way.

• Time zones: If you cross a time zone on your journey, your itinerary will most likely tell you the time you will arrive in that new time zone. In crossing from QLD to NSW, for example, you might find yourself arriving an hour earlier than planned because of daylight saving. Find more on time zones in Australia.

• Breaks: There are toilets on board the coach but you’ll make several stops over the course of a long journey so you can stretch your legs and grab a bite to eat. You aren’t supposed to eat on the coach, but it’s worth taking a sandwich with you if you get peckish, and do pack a drink.

• Entertainment: Your tablet/phone will be essential on a long journey. Some services offer entertainment systems of varying quality, and you’ll be able to pick up magazines and newspapers at stops along the route.

• Be considerate: Although you may be at the start of your journey, other passengers may have been on board for hours already. Keeping the volume down makes the journey easier for everyone.

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