My Honest Review of FlixBus

If you’ve been following along for a while now, you’ll know that I love to travel around by public transport. Not only is it cost-effective, but you often get to see and experience a lot more of a place when you’re not stuck behind a steering wheel.

While most cities and countries have their own systems, there are a few companies that transcend borders. One of these companies is FlixBus. You’ve probably seen their big green buses around, whizzing down motorways or picking up at airports and bus stations in major cities.

The destinations they cover are far-reaching, with further expansions expected down the line. So far, you can find FlixBus routes across:

• Europe
• The US
• Canada
• Mexico
• Chile
• Brazil
• India

Primarily, I’ve experienced FlixBus in Europe. However, it seems like they’ve taken over Greyhound in the US and Canada, amalgamating a lot of the routes. I’ve also written about my cross-border Greyhound experience on a trip around the Pacific Northwest here.

So, without further ado, let’s get into my honest review of FlixBus.

Destination Options

First things first, one of the best things about FlixBus is that they go to a ridiculous number of destinations. There are the standard cities and large towns, but they also go to ferry ports, airports, and national park spots. For example, you can currently get a FlixBus in the UK to Aviemore in the stunning Cairngorms.

If you have an early morning flight in Europe (the budget airlines love to do it), often the trains aren’t running yet. However, the FlixBus routes run throughout the night, so sometimes they line up to help you get to the airport without spending a fortune on taxis.

You can also book a FlixBus that includes a ferry crossing in the price of the ticket. You can currently do this from mainland England to Ireland, through the Welsh town of Holyhead to the Dublin ferry. Getting to and from ferry ports can be tricky, so having a through-ticket from city to city helps take the stress out of things.

With a presence on four continents, FlixBus is definitely growing. However, in South America and Asia, the routes are restricted to being within the specific country (Chile, Brazil, and India, respectively). While this is great for exploring one specific country, it doesn’t help if you want to do a border crossing or explore the wider continent. Of course, you can still do this on FlixBus in Europe and North America, as there are cross-border routes running consistently.

Prices

One of the best things about FlixBuses is how cheap they are. You can get fares for as low as £4.49. For our ride from Stockholm to Stockholm Airport, it cost £15.49 each, and that was an early morning bus. If we had taken the Arlanda Express train, it would’ve cost £27 each.

The price also includes one piece of luggage per person in the hold and one small bag or cabin bag onboard. This is ideal for places where luggage racks on trains get full quickly, or if you’re thinking of flying short-haul but will have to pay extra for baggage.

For long-haul options, there are plenty of routes that run through the night. While they’re not like the sleeper buses in Asia with cabins or the sleeper train with small bunks, they can save you money on accommodation while you continue to travel. For example, if you took the FlixBus from Berlin to Tallinn in Estonia, you’d be traveling for almost 23 hours straight, and the ticket costs £109.99. You can’t get a direct train between these two European capitals, and you’ll end up paying a lot more and accommodation along the way when the connections don’t add up!

Timings

Unlike metropolitan public transport, FlixBuses don’t run at regular intervals. It’s kind of the luck of the draw when it comes to timings. Sometimes they’ll match up with your plans, and sometimes they won’t. If it’s a short or frequent route, then usually there are more options.

In my experience, FlixBuses don’t always leave on time. When we were waiting at the Stockholm bus station for our airport ride, it was around 20 minutes late, and some of the passengers were getting concerned about catching their flight. As it’s road-based transport, traffic happens, so you need to allow more time for any connections, check-ins, or events.

However, I’ve caught FlixBus in France, and it was bang on time leaving Nice for Marseille. It does vary from place to place and even from one bus to another. It’s largely fine if you’re being picked up from a bus station, city stop, or airport; however, if you’re at a more rural stop, it can feel sketchy sometimes, like you’ve already somehow missed it.

Onboard Experience

Once you’re onboard, FlixBuses are largely pretty decent. You get free WiFi (nothing amazing speed-wise, but good enough), plug sockets to charge your phone, and air-con. It ticks all the boxes for a coach, whether it’s long haul or short haul. Some buses won’t have all of these options, because FlixBus sometimes subcontracts the buses from local companies, and they’re not as decked out. When you book your ticket, there are icons for power outlets, WiFi, and air-con underneath the destination.

There is usually one toilet onboard, but for longer journeys, the driver will often have a stop for a longer rest break at services or a cafe. Sometimes they just swap drivers, so pay attention to when the bus is leaving again!

In terms of the seats, I find them pretty comfortable, but at 5ft1, I don’t have much need for a ton of legroom. I will say you get way more legroom and space than on a Ryanair flight, and the seats are nicely padded, so you can get some sleep.

There are also reading lights and curtains if you’re traveling at night. This is great for getting a nap in without getting blinded by motorway headlights coming the other way.

Booking and the App

I’ve booked once through the website, but I usually use the FlixBus app. It’s really easy to use and book through, and then you have the tickets in the app ready to show the driver. You can also access the interactive route map through the app, but more about that in a minute.

One of the underrated features of the app is the timetable tab. You can select your bus station or city and see every bus that’s going out for the next couple of days, complete with timings. If you’re feeling spontaneous about a day out or a weekend away, you can see the full schedule without manually using trial and error with destinations.

You can switch the currency up if you’re in a new place or if you want to swap back to your home currency to figure out how much you’re actually spending. The same goes for the language.

However, when I booked my tickets in Stockholm, I was obviously using the Swedish location settings and consequently got all my FlixBus marketing emails in Swedish.

Route Planning

FlixBus has my favorite route planning tool of any public transport, and that is the route map. You click in, and it shows you everywhere that FlixBus goes. Once you click or type in your starting point, the dots will start disappearing, showing only the ones you can get to from that starting point. It’ll also show you the price for some of them, and others you’ll need to click into.

However, my one gripe with this route planner is that there’s no filter for direct routes. For example, from Liverpool, it says I can get to Aberdeen for £68 one-way. When I click in, that’s if I go via London, which adds another 10 hours of travel in the wrong direction and doubling back on myself.

This would be fine, but when the dots disappear when you click on your home location, some destinations disappear that are still within one or two changes, if you were doing this level of ridiculous double-backing.

However, by and large, I love the route map. If I don’t know where I want to go, I’ll have this route map open with Skyscanner everywhere search in another tab. Then, I can pick a cheap flight, and even if I don’t particularly want to visit that destination, I can see what FlixBuses are heading out from that city or even the airport directly.

Overall Verdict on FlixBus

Generally, I like FlixBus. The prices are reasonable and the app is really easy to use. I like how they operate out of a lot of airports, which gives another faff-free option of getting into the city after a flight. Compared to some countries’ expensive train networks or hiring a car to drive along terrifying roads, it’s a great option that I always check when I’m traveling.

However, it’s not without its reservations. The roundabout routes it sometimes takes you on aren’t great if you’re short on time. Also, sometimes the route map will suggest an option that’s completely outrageous because its connections don’t line up. In these instances, I’d use Rome2Rio or Omio to see if you can get a different bus or train to the connection that works best. FlixBus routes are on Omio as well, so you can combine them with other tickets really easily.

For UK travel specifically, it’s nice to have another budget-friendly bus operator to choose from. MegaBus is dwindling its routes, and National Express has a bit of a monopoly. I’m a big National Express fan, and at the moment, they unsurprisingly have more routes and more frequent options than FlixBus in the UK, but that could be set to change if FlixBus takes off in the UK.