Coming Soon to a Bus Station Near You - MegaBus!

MegaBus, the beloved bus that will take you from Chicago to Milwaukee for a mere pittance, is expanding. You can go from Minneapolis to Pittsburgh to Louisville to Kansas City now. Granted, you'll have to go a little bit out of the way sometimes, but you can't beat the price. If they keep expanding, it should soon be possible to travel outside the center of the country without making airline reservations or having to drive on those long, boring highways.

MegaBus is an import from the UK and is headquartered in Chicago. It's a convenient way to travel without paying an arm and a leg for plane tickets or gasoline. In May, you can ride from Chicago to Kansas City for $1.50. That's less than it costs to park in a garage for a few minutes while you drop off someone who will be getting on the bus. Even in the middle of vacation season it is possible to get from Point A to Point B for much less than it would cost to fly or take the train or drive.

One way the cost is kept low is by not renting any space for bus stations. MegaBus borrows space at existing bus stations for as long as it takes to drop off and pick up passengers. Tickets are purchased at megabus.com, which cuts the cost of having ticket agents working in booths. They take Visa, MasterCard and American Express. The buses sometimes run a few minutes late, but they are just as likely to be few minutes early. Weather and road construction can have the same effect on other means of transportation.

The buses are clean and comfortable. The seats allow far more room to stretch your legs than do airplane seats. There are tidy bathrooms on board. The rides are longer, but if you take into account the amount of time you would have spent parking, standing in line after line to check your luggage and go through security, and sitting in a waiting area before boarding, not to mention sitting in that tin can on the runway before taking off, it might not be that big a difference.

When the choices are driving for several hours and needing to take a nap before doing anything else at your destination or sleeping while you travel and letting someone else do the driving, it can be easy to decide.