Britain's most beautiful bus routes – all for under £2
We map the ultimate cost of living crisis road trip, from Land’s End to John o’ Groats on some surprisingly scenic buses
While it doesn’t have quite the allure of a £10 seaborne passage to Australia, the government-sponsored £2 bus scheme does provide an opportunity to see those parts of England that you might ordinarily miss driving along the motorway or, in normal undisrupted times, speeding along in an inter-city train. Because, it has to be said, the British bus is firmly committed to Slow Travel.
That’s largely because there isn’t a national network as such. Local bus systems sometimes serve a town or city without connecting to the next one along. Timetables are not coordinated between operators to facilitate convenient changes. There isn’t even a functional website to help plan leisure-focused bus trips.
Instead, there are scores of local firms, big and small, using websites that range in quality from 90s-style bulletin boards to snazzy looking search engines that, often, don’t do their job. Traveline just about works, but needs reloading repeatedly on a tablet and desperately needs some back-end AI so it better serves human beings.
Such obstacles should not be a deterrent, however. Bus travel is all about thinking outside the box. Why else would councils run double-deckers seating 100 people along rural routes in the dead of winter?
The £2 fare cap on single tickets, introduced on January 1, will remain in force until March 31. Yes, just when the spring weather will make road travel delightful. But if you dare to brave a wild and wintry ride along lonely lanes and wind-lashed coast roads, here’s a zigzagging scenic journey – through national parks, AONBs, seaside towns and resurgent cities – from Land’s End to John o’ Groats. All the services are included in the scheme – there’s a full list here – but some buses only run once or twice a day and you should definitely double-check timetables for weekend services, as they can be otiose or non-existent.
How to do it
The Land’s End Coaster (1) links the famous sticky-outy point with the honeypots of St Ives, Zennor and Carbis Bay. It’s a hop-on, hop-off bus and you can only use the £2 deal for one ride. Go from Land’s End to Penzance, and then jump on the T1 or T2 aka The Tinner (2) to continue to Truro, Cornwall’s county town.
There are plenty of buses down to the overtouristed south coast, but it’s more Poldarkian to cross Bodmin Moor, using the 89 to Bodmin (3) and the combined 176/306 college services to gallop past Jamaica Inn and push on to Okehampton (4). This is the ideal base for a hike to the top of High Willhays, Dartmoor’s highest point. Here you might be tempted to cheat and make use of the recently reopened moor-edge rail route to Exeter, but there are buses offering similar journeys as well as trans-Dartmoor routes to Newton Abbot. If you want to go into deepest Devon, the bus is usually best.
However, now’s a good time to veer off towards the sea, using the 317 to Great Torrington (5) and then the 71 to Barnstaple (6). Float along the cliff tops aboard the 309/310, slicing through the high northern edge of Exmoor National Park, all the way to Lynmouth. Continue to Watchet on the Exmoor Coaster (7). Exmoor is stark and dramatic in the cold months and the woodlands take on an eerie quality.
The 28 aka Quantock Line (8) runs down to Taunton, via the Quantocks AONB, where you can hop on the 29 to Glastonbury (9). The famous Tor is tranquil and evocative out of season. Bag another non-obvious AONB on the 376 Mendip Xplorer (10) – considered one of the UK’s most beautiful bus routes – to Bristol, our first big city, once a major centre of bus manufacturing.
Catch the X39 (rebranded as the Aquae in 2020, but the name hasn’t stuck) to Bath (11), and the X76 to the well-heeled market town of Marlborough (12). Clip the southern edge of the Cotswolds AONB on the X5 or faster 80 to Swindon (13); known for its GWR railway history, there’s a kind of snoot-cocking swagger to riding in and out on buses – like riding a horse around Heathrow or a Robin Reliant at Silverstone.
Continue to Oxford on the 56 (14). If you’ve fallen in love with this meandering mode, pop in to the Oxford Bus Museum – which collects, restores and runs vintage models – before getting Stagecoach’s S3 or number 7 to Chipping Norton (15). To the chattering classes it might signify a certain social set, but “Chippy” is less chocolate box than many Cotswold towns.
The number 50 takes you up to Stratford-upon-Avon (16), among the most famous tourist spots in the country but, also, the gateway to the West Midlands. Travel on to Coventry via Leamington Spa on the X18 (17) and into Birmingham on the X1 (18).
Birmingham is impossible to see from the motorway and hard to make sense of on a train; but from a bus you can take in its multi-faceted built environment and general commotion. Someone once said the song Penny Lane was written as if from the upper deck of a bus; this sweeping, enthralling gaze-from-above applies whatever the city. If you’ve bags of time, or need a nap, go for a ride on the Brummy equivalent of London’s yellow Tube line – the Outer Circle or bus route 11, which runs clock and anticlockwise between Perry Barr and Acocks Green.
Enjoy a ferrous feast of industrial and post-industrial sprawl as you ride on the X8 to Wolverhampton (19), continuing north to Stafford via Cannock Chase AONB using the 70 and 74 services (20 and 21).
Prepare for one more blast of traffic jams, roadworks and logistics hubs as you ride on to Hanley, the main town in polycentric Stoke-on-Trent, aboard bus 101, known as The Knotty (22), after the three-loop Stafford Knot that’s the symbol of the county. Visit Stoke’s website flags up local bus routes to the main Potteries museums and working ceramics factories.
From Stoke, our route heads eastward into more agricultural landscapes, principally of the arable variety; even in winter the Pennine rain shadow keeps things drier. But it takes quite a few hops to cross the spine of England. Take the Leek Link/18 to said town (23), followed by the 109 to Macclesfield (24). Stretch out your stopovers in two of the Peak District’s most charming spots, alighting from the 58 in the spa town of Buxton (25) and from the Transpeak TP2 in gussied-up Bakewell (26). The 218 Peakline takes us on to Sheffield (27).
Welcome to Yorkshire, which, being a notoriously inward-looking and boastful county, can surely offer a joined-up timetable? No, not at all. In fact, plug in Leeds or York and you’ll get the usual coach services. To keep things local and bus-focused, we jump on the X10 to Rotherham (28), onward to Barnsley on the 22X (29), up to Wakefield on the 59 (30), whence to Leeds on Arriva’s 110 or 446 (31).
Yes, that was a breathless segue from South to West Yorkshire, but that’s because we are keen to board the Coastliner 840 (32). Connecting Leeds, York and Whitby, it’s a 76-mile route, and is as lovely as it is long. Enjoy views of the Vale of York from Barton Hill. Catch a glimpse of Castle Howard. Ogle Pickering, Malton and the North York Moors National Park. The service, operated by Transdev, is one of 80 North Yorkshire bus routes currently under threat, as passenger numbers haven’t recovered post-pandemic.
Take the X4 to Middlesbrough (33), the 1 to Hartlepool (34) and the 23 on to Sunderland (35) via the former coal mining districts around Easington on the glorious Durham Heritage Coast. The very frequent 56 takes you on to Newcastle (36). In a hurry? Go North East’s X10 express service runs direct from Middlesbrough to Newcastle for just two pound coins, in 1 h 40 minutes.
Use the X15 to reach Berwick (37), skirting the gorgeous Northumbrian coast. The £2 cap only applies to England, though there are calls – led by Scottish Labour – for Scotland to introduce its own. Switch to Borders Buses’ 253 for the ride into Edinburgh (38). You’ll only be asked to part with £2.53 for this 56-mile trip. See what they did there? Just make sure you never take a bus with a long number.
From Edinburgh, routes via Glasgow or Perth to the Highlands involve Citylink buses, which cost more but scoop up serious distances while passing through semi-wild, fully wondrous places. To embrace the Slow theme, head west. There’s competition on the Edinburgh to Glasgow route (39), but Flixbus is promising singles for £1.99; an extra 99p and you can travel “neighbour-free”.
Glasgow to Fort William (40) on the 914/5/6 is £28.10, and Fort William to Inverness (41) on the 919/920 is £11.60. Edinburgh to Inverness direct, via Pilochry, Dalwhinnie and Aviemore, on Citlink’s M90, is £17.50. There are some local buses into the Highlands, but they usually travel to dead ends beside lochs and mountains. See Visit Scotland’s list if dirk-swinging, dram-swigging diversion is what you’re after.
Catch Stagecoach’s epic X99 from Inverness to Scrabster (42) on Thurso Bay (£23) and the 80 onward to John o’ Groats for a fiver (43). Both timetables and others are shown here.
Congratulations. Or, if the above inspired you: enjoy! If you leave now, you might make it by Burns Night. The cost of the above, if you took every bus, and slept on benches, would be around £90 for the English section and from £50 for the Scottish legs. Not bad, and cheaper than the Penzance to Thurso by train, for which the “Cheapest Fare” came in for me at £276.10, single – and you’d still need a bus at either end to complete the trip.