If you’re a stickler for comfort, never travel via bus for more than a few hours.
Ever.
Despite the fact Hendrike calmly and coolly said she didn’t mind long bus rides and that she managed to sleep along the way, that was definitely not the case for me.
I barely slept on the way from Winnipeg to Toronto. I did get to doze off for a few hours here and there, but my quality of sleep was poor. Additionally, I was hardly comfortable. The bus seats had no neck support, and I found myself wondering who in the world designed such horrible seats! Why didn’t they craft these any better???
The only consolation, comfort-wise, during this road trip was that I got two seats to myself, so I was able to stretch my legs out at my convenience. It also provided space for my morbidly obese Jansport backpack, which I exploited by stuffing it with everything that could possibly fit in it: shoes, clothes, food containers, toiletries, etc.
Okay. Actually, there were other positive aspects about the ride. One thing is that Greyhound tends to stop in the-middle-of-nowhere places, like Dryden, White River, and Marathon. It’s kind of cool to stop in more remote, low-key areas.
I remembered something Ish from Little Mountain Farm said: “I paid for torture” by booking a Greyhound.
It made me chuckle on the inside.
But the best aspect of Greyhounding is that it equipped me with a tangible idea of how far I was really traveling. By flying, I tend to take for granted the distance covered in getting me several hundred to thousand miles. I could have been in Toronto in less than two hours had I flown out of Winnipeg. By taking the bus, however, I grasped how big the country is and appreciated it more, because I was able to spend hours on end looking out the window at all the nature in Canada.
Still, I did spend the majority of my time on the bus sleeping/trying to sleep. I enjoyed the scenery whenever I was awake, as well as stretched my legs and listened to music. I also packed food so I wouldn’t have to buy anything 🙂
