An American in Britain

My kids love going on the buses, especially the double-deckers.  They enjoy sitting on top at the very front and watching the roads and the scenery from there.  They imagine all kinds of adventures up there.  And, it’s thrilling when we go under low bridges or hit some tree branches.[ad#ad-1]

It’s nice to think that public transportation in England is available, even in the remotest parts.  However, it is not always very economical.  Unfortunately, it has become even more expensive, as public transportation has become privatised. 

There was this romantic notion that I could just hop on a bus and go anywhere and I could give up driving over here. We’ve discovered that this idealised notion is extremely impractical.  Both from the financial perspective, as well as the time aspect.  We’ve had to rely on buses, whether we’re in a rush or relaxed, but it’s definitely a lot more fun when we’re relaxed.  But, even so, the cost of taking the bus for a family of four may outweigh its benefits.

We discovered that today.  We’ve used the buses before to travel to Tunbridge Wells, but we didn’t recall that it was that expensive.  We thought it might be a little more than if we had decided to drive and pay for parking.  But, because the kids enjoy the buses, the extra cost wouldn’t be too bad.  Well, it was too late to jump off after we’d boarded and found out the cost was more than five times what we expected.  Yikes! And double yikes!

Not only that, but we had to wait around for a while after we had run our errands, for our bus to take us home.  After all, it’s a tiny village, so the bus only stops in the village once an hour, if necessary.  Even when you factor in the hassle of driving in town, I don’t think the bus was worth the cost today.