Britain's 10 most beautiful bus routes
Buses are better than trains. On buses, you can venture down winding roads, up mountain passes and beside deep lakes. You can hop on and off at regular intervals – and they are considerably cheaper, too.
Here are 10 of the most beautiful bus routes across the land. If you have journey that you would like to share, please leave a comment at the bottom of the article.
A bus dependent on the tides
Berwick-upon-Tweed, the number 477
Visitors wishing to explore Holy Island, off Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland, need not take a ferry: they are served by the 477 bus. The route, which takes 35 minutes from Berwick train station to Holy Island, passes beautiful scenery, with splendid views of the North Sea coast. However, given that the Lindisfarne causeway to the island is closed at high tide, the route has a stupendously complicated timetable, altering daily to account for the changing sea level.
The rarest bus in the world
Tavistock to Dawlish, the number 112
The 112 from Tavistock to Dawlish (previously the 113), on the Devon coast, passes through some glorious Dartmoor landscapes and takes two hours. But it is a rare beast, running only on the fifth Saturday of every month between March and October (Exeter, Plymouth, Torquay and Truro take up the other four Saturdays). The Tavistock Country Bus Service has only one bus, and all staff are volunteers. The 112 runs through dramatic and sparse moorland scenery, making stops at The Fox Tor Café in Princetown and a junction known as the Bull Ring in Ashburton, a town known as the southern gateway to Dartmoor.
The only route across the Yorkshire Dales
The Northern Dalesman, number 830
The only way of crossing the Yorkshire Dales National Park by public transport is on the Northern Dalesman. Not that this is a regular hop-on, hop-off service. The 830, which begins its journey in Middlesbrough before travelling to Richmond and across the Dales to Ingleton, only runs on Sundays and Bank Holidays from early May to late October, and there’s just one round-trip journey a day from each end point. This means that – depending on where you alight – you can have between three and six hours at your stop of choice before getting back on and heading in the opposite direction.
The bus that stops at Britain’s own Hobbiton
Birmingham, the number 11
This covers the "Outer Circle", a route that, at over 26 miles, is the second longest urban bus route in Europe (the 360 City Circle, in Coventry, is the longest, at 31.5 miles). In operation since April 1926, the route carries over 50,000 passengers per day across 272 stops, passing 40 pubs, 69 leisure facilities, 233 schools, 19 retail centres and six hospitals. Landmarks on the route include Cadbury World in Bournville and Sarehole Mill, which supposedly provided JRR Tolkien with inspiration for Hobbiton and The Shire. Fun fact: Simon Le Bon, of Duran Duran, wrote the hit single Hungry Like The Wolf while on the Number 11 bus.
Coast and castles in Northumberland
Arriva North East: X18
The route taken by the X18 from Newcastle-upon-Tyne to the Northumberland Coast resembles that of a tourist bus: it passes historic sites such as Bamburgh Castle and Alnwick Castle, one of the locations for the Harry Potter films, and the pretty fishing village of Craster, known for its seafood. There are connecting services to the Farne Islands, home to over 100,000 pairs of breeding seabirds, including 37,000 pairs of puffins.
Island-hopping in the Atlantic
The Post Bus, Outer Hebrides
In some more remote parts of Scotland, bus services are so limited that taking the Post Bus is a sensible option. In the Outer Hebrides, one such route (the W17) runs 27 miles from Lochboisdale pier, on the island of South Uist, to the Isle of Benbecula. Passengers on this journey cross the Atlantic Ocean on the bridge between the two islands. The journey takes approximately 90 minutes, stopping at Benbecula Airport on request only.
Open-top through the Lakes
Bowness and Windermere to Grasmere: Lakeside 599
Running every 20 minutes, this open-top double decker traverses the Central Lake District, taking in Windermere, Braithwate Fold, Brockhole, Ambleside and Rydal. The buses come with free Wi-Fi and USB ports, plus audio commentary along the route.
An international service
Knighton to Ludlow, number 740
This route is international, going from Knighton, in Powys, Wales, to Ludlow in Shropshire. The service, which takes an hour and departs six times a day Monday to Friday, makes at least 24 stops, at chocolate-box rural villages including Clungunford, a few miles from the Welsh border.
A smooth ride for the eco-conscious
Cambridgeshire Guided Busway
The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, which opened in 2011, runs along tracks that resemble a tramway. The route, from Cambridge to Peterborough, takes two hours, and passengers travel on leather seats, enjoying free Wi-Fi and air-conditioning. The eco-conscious will travel more comfortably in the knowledge that the bus runs on biofuel.
The narrowest A-road in England
Dartmouth to Plymouth, number 3
In an article for Telegraph Travel about a three-day bus journey along the south-west coast of England, Andrew Gilligan wrote that, of the eight buses he used, the number 3 from Dartmouth to Plymouth, in Devon, was probably the best of all. "Get there early for a decent seat: every holidaymaking pensioner in England, free pass in hand, seems to know this route," he said. "Like some Sixties hippy, this bus has flowers in its hair, torn off the roadside trees en route and twined around the bar that protects the top deck: the service runs along what must be the narrowest A-road in England, within inches of house walls and medieval bay-windows."
