Airplanes get me to great, distant departure points, and my legs get me the ‘last miles’ to my destination. But buses and trains do most of the heavy lifting of intermodal transport.
If you grew up in the US it is hard to imagine how different the transport is in most of the rest of the world. I was used to some suburban and a very few intermodal trains. Same on buses. In all fairness there have been some new companies running some high quality intermodal bus lines, but not many. It is almost impossible to imagine traveling around the US without a car, or spending a lot of coin on taxis and private ride car services.
Now transport yourself to pretty much any other country, and the landscape changes dramatically. Some form of bus: collectivo minibus, pickup with board seats, stripped down school bus, run defined routes around the towns and cities. They may stop at regular spots, or rely on a barking teenager hanging out the door to attract, pick up, and alert the driver to stop and drop. A range of larger vehicles, from bush taxi up to double decker, four axle luxury sleeper coaches run between the towns. Similarly, local trains chug slowly through places that would not even warrant a second look, often stopping at stations barely more than a concrete slab (One stop outside Vienna is a one guy manually operating the switching gear, one chair and one dog). These feed into the intermodal system, marked by larger, perhaps even glamorous stations served by national and often corporate train companies.
Almost without exception the inter- and intra- modal stations are in separate locations, so when hand waving charade communicating with kind locals, try to be specific about where you are traveling to. Having earned experience (aka messed up a bunch of times), I make a point of scoping out my departure options in the station that I arrive at, to figure out if it is, in fact, the right place to show up at 06.00 three days hence.
When looking for schedule information, it is almost not worth researching local bus and train times. Bus stops in much of the world have almost zero signage and information. Just show up at a bus or train stop, and enjoy your waiting time reading. In places such as The Netherlands the trains run so often that unless you are trying to travel in the dead of night, there will be a train coming in very soon.
In support of my sincere believe that bus drivers are the actual force that makes the globe spin, ask each arriving hero how to get where you are going. Unsurprisingly there are a variety of payment methods and rules. Some systems have standing ticket kiosks at stops, most have drivers issuing tickets (exact change some places, change returned in others, cash only some, card only others). Some local systems run only on local system debit cards that are sold in limited locations (in which case I was out of luck trying to get on a bus in Antalya and Buenos Aires). Validating tickets that may be issued is also a hodge podge. Some systems require you to validate an issued ticket on the bus in a reader. Try to grock out the correct answer, and just do not get pissed off when you do it wrong and a roving ticket checker fines you €50 in Bratislava.
For longer distance travel options I rely heavily on Rome2Rio . In my experience it is evolving well, adding better schedule info and even some booking options. But as described in the Navigating page, I never bet my life on it being correct. A solid research and booking app is Omio for trains, busses and ferries. Based on the region of the earth that I am navigating, smaller niche apps such as Flixbus and GoOpti help (and again, look for the signage of the providers, and search for an app). Many intermodal stations have a row of more or less grotty offices selling tickets to some or all of the providers.
For trains, other than Rome2Rio, I end up relying on the some good, some awful, individual company apps like ÖBB in Austria and SNCF in France. Then if you really want to be truly amazed at the dedicated and detailed research of fanatics, go to Seat61 to explain, for example, the insanely complicated way to get a seat on a train to Aswan if you are not an Egyptian national.
Even with the best research I have ended up in Kafkaesque landscape where I have a ticket and board a train, only to be told (aka charaded) that I was not welcome because I had not purchased a seat. No scam, just local practice that I did not comprehend.
Use a subway system if you are feeling bold. These run the gamut from the adorable M1 line in Budapest, to the swarmed São Paulo system, the legendary Tokyo mega metro, Beijing’s humanity jammed controlled chaos (with convenient bomb disposal bins), the almost religious experience of Moscow’s underground architecture, to the eerily shiny and deserted (except for troops of armed guards) Johannesburg system. The lines that serve airports are most often a separate more or less express service that have different rules and pricing. Ticketing can be incredibly logical and simple, with plenty of systems using contactless payment, or insanely illogical, complex and stupid.
Bigger towns will often have Uber, Lyft, or Yango (best in Africa). These are my go to ones. There are plenty of regional or country specific services (Yandex in Russia), but I do not want to bother setting up accounts with too many, for short local stays. Quite often, as an addition layer of security, the service sends a PIN code along with the ride verification. The driver will want that number before the ride can begin. One final tip here. Search the Uber app to locate a choice to ‘pay in multiple currencies’ and enable that. Else each fare will be billed in your home currency, which will make it more expensive.
Taxi services vary wildly in quality and practice, so it is best to take a few minutes on the street watching what locals do to use these services. Some places require you to stand in a prescribed pick up spot, some require a ‘phone call to schedule, many are waved down in the street, often with a piece of currency in your hand. It makes you insane that in some places virtually every informal taxi beeps as it drives up behind you, as if you had forgotten that you needed to get in a car.
In Zambia I was hiking into Livingston and continually waving away taxis that were beeping, slowing, and shouting out the window at me. Eventually one stopped and politely informed that I was illegally walking through a national game park, and there were hippos and elephants around. I paid for a ride.
Many taxis are shared so be prepared to go out of your way. It was so slow and maddening in Gambia as the driver slowed for every potential fare, that I finally got out and negotiated a solo rate with the next guy.
In most places taxis are not expensive, while in Paris they are crazy expensive. Look to see if there is a meter, and be sure that both parties have agreed on a price (I use my ‘phone calculator to be clear) before getting in. In Cairo an honest language misunderstanding by a driver changed the price from 15 to 50. A surprising percentage of drivers do not have enough cash to make change for the equivalent of a $20 bill, so show your currency beforehand to be sure that the transaction can be executed.
Variations on this transport are moped motos. They may be licensed (Rwanda, where they provide riders with a helmet), or completely informal (Haiti, where one kid actually kidnapped a woman I was traveling with). As someone who has crashed the only three mopeds I have driven, I am a little nervous on the back of these bikes. But bear in mind that the guy in Saigon that you are entrusting with your life has been driving a bike since he was about eight years old.
Add the tricycle tuk-tuks in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, etc in the mix. Then good old fashioned human drawn rickshaws in Bangkok.And bonus points if you use a janky bicycle taxi in Antananarivo.
Many towns have electric scooters. I have probably two dozen scooter apps on my ‘phone, and try to do the calculation if I will use a new service enough to warrant going through the hassle of adding another one. I first used one in Rio, and love them for middle distance transit. Local rules apply. In some places, like the Cayman Islands, they must be picked up and dropped off in specific outlined corrals or racks. Others show areas on the app map that are permitted parking spots, or specify entire no parking areas. Some have a locking cable that anchors it to something immovable. Check to see if your destination is inside or outside a geo fenced area. I was on one in Pireus and had to backtrack, find a parking spot, and then hike because I did not look carefully enough at the map.
Bike share. When in NYC I used this great service nearly every day. But, as I rant about in ‘things I hate’, way too many systems around the world make it just too much of a hassle to sign up for and use these. Of course, if your scooter service (Bolt, Lime, etc) includes bikes, ride on.