Greyhound is celebrating 100 years, and the BBC’s Laura Barton traveled from Michigan to rural Kansas trying to understand the lure of bus travel reports the Guardian.
Barton says the interesting thing about Greyhound is the gulf between perception and reality. Greyhound still represents freedom and America’s thirst for movement and momentum. But, it’s also nicknamed the “dirty dog.” Those who travel by bus are often the nation’s poor and vulnerable who can’t afford a car or gas, and certainly not a plane ticket.
Barton says on her journey, it’s the people she’s met that stay with her. They show her how wide the world is and how many stories there are to be told.
Landing in Hays, Kansas, a place she describes as a little nowhere stop in the plains, she stood in the cool evening air, watching the bus drive back toward the highway. It left her longing to be back on board just to see if the next place might be better than the last.