Everything You Need To Know About Travelling By Greyhound Bus
With the help of the RatPack crew you’ve planned to travel Australia, AMAZING! But now you’re thinking, wow Australia is actually bloody massive, how am I going to get around without spending a fortune… so you have a few options to travel around Australia, cheap domestic flights, buy a car/camper, rent a car/camper, rideshare or to really see aussie, by bus!
I chose the most popular and social option which was to do it by bus, Greyhound to be precise.. What Greyhound offer is these awesome hop on hop off passes where you can travel in one direction and hop off at any point along the way as much as you like.
These buses go a few times a day and are SO convenient for getting you from A to B, not only do they get you where you need to go, but you’ll also get there comfortably. Yep, we’re talking reclining leather seats, usb ports, wifi, aircon, toilet on board and regular stops at servos where you can get food – yay! I travelled all the way from Cairns – Sydney (3,300km) using the Greyhound hop on hop off pass and had an awesome time.
Click images to see more.
How does it work?
So when you buy your pass on the RatPack site you will instantly given a booking number and a pin that is your unique log in for the greyhound website.
You’ll have your own log in area which will take you to the ‘manage my booking’ page. On this section you’ll be able to pop in your dates of travel and where you want to travel too and simply add the buses to your itinerary, it’s super easy! It’s in this section that you can also delete buses too if plans change, because we all know that very often that does happen!
How to choose a pass?
There are lots of combinations of passes to choose from based on your route and what you want to see. Note: any of the passes below you can start in either location.
- Cairns <> Sydney – the most popular choice, choose this if you want to get the full east coast experience and have 3 weeks+
- Cairns <> Brisbane – best if you have less time but want to see all the hotspots aka Fraser Island, the Whitsundays & the Great Barrier Reef (note- this has an extra add on that allows you to go to Byron Bay too!)
- Cairns <> Melbourne – The ultimate! If you have maximum time and want to cruise the whole east coast all the way round to Melbourne this is your best option, value wise it works out all in all as cost effective as flying!
There are also hop on hop off passes which offer travel in any direction on any route with a larger max of travel days.
with RatPack Travel?
Getting the bus
Your itinerary will tell you what time and where your bus will pick you up from, I recommend getting there at least 15 mins early, it’s always better to have extra time right? Also allow yourself plenty of time to get to the Greyhound stop.
Once at the stop, when the greyhound arrives wait for everyone to get off and collect their luggage and then you can put your luggage on the bus where the driver tells you (this is important that you put it in the right spot). Then you’ll be checked in by the driver, have your ticket, plus a form of ID (driving license is good) once you are checked in and ticked off, you can board the bus yay!
The extra deets
Your pass is valid for 1 year after the date of purchase and then you have 3 months to use it after your first date of travel, you can take up to 20kg on the bus but if you need any extra items aka a surf board you’ll have to let them know before and you’ll have to pay an additional fee. We recommend arriving 20 mins at least before the departure time. There’s aircon & toilets on the bus so that’s got you covered for those long old journeys.
So all in all, its an easy, cheap and convenient way to travel and I couldn’t recommend it more! It’s my go to way for travelling Australia.
From our RatPackers
I booked my campervan to travel in NZ via RatPack Travel, who managed to find me the perfect van at relatively short notice and with a discount! It was a real help to have someone do the searching and mediate with the company, once they had dates and information from me. Thanks for the prompt and friendly service!
Great service! Jenner was so much help and gave us lots of options to suit our journey. Very attentive and made it an easy process.
This was the best customer service I ever experienced! I highly recommend you if you are looking for a Van or Camper to leave your email address so somebody of their team can get in touch with you. They compare for you all camper hire company’s and you can choose with one suits you the best. I literally talk to this awesome lady from Holland (as I’m only available after 8pm MEL time, so the arrange for me a call with somebody from the EU team for free) and she got our dream van for the most incredible price few minutes after we talked! And not even one day later I got my booking confirmation from the camper company. Their service is free of charge as they earn commission of your booking but this doesn’t cost you a cent. I did my own research before but the deals they give me was way better than I could find by my own. I highly recommend to get in touch with this team and let them find your Van. They literally saved us our fuel cost for a 3 weeks travel from Cairns to Sydney. Yes- that’s almost $1000 they saved us! Go and get your van! You won’t regret it.
So far, so so good. I should have started with RatPack to begin with and saved all that time searching for a camper and feeling like I was getting nowhere. Jenna was incredibly helpful -doing all the hard yards and getting us the best deal. Very prompt service. Thanks for making it so easy !
Very friendly service with Tammy. Super attentive and keen to help us. Got us a discount and one of the last available options.
Ratpack was super helpful! They were extremely responsive and helped us get an amazing deal on two 3-person camper vans. Highly recommend giving them a shot!
Really straight forward helpful and friendly people!
Mike helped us with finding the best van for us for our 3 week trip and was very knowledgeable. With some quick phone calls he gave us the best quotes and walked us through the process in detail. Everything was made clear and we booked our trip in just an hour! I would highly recommend their service.
Great experience with the RatPack travel team! Really went out of their way to help us book our Van’s for two different trips! They have great rapport with the various Van companies, were able to help us book the last available Van for our time in WA and were able to get us some discounts as well. Zan and Mikey were both so easy going, made it feel like we were chatting with friends who genuinely cared about our travels haha, awesome guys! Definitely recommend the RatPack service, will save you time and money fellow travellers!
Mike was amazing - helped me find a van and gave me quotes, a full breakdown, etc super quickly no stress! Just what I needed. Can't wait to start my trip. Thanks dude!
Booked a 3 week trip with MIKEY! Customer service was on point. No Buls**t straight to the point. Saved us a further % on the original price of the campervan and sent me a map of the east coast with highlighted areas he highly recommended to stop at. looking forward to our trip! 🇮🇪 🇦🇺
Highly recommend this company! Mike was incredibly helpful; he gave us lots of useful info and managed to get an excellent deal on a camper for our trip. The whole process was quick and easy. Thank you! Alison and Amy x
Mikey was amazing at helping us plan our 3 week schedule for the east coast. He went over and above to make sure that we were able to fit everything in that we wanted to in the time we have. His knowledge has been a great asset for us making an itinerary. Can't recommend enough!
If you want to book a camper for your trip, you should only do so with Ratpack. The team is incredibly fast and provides great service. No annoying comparison of providers, since Ratpack takes over. They are looking for the best deal and can offer great discounts. they respond individually to your wishes and give you additional tips for the trip. Since there is also an EU team, you could make calls at individual times of the day - simply excellent all around - thanks for everything
Absolutely delighted with the service provided by RatPack Travel. In particular, the excellent guidance and support offered by Jules! We explained our plans and she found a suitable solution to meet our needs. Very grateful and suggest other travellers use this facility. Thank you 😊
