Everyone should take the Megabus to Chicago at least once. It’s a weird, character-building activity that makes us all better, more accepting humans in less than a day. It’s downright transformative! I’ve had the great fortune of riding the big blue bus not once, but twice, so I can write this list of things you should expect on your journey with a certain (mediocre) degree of confidence.
Mentally prepare yourself for…
A bus ride that is five-ish hours.
If you didn’t know this before purchasing a Megabus ticket, try to be a little bit more aware. This is just enough time for you to get seriously bored if you don’t nap for at least half of it, but not so long that you actually go crazy listening to the music that someone is playing aloud from their phone.
Someone playing music from the speakers on their phone.
It will be such an awkward decibel that you question whether they don’t have their headphone jack plugged in all the way and don’t realize the whole bus is now also listening to whatever smooth R&B playlist they are rocking, or if they just have literally no sense of common courtesy.
Two people becoming bus friends and talking the whole way.
Congrats to them for being super sociable and capable of maintaining a marathon of superficial chitchat for the entire bus ride, but this means you will be forced to listen as they bond over how much they love Edible Arrangements.
Having lunch at a deluxe truck stop that is part giftshop, part gas station, and part diner.
Does this sound questionable to you? It should. But where else are you going to buy all of your commemorative Route 66 shot glasses AND order a milkshake?
Free and incredibly slow wifi aboard the Megabus.
Web pages may take longer to load than when you try and use Guest-WUFI on the day course listings go up, but the novelty outweighs all of this. Using wifi on a moving double-decker vehicle seems magical and strange. It’s also as close to the Knight Bus as you will ever get. Plus, you literally have nothing else to do (besides nap).
These are just your basics, so never underestimate the ability of Megabus patrons to surprise you and provide even more unexpected (unwelcome?) entertainment.
