Hop On Hop Off Buses: What You Need To Know
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- Опубліковано 19 чер 2017
- Ever wondered if you should take the hop On hop off bus in Paris or London or Shanghai? Well here we look at reasons why you should HOP ON or HOP OFF a hop On hop off bus while you are traveling.
Filmed in Helsinki, Finland, St. Petersburg, Russia, Tallinn, Estonia, and Riga, Latvia.
Copyright Mark Wolters 2017
When i go somewhere on vacation. I try to take the hop on bus the first day.
1. you get an idea what you want to see and you can plan the rest of the trip on that
2. you might be tired from the flight so its nice just to sit back and relax while you still are doing something.
In big cities I love using the public transport. It is part of discovering the city for me. I love trams, metros and buses. I always get lost at least once but it is part of the fun.
That intro was timed so perfectly. Nicely done. 👍 Great advice as usual.
With hop on hop off buses, it's important to ask whether the bus has a guide or not. Some have fantastic tour guides. Others are just transportation. If it's just transportation, it might be a lot cheaper to just use regular public transportation to get around.
+Trip Hacks DC well said! And very true.
agree! in Vienna there is an own tramway for the tourists which goes exactly the same route as 2 regular lines combined. people here find it really funny how the tourists are ripped off ;-)
live guids are indeed making it mutch better, thouse taped once feels so trivial, where live guides often give some very interresting facts aswell as finding an allmost empty bus with a guide is allmost as getting your own personal guide. may differ from guide to guide thou
Public transportation dont have audioguides, dont have stops in the touristic spots. Also dont have open deck.
Great video, as usual Mark! I know I have said this before, but you have really inspired me when it comes to travelling. My Dad and I are headed to Peru next week!
Enjoying your channel. Definately agree the Hop ons/offs can be ideal to get your bearings and they are everywhere. The information gained as you go around is very welcome to learn about the area. In the smaller cities we rarely use them as part of the fun is the less tourist style exploration and you never know what gems you will come across. looking forward to seeing more of your trips.
Great, informative video as always, Mark. I specially like how you don't let a few rain drops here and there cramp your style and ruin your travel experience. 👍🏻👏🏻 Best to you and the family, and please keep posting your wonderful travel videos. Joe
In my opinion, Hop on/Hop off is a grate choice when you have limited time to know some place. Excellent vídeo!!
This is a very good compact review. Well spoken and a nice summary of both pros and cons.
First!!
hahahaha best "first" comment I've ever seen!
+RATED boat Helsinki to St. Petersburg then boat to Tallinn then bus to Riga
RATED Lithuania is by Russia on the Baltic Sea, near Finland.
RATED Whoops! I didn't know how to take it. I guessed!
Wolters World I'm waiting for Mark's health update ;)
Honestly, I've come to really enjoy hop on hop off busses. Often they have either audio guides or actual guides on the bus so you can learn a bit about the history while you rest your feet and enjoy the view. They're convenient and take you directly in front of all the main attractions. You get to see a good part of the city in a short time. Of course you want to also walk around the city, but with HOHO busses you really get to see a lot and you don't need to spend a lot of energy. Also, I don't think going around the city in the public transport is the same even if they go the same route - it's not as nice as HOHO busses where you can sit at the top getting fresh air and sunshine on your face while you enjoy the beautiful view.
Mark I love your videos. They are usually very upbeat and informative. Great vid as usual. Thanks.
+C Johnston thank you
I took the hop on hop off in Dublin for 3 days and loved it. Got to see a lot.
My mom and I always do the HOHO buses in NYC My mom used to work in the Financial District in the 60's. We know the city well and just like to ride around and experience it. Also my mom can't walk much anymore. So it's perfect.
Spot on! I feel like we would be great travel buddies because I agree with stuff you say in all of your videos. On the bus thing. a city where I felt it was really worth it to take this bus was Vienna. In Barcelona for me it was also a good choice. A city where it was a complete waste of time and money was Dresden. Everything worth seeing was in an enclosed area where the bus didn't go and we spent quite a while driving around for no reason.
I always do one when i'm travelling. They are a great way to see the city and are priced good.
I love this man.
The BEST VIDEOS.
EVER..FOR TRAVELING.
Agreed!
I'd never heard the term "hop on hop off" before this video. I was in the US Navy long long ago when it was still a British colony, and the first time my ship paid a port call, several of us got on one of the red double-decker buses, got on top and up front, rode it until we got back to the starting point, I think a couple of hours, and had a great introduction to the city. No guide, of course, but we had a pretty good idea of what was available to investigate further on our own.
Hop on Hop off was worth it in Cape town, South Africa. Cape Town is a nice city with a good view of Table Mountain so I recommend a visit one day. Although Africa is quite the journey for an American Africa is worth it imo.
I found it less useful in London as I was able to walk around all the sites and if it was too far just get on the tube. Although I think they have a "guide" on the London ones which is good for anyone not familiar with British history.
Great video. We have taken hop-on-hop-off in Chicago and San Francisco and you're right about being good for bigger cities and getting a feel on your first time visiting a particular city. And you are right about smaller or medieval cities. I don't know how a bus could get to center of Florence.
The first time I went through London I was only there for a few days and I had tickets for the Hop on Hop off included in something (I think accommodation because it was near a few of the main routes) so I would walk around all day seeing my priority sites then take a long trip back to my hostel via an area of the city I simply wasn't going to see on that trip.
Being my first time I did as most do and spent most of my time roaming the sites between the Westminster and Tower Bridge regions (plus the obligatory museums) so I would take a bus that goes via Marble Arch, or Kensington, or Regents park, etc.
I wouldn't get to explore the whole city but I could get a glimpse of some of the city while I had a relaxing trip home.
Like your video's and been watching for a very long time. I like hop on hop off and agree with you. Keep up the great video's.
I seem to remember that these tickets can be for two days. Some cities are exhausting when you walk everywhere, Paris springs to mind, I remember many years ago on our last day in Paris we discovered the hop on hop off bus and were annoyed with ourselves that we didn't use it before, it went all round the big city stopping at the important sights and I seem to remember even took us up Montmartre to the Sacre Coeur church. I also remember that we couldn't find any food to buy in central Paris, no supermarkets, not even a vending machine; even near our hotel which was just inside the Peripherique. Maybe it was our fault for not looking in the right places. The combination of exhaustion from walking everywhere and not being able to find food would have been nice to avoid. I have found other cities can be hard to locate food, none are as food accessible as London with all its Marks and Spencers, Waitrose and Sainsburys mini food markets, but none as bad as Paris. A tip for anybody in Munich, though it was three years ago that we were there, there was a fabulous Lidl not so mini supermarket near the Ostbahnhof S Bahn station. We stocked up on two big carrier bags of fresh fruit, salad, seeds, and the tastiest salted roasted almonds we have ever tasted before or since. We carried tangerine oranges, nuts and seeds around with us to keep our energy up all day and didn't have the hassle of trying to find somewhere to go inside to eat. We did buy the odd beer, and even cups of tea which latter ripped through our money more than anything and a bit silly as you can buy delicious fizzy bottled water in Munich mini markets for almost nothing. I suppose there are apps that people use on their smartphones for locating mini (and big) supermarkets? My mobile phone isn't smart.
when I was in London I learned how to use the underground Subway system which was great . but then the concierge at my hotel said to use your same Underground pass on the double decker red buses! so you go on top of those and you could see the city as you're traveling along and it's extremely fun, and it's like a city sightseeing tour for free!
Completely agree with everything you said! We used a hop on and hop off in Paris because it was our first time to France and Europe and it was a great introduction but I wouldn't do it everywhere!
I like the hop on hop off bus to get an idea of how different parts of the city are connected, and to get some insider info from the audio tour guide. I generally use them on the first day, and then switch to public transport for the rest of the holiday which is cheaper and gets you to different locations.
I really liked this video, it put some things into perspective for me. As a traveller I never really considered taking the hop on hop off bus (as you described, the more independent traveller), however I will consider it when going somewhere bigger where the attractions are more widely dispersed :)
main thing I learned from this video: how annoying "hop on hop off" sounds after hearing it 20 times ;-) (great video though!)
I think people should give it a try and not worry about not looking like a tourist. There's something very enjoyable about sitting on the top deck with the wind in your hair looking at this new city all around you from the vantage point of the top of a bus and learning the basics about the city and its sites at the same time.
I agree. Also, what's not clarified until the end (a little) is that with some Hop-on/Hop-off bus tours, you can enjoy the loop(s) over a two-day (that's two *consecutive* days). I've done this, staying on for about an hour on the first day and, as Mark says in this video, checking out the "lay of the land." Then, on Day 2, because, say, I have a museum pass or a multi-event pass, I've hopped off to step inside a few places, hopped back on a bus and then, near the end of the loop, hopped off to spend a large amount of time at a museum that I'd waited years to visit. Near the museum's closing time, I was so much more relaxed and just allowed myself to tour places open until evening as well as dined in that neighborhood.
Years before that -- in Philly back in the summer of 2004 or of 2005 -- I used a Hop-on/Hop-off bus (that one was the fun purple trolley) because the distances from one site to another were too far away. I wanted to visit MMA (wasn't my first time there) to catch a temporary and traveling exhibit of Salvador Dali's works there. I knew the museum's closing hours, so I did the loop to see other sites, hopping off only once to dine at Reading Terminal. By waiting till an hour before closing time, I lucked out in seeing the Dali exhibit at a much-reduced price. How? Well, I had no museum pass on that trip because it was only a two-day trip (I had visited Philadelphia several times as a child and as an adult). However, once I arrived at the front desk, with my purse open and my hand primed to pluck out a twenty, the gentleman smiled at me and said that Mr. and Mrs. ______ were no-shows, and so I could use one of the couple's tickets, but at a cost of only $10. Senor Dali's art may not be lots of folks' cup of tea, but I long had adored his surrealistic wonders. For a $10 donation to MMA, I got a chance to witness a rare exhibit of works by one of my top ten 20th-century modern artists, with self-guided audio accompaniment. I had time to buy, not just browse for a change, in the museum's gift shop; went home with a souvenir from the Dali exhibit: a quart-size carton of dyed macaroni. The carton had Dali or Daliesque motifs. I went home by rail the following afternoon an ecstatically happy woman -- all because: 1) I was able to tour many sites in Philly due to that trolley's routes and schedules (including a very nice, though small, Rodin Museum -- small compared to Paris' Rodin Museum, which is housed in a 7e mansion with Rodin's sculptures in the exquisite garden); and 2) Dali, Dali, Dali!
Great info, as always. I usually do the hop on/ off buses whenever I go to a new city. As you said, they really can help you to better orient yourself and give you a sense of where to explore more.
The only tip I would add is... Make sure you find out when the last trip of the day is and last pickup for each stop.
Keep up the great work!
We call them the HOHO buses. 😁
Most of them take about 90 minutes and have either recorded narration or a guide that tells you what you're seeing. I like to do them on my first day in a new place, do the full Tour , marking those sites I want to go back to, then making the round again, hopping off at those places I've marked. I like them better than using subways at first because you miss the scenery and layout of the city if you're always underground.
In case you go to St. Petersburg you can also take the boat hop on hop off. Just behind the church you saw in the video there is one stop. In 2015 we had paid around 600 rubels and you will see all the main sights in the core city of St. Petersburg. But check the road they are taking that day, because they also have several options at several times. Back in 2012 we took the boat in the night to experience the opening of the bridges. Great experience
I took a HOP on Hop off bus in Budapest, it was so good! I had only 2 full days, I bought the 48 hours ticket and I managed to see so much (I actually hopped off and toured by foot).
Tip: make sure they have your language, I speak Hebrew and they don't have it on every company.
i was just wondering if you did a HOHO bus video!!! Your videos are as entertaining as informative! Thanks
St. Petersburg looks AMAZING!! Yes, Savannah was Great!! Loved it!
Yes, Savannah is good for hop-on-hop-off buses. Just don't go when it's hot! Check the weather....
perfect! was looking at Tallinn and St Petersburg. So I guess it's really a good idea in St Petersburg especially with only about 2 days there.
We just call them HoHos. I lived in Istanbul for a few years and took the HoHo the first weekend. You drive around a bit but their recorded guide was not very helpful. It was like "this is Galata tower". Didn't say anything about it. "Now we come to Istiklal Street". but didn't say anything about it. London!! Definitely recommend it for your first trip there. (Obviously this isn't necessary for people who like getting lost and finding their way back). The reason I recommend it for London is that most people know the touristy things to do in London and for your first trip there, that's what you want to do. They usually have a two day special. By your third day (if there is one, or your next trip), get an Oyster card and hit the tube to find the out of the way places, theatres etc. Another thing that's great about London is that a lot of people have 12 or 14 hour layovers at Heathrow. Depending on the time of day, you may want to take the tube or train in to central London and ride the HoHo around a few times. Not cheap but London never is.
Hop on in Paris, we were there for a few days and that’s all we used to get around, great views! Hop off in Rome, it is a relatively small loop, as Mark mentioned it doesn’t go into the streets so only takes you around the downtown periphery, and then an hour wait/stop/pause mid loop. Better to get around in a cab there.
One thing I would like to add: I have been living in Munich for 4 years and working there for another 3 years while living close by. Yet I learnt a surprising amount of things when a friend visited and we went on a guided bus tour (not hop-on-hop-off, but I think that is irrelevant for this argument) of the city. I knew more about some of the places than the guide said, but I didn't know anything about many others. So "knowing" a city can be quite a bit different than truly knowing it.
thanks for the tips! i Always consider the hop on hop off busses but i enjoy walking trough a city to much :)
ps. love the editing!
greetings from Antwerp, Belgium! :D
+epicpeeta filmed some on an iPhone and tried the iPhone iMovie. I like it but it doesn't do overlay pictures so I couldn't put all my inside the hop in Hop off bus pics :(
Great video with practical tips
another honest, helpful, yet interesting video. congrats with more than 200k subscribers!!
+Awang Irawan Rusli thank you on all counts
we did a hop on hop off bus in Chicago. Got off by field museum then could not get back on as they were all full. I have read similar complaints about the busses in NYC.
First time in a new city I often take a guided bus tour. Often they are better than the hop on/off bus. I did that in Helsinki with a live guide :) I got a great introduction to Helsinki and Finnish culture. Then I could walk or go back to the places that seemed interesting for me.
A great tip is to check out TripAdvisor and so on for the most popular guided tours.
I also agree on the city. I was in Rome and it is not good for busses. You see more by walking around and sometimes take public transport.
Now I have in my head only 'HOP ON HOP OFF' :))
One trick I tend to use... is,
if I'm staying in a city for an extended time,
on the FIRST couple of days take a HOHO bus to get ideas of where the various sights are.
Then on the rest of the trip you know that (for example) this art gallery, that museum & that sports ground are really close.
Perhaps I can visit all three of them in a day rather than taking a whole day for two & a half day (& travel time) for the third, which leaves me with a little bit of extra time for other things.
We are in London now and did the hop on hop off. We did it for one day and it would have been better to do it for two or three days to make sure you see everything. London is so huge and we didn't realize how huge. Massive and tons of people and vehicles. We were stressed a little bit. Take your time and see a lot of things but try not to rush it. We also did the Oyster card to go to all the great markets they have. Camden Town is well worth the tube ride. The tube took a few times riding it to understand it. Don't go during rush hour. We left at 3:00 and the tube was packed like sardines. No one speaks to anyone on the tube. Another thing, if you need help just ask. Everyone was so helpful and went out of their way to help us navigate the tube. No one walked away without helping us. That is a plus and made us relax knowing the next time we went on we could just ask.
Very informative ❤️
You make valid points
If you have limited time to explore, take in to account the trafic and the roudes under constrution! A simple route can take much more time depending on the hour of the day you hop on. Also can influence the time you wait for the bus on the stop (in London we wait 35 minutes for a bus that was supose to pass every 10 min. because of the traffic and the constrution on some rouds). I know my english is not perfect. Just trying to help!
Hi Mark. Mexico City has double decker on/off buses with retractable tops. Cruising those lovely boulevards in the city of eternal spring, al fresco, with a view above the traffic is just wonderful. Jump off at the main plaxa or Chupultepec or the basilica, for example. The narration is over speakers in a pleasant voice and not loud. There are attendants who will answer questions. The city is enormous so you do need transportation to get to major sites and those buses are just the thing. There are a couple of considerations. Check if the air quality is good on that day, both for health and views. If the city air quality is poor you might as well sit on the lower enclosed level. Begin your tour early in the day, not as evening approaches. I've heard - not personal experience - that at 9:00 p.m. (closing time) they stop the bus anywhere it happens to be and order everyone off, no negotiations allowed and no effort to stop in a safe or logical place.
Brilliant edit, nice job!
Greetings from Budapest! :)
László Bendegúz Pál ☺
I'm from Germany :)
+László Bendegúz Pál thank you
A couple weeks ago I took the HOHO bus in Cuenca, Ecuador. For $5 and a wonderful 2 1/2 tour, it was
well worth it!
Hop On Hop Off buses can be great if you have limitedvtime and money. My mother and I had a ten hour layover in Brussels so we headed out to the city. We decided to take one of the buses because we were already tired of walking around the city centre for a couple of hours. However, if you have lots of time and the city your in has a fantastic public transportation system, you are better off using that. For example, I'm Hungarian. For anyone going to Budapest, I recommend using the public trnasport because you can reach more places with it than the tour buses and faster then the tour buses as well.
I used the hop on hop off bus in Lisbon, and i really recommend it if you don't have a lot of time. ( i used the ones from the grey line and they were better than the other ones because they had 4 different lines and a ticket vallid for 2 days instead of one) Because of the bus i saw a lit if things that i wouldn't have otherwise and i visited more places ( because the bus also travelled to cascais i saved a lot of money,( on of the lines) and there was another really small bus ( 10 people) that went around the city ( through all the small streets and uphil and stuff) it was awesome because i saw a lot and i didnt have to walk everywhere!I also saw really touristy stuff from a far and was fine with that ( i already saw them and wasnt interested in visiting them so i had more time to do other stuff and enjoy)
Not exactly the hop on hop off bus, but by making mistakes and realising that we couldn't use the Bayern train ticket to get to Neuschwanstein from Munich, we ended up treating ourselves to a Grayline luxury bus tour that went to all the castles, not just Neuschwanstein, which we could never have done using public transport, and my companion was actually more bowled over by one of the other castles that belonged to King Ludwig. We also got to wander around Oberammergau, and got driven around the alps in great comfort, with a wonderful on board guide lady who told us lots of fascinating history information. They bought entrance tickets to the castles for us, which would have been horrendously difficult to organise on our own, and we had a fantastic lady guide for these. They even had bottles of ice cold fizzy beer in their ice box which were ultra cheap, probably the nicest beer I have ever had. This made a very relaxed and enjoyable day, whereas trying to do it on our own we wouldn't have seen anything like as much and it would have been so hard if not impossible to do. This bus wasn't cheap, but it was worth every penny.
This video has drinking game potential!
+Springheeled Jackie every video has drinking game potential :)
Love it! Thanks for your great videos! If you should ever be around Aachen/ East Belgium let me know! We have some great foods, some interesting history and wonderful landscape here.
In London we were surprised by how early the service stopped running. So make sure you check the hours of operation.
The Yellow Bus hop on hop off is a great option to get to the Bellem District in Lisbon as you can not walk there and it is cheaper than a cab.
I found the hop on hop off bus very useful recently while in Rome as I am bad with directions and local transport is not very good.
I didn't take the HOHO bus last week in Paris because the Metro goes everywhere I wanted to go and I had a Metro pass.
I think these tourist bus services do help with going around the central parts of town, but if you want to go to attractions outside the centre, for example if you want to visit Hampton Court Palace or the Harry Potter studio tour in London, Public Transport is king. Also many PT providers also offer discounts for overseas travellers online.
but sometimes it´s the other way around. for some attractions outside the city you need those tourist shuttle buses because the public transport situation is not good enough since just tourists go there. same thing reversed with city centres: everybody needs to move around there, so you will have public transport as well.
Hi Walter, always enjoy watching your videos.. but this one really stuck in my head with the 'hop on hop off' thing...Now say it quickly for 100x 'hoponhopoff' :))
great video .. I don't take hop on bus because after some time I feel pooring
Love this vdo.
Hay view my video please.. country 🇮🇩🙏
Hi! Great video as always. Ever done the HOHO in Rome?
I personally like the HOHO buses and find them an excellent way to get around. You are right, some, like those in Dublin, Edinburgh, and Athens take you very close to the sights. Rome and Tallinn get you sorta close. In some cities its not enough to wait at the bus stop and expect the bus to stop for you. You may have to flag it down (Found that out in Edinburgh).
Laura Valentine so would you recommend taking a HOHO in Dublin? I'll be there next month, I'm considering it
The one in Dublin takes you very close to the Guinness Storehouse, The Old Jameson Distillery, and Trinity College (Where the Book of Kells is located), so yes, I would recommend. We only had one day, and would never have seen as much as we did if we had done all our touring on foot.
What about Shanghai?
When I was in NYC I purchased the 'No Queuing ' ticket for the Hop On Hop Off bus ar $25 each. only to find out that it does not matter what ticket you have the bus staff just let people do a free for all. The bus will stop, one set of doors open to let the people who want to off out, the other set doors to let people on and it then turns into a stampede. The staff check to see if you have valid ticket, not what type of ticket. There was no control, no order, and I never did on before any one else. In fact on two occasions the bus was full and I had to wait for the next bus to come along. People got on that before who just had a normal ticket. My last comment is not a complaint just merely pointing a point out. On the touristic buses we get the speech from the narrator that they are on minimum wage and live on the tips. Well my partner was on minimum wage when we visited NYC and we could not afford to keep handing out tips every time we got a touristic bus. I did hear other Brit's inform the narrator they were on minimum wage back home and no one tips them. I did not feel the service was that good and most of the narators just barked on about the political situation in NYC !
my advice is for NYC just buy the cheapest ticket you can for the touristic buses as upgrades are not worth it.
NYC was the worst experience of touristic bus I have ever had, and I travel alot !
If you have more than one day for exploring the city I would really recommend using local public transport instead.
i sometimes do the buses to see if some sights are even worth going to, then i come back.. also use them if i only have 1 or 2 days for sightseing!
It is so cool that you visited Tallinn, hope you liked it here :)
+Karl Aunin I always do. Gorgeous city
This is very cool, it is great to know that other people like our city and come here, even though it is so poorly connected to everywhere else. Also I hope you do an episode about Tallinn soon :D
Edinburgh has 5 hop on hop off bus companies, but the one ticket covers them all. At least that was the case, when I was there in 2014.
nice to know that you worked in Lithuania, my home country! In Vilnius?
I was right there in St P just two weeks ago!
Have you ever visited the Kubinka or Bovington tank museums? And if so, does Kubinka have decent English descriptions on the various displays? Always wanted to visit them if I travel to Russia or England.
I like this buses and I did it innAmsterdam as well but the boat is better but very slow.
I work in Chicago next to the Sears tower and the HOHO buses waste too much time in traffic on weekdays. The HOHO riders will spend more time watching office workers buying and eating lunch than seeing the city sights.
agree some cities not worth it like Florence and then in cities like Rome there are dif types of busses and options. Can you maybe do one on city day passes? Enjoy your travels from a sunny South Africa
Yeah I'm trying to figure out rome too, not only are there several bus companies but there are several packages and it confuses me
super nice nice
enjoyed the video.
+tww36mufc thank you
i was in hongkong a few weeks ago the hop on hop off bus ticket was 500 HKD i just took the tram which cost me 2.5 HKD and saw the city for almost free
I personally never use these, but public transport passes instead (if the destination has such a thing). Ripoff - e.g in Oslo Norway the 24 hour public transport pass is three times cheaper than this ripoff service and that includes all lines not just the hop on hop off one.
As an idea for a future video, the city pass deals that you can get for NYC for example. Are they worth it?
Also, I have found that they are not much of a deal if you like to spend a lot of time in places like I do. You can't experience enough of the stops to make it worth the money.
Can you talk about how your job has allowed you to travel, and maybe recommend jobs that allow travel more than others.
Saint Petersburg!!!!!!!!)))) my hometown)
Do you recommend the hop on/ off in Barcelona & Paris?
I'm going to spend my birthday week in London. I'm from LA, where HOP ON HOP OFF takes you to all sorts of tourist spots. I can't get over my prejudice against those kinds of busses.
Nice video. Having to follow others' schedule is, indeed, quite annoying.
Slightly irrelevant question: Do people look at you weirdly when you're talking to a camera in Russia or other places?
Nice video! We were recently in Dublin-Ireland and these hop on/off buses kinda ruined our trip. They are advertised as a good way of transportation, unfortunately they are not! They get stuck in traffic, they are always late and they get humid and wet with the rain.
In Dublin, we had to face so much traffic and with the normal buses + the tourist buses it was a nightmare to get from one point to the other.
The normal tram line worked miracles for us. If we would think to get a hop on/off bus again, it would be a one day thing, get a city tour, learn few things from the guide and the rest of our time we will be walking and exploring on our own.
Emy Anemsalok Thank-you for sharing your experience! I am going to Dublin this summer, I was wondering about this. Good to know!
Hey, not at all! For how long will you be there?
In Ireland 3 weeks, in Dublin 3nights 4 days
If you also visit Northern Ireland: make sure you go and cross Carrick-a-rede rope bridge. We fell in love with the place!
Emy Anemsalok I'm considering it as a day trip. Did you visit the bridge as a day trip? If so what tour company did you go with?
should make a vid on how to apply for visa to Russia 👍👍
Top ten ways to stay fit while traveling. Need to keep energy level up to get the most out of travel. I am heading to St Petersburg in July and need to stay sharp so best to avoid all those endless toasts. Where's the wife and kids?
Do you recommend doing the hop on hop off bus in Paris? It’s my third time going, but my family’s first time.
Its cheaper to get the navigo pass for the week at 27 euros. The pass will take you anywhere in paris
I just moved to Toronto and when I saw a hop on hop off bus yesterday, I was wondering if that might be a nice option to get to know the city better. Just to have a starting point on what and where to explore :-)
+ParticleFairy actually that is actually a good idea
ParticleFairy, I did that when I first moved to Savannah. I used it as a street guide if you will. I rode the loop once making note of what I wanted to see more of. I then hopped off on the 2nd go round at those places and used it to get to the next...a personal taxi service too.
I want to ride one on the first day of a trip in New York to have a commented tour of Manhattan. Is it worth it?
I'll use the subway to go around for the rest of the trip.
Don't use the hop on/hop off type of tour buses for transportation! Especially in a big city, with a big population and an even bigger population of 9 to 5 commuters. Like NYC! I had a friend visit NY, they listened to the concierge at their hotel, spent almost $100 per person(4 people!) and bought the tickets. They were convinced they'd found a quicker, cheaper and easier way to get around the city. They got stuck in rush hour traffic for hours. In the middle of June, on an 85* day, in a bus with no AC, it took them over 4 hours to go from Lower Manhattan to Times Square. If you're staying in Manhattan just get a Metro Card and a subway map.
I don’t know how this works but I’m kinda getting the idea . Pls clarify? Anyone ? So u hop on to the bus and sit there . Now when u see an interesting place , you hop off and explore the place take pictures buy some souvenir and eat. Then hop on again to another bus? To continue touring ? Is that how is it done? If so how many minutes are the wait ?
I advised the horse carriege for Savannah
I think hop-on-hop-off buses are better when the city is architecturally rich, big enough to make it worthy and includes guides that actually care about telling you stuff of the city! Also, it can be way too expensive compared to public transportation. Let's say I live in Santiago, Chile and we have one or two of those but to be honest, the hop-on-hop-off is really not for everyone: The city's architecture is not its main strength, public transportation off peak hours is alright while the hop-on-hop-off can be REALLY expensive and on top of that guides (from the outside) don't seem to care much.