Scholars Mind

Is a Bus Trip a Road Trip?

Be sure to look into other long distance overland journeys, including the once-legendary London to Calcutta bus service and the still operational Transoceánica from Brazil to Peru. Can they be called road trips even if they don’t take place in cars? Or is it only a road trip if you can choose when and where to stop along the way?

A double-decker really did run from London to Calcutta — fifty days each way, with bunks, a kitchen and a reading lounge on board. Nobody aboard could decide where to stop.

Key concepts

Autonomy
The power to decide your own route, pace and stops. It is the leading candidate for what a road trip actually is — not the vehicle, but who controls when you pull over.

+ 2 more concepts inside

Every work — at a glance

  • The London–Calcutta Bus

    A scheduled double-decker service that really ran, roughly fifty days each way through Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan — ended not by economics but by revolution and war.

+ 1 more work explained inside

What to know

  1. 01
    On the autonomy test, a scheduled bus fails. A passenger five days into the Transoceánica cannot decide to stay an extra day in the Andes, so the answer to 'are we there yet' is fixed before departure — which is precisely the thing a road trip is supposed to leave open.

+ 1 more insight inside

Across subjects

A trip a 1950s tourist could book at a counter became impossible within a generation. The Iranian revolution of 1979 and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

Theme connection

"Are We There Yet?"

When someone else owns the timetable, the answer is 'in six weeks, on a Thursday', and passengers stop asking. Argue whether that surrender is restful or infantilising: London–Calcutta riders remember the trip of their lives, and they had no choice about anything at all.

Practice — a sample

HISA fixed bus timetable is to overlanding as stop-choice autonomy is to —

  • A A private car
  • B A true road trip
  • C Any long bus
  • D A short drive
  • E A border cross

Sign in to answer and see why each option is right or wrong.

Keep reading the full lesson

The remaining insights, works, and practice come with full access — $9.99/month or $29.99/season.

Unlock full access →

New here? Create a free account to read the free section.