by Alexandra Edwards

Each year, travel during the holidays reaches it's highest peak. People are prepared to travel right across the country, if necessary, just to be with their families and friends during the Christmas season. Until more recently, many chose to fly to their hometown destinations, but high air fares in addition to the hassle and humiliation of Homeland Security's body scans and shoe removing, more travelers are opting to hit the road instead. Traveling the interstate may take a lot longer, but at least there's no baggage allowances, cancellations or pesky security scans. However, it can still turn out to be quite expensive with today's cost of gasoline.

Over the past few years, an online express bus service by the name of Megabus.com has become very popular with long distance travelers and has continued to grow by offering considerably low cost tickets from city to city across many U.S. states. For as little as $1 or $2 people can travel hundreds of miles. Though presently covering only the eastern United States, Megabus recently announced the addition of their 7th hub in Atlanta and 11 southern cities including Chattanooga to their services. For as low as $1, passengers can now travel for from Atlanta to Birmingham, AL, Mobile, AL, Montgomery, AL, Charlotte, NC, Chattanooga, TN, Knoxville, TN, Memphis, TN, Nashville, TN, or even as far as sunny Florida, including the cities of Gainesville, Jacksonville and Orlando. From Chattanooga, people now have the opportunity to take advantage of these very low travel rates to three major cities including Knoxville, Nashville and Atlanta.

Passengers are picked up and dropped off at designated bus stops, often curbside locations which are clearly posted on the Megabus.com website. Customers are assured a comfortable ride with professional drivers on luxury air conditioned double decker buses. Buses are disability accessible and include free at-seat wi-fi plug-ins, reclining seats, panoramic windows, safety seatbelts and toilets.

Megabus.com is a subsidiary of Coach USA, which is a subsidiary of the UK-based Stagecoach Group, one of the largest publicly traded companies in the transportation industry. Since its launch in 2006, Megabus has served more than 13 million travelers serving 70 major cities in North America from hubs in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington D.C, Toronto, and more recently, Atlanta.  Initially launched in the UK in 2003, the low cost express bus service expanded to the U.S.A in 2006 and later to Canada in 2009.

Another example from the Megabus newest pick-up hub in Atlanta - which is located at the Atlanta, MARTA Civic Center - 435 West Peachtree St - a one-way trip to Orlando, Florida for the Christmas weekend leaving on December 23 at 7:00am, 2pm or 11pm, if booked mid-November would have cost as little as $12, at time of press (Nov 30) that same ticket still cost only $29.00. That's at least an 8 hour trip, around 440 miles where the passenger can just kick back and relax, all the way to the curbside drop-off  at the Crowne Hotel in downtown Orlando, what other form of transport could possibly match that?

To celebrate the newest addition of the Atlanta hub serving the 11 major cities Megabus.com has been offering 10,000 free seats for travel between November 16 and December 16, 2011. Customers will need to use the promotion code ATL10K. For more information go to  www.megabus.com.

Wishing all our readers safe travels and a very merry Christmas.


.