Surely the mother of all coach holidays, the Ozbus was an epic 15,000 mile trek between London, UK and Sydney, Australia, taking in some 20 countries in three continents. It took a mammoth 84 days to complete the odyssey, and ran for five years from 2007 until 2012.
Ozbus was the brain child of businessman Mark Creasy, whose own attempts to find an overland coach tour route from Australia back to his native England were thwarted in the 1990s. It was billed as the ultimate coach holiday traveling an average of just 180 miles each day allowed for plenty of sightseeing, and a dedicated coach tour guide talked passengers through the many wonders it passed along its way.
After visiting some of Europes greatest cities and beauty spots, including Bruges, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Transylvania and Istanbul, the Asian leg included everything from a 350-mile non-stop pelt through bandit country in Iran to stops at the Taj Mahal and Corbett Tiger Reserve Varanasi in India. After detours through Kathmandu and past Mount Everest in Nepal, it crossed Tibet and headed down through Indochina via Bangkok, Penang, Sumatra and the beautiful Indonesian holiday island of Bali. Once on the Australian continent, tourists were treated to visits to Ayers Rock (Uluru) and Kakadu National Park, before arriving at Sydney Opera House an exhausting but unforgettable 12 weeks after setting off.
For all the glamour and grandeur of its epic scope, luxury wasnt always the name of the game of this coach holiday. Passengers spent a third of the nights on the trip sleeping in tents, and not a few spent on the coach itself. It also faced logistical problems few other coach tours ever have to contend with, such as negotiating the volatile and difficult borders between Turkey and Iran, Pakistan and India and Nepal and Tibet. In Bali, coach travel had to be temporarily abandoned altogether as passengers flew to Darwin, Australia while the coach itself was transported by sea freight.
But for those who completed this unforgettable adventure, there can be little doubt that the worlds longest coach tour was an unrivalled holiday experience.
Ozbus was the brain child of businessman Mark Creasy, whose own attempts to find an overland coach tour route from Australia back to his native England were thwarted in the 1990s. It was billed as the ultimate coach holiday traveling an average of just 180 miles each day allowed for plenty of sightseeing, and a dedicated coach tour guide talked passengers through the many wonders it passed along its way.
After visiting some of Europes greatest cities and beauty spots, including Bruges, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Transylvania and Istanbul, the Asian leg included everything from a 350-mile non-stop pelt through bandit country in Iran to stops at the Taj Mahal and Corbett Tiger Reserve Varanasi in India. After detours through Kathmandu and past Mount Everest in Nepal, it crossed Tibet and headed down through Indochina via Bangkok, Penang, Sumatra and the beautiful Indonesian holiday island of Bali. Once on the Australian continent, tourists were treated to visits to Ayers Rock (Uluru) and Kakadu National Park, before arriving at Sydney Opera House an exhausting but unforgettable 12 weeks after setting off.
For all the glamour and grandeur of its epic scope, luxury wasnt always the name of the game of this coach holiday. Passengers spent a third of the nights on the trip sleeping in tents, and not a few spent on the coach itself. It also faced logistical problems few other coach tours ever have to contend with, such as negotiating the volatile and difficult borders between Turkey and Iran, Pakistan and India and Nepal and Tibet. In Bali, coach travel had to be temporarily abandoned altogether as passengers flew to Darwin, Australia while the coach itself was transported by sea freight.
But for those who completed this unforgettable adventure, there can be little doubt that the worlds longest coach tour was an unrivalled holiday experience.
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