Hop-On/Hop-Off Buses: Cheap Flexible, & Fun-But Are They Right for You?

Imagine, if you will, a bright and shiny bus full of young backpackers from all over the globe sailing through the Australian Outback on an air-conditioned shoestring, feasting on Foster's and yeasty Vegemite sandwiches to the pounding beat of a rockin' sound track.

It's not a scene from the popular Aussie road movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, but just another day on the Oz Experience, one of the first bus lines in history to offer "hop-on/hop-off" service - a subset of the so-called "backpacker bus" phenomenon that is changing the face (or at least one of the cheekbones) of budget travel. WHAT THEY ARE An offbeat (sometimes downright wacky) cross between a Eurail train pass, an organized tour, and a Greyhound intercity coach, the hop-on/hop-off bus basically works like this: you buy a ticket from Point A to Point B, which entitles ...