Tripmaster Live Blogging On the Road: Washington to Richmond Day Trip

Take your pick of seats! Lots of space to stretch out.

After a brief pause from the road, I caught some $1 tickets to Richmond, Virginia on a Wednesday. So, I decided to take my work and my netbook on the road again, but this time just for a day trip (our last Megabus trip was a multi-day adventure). This trip will last a mere 6 hours (with under 4 hours of bus time), departing in the morning and returning us in the evening.

On Time Departure / Ample Seats: We left the new Megabus DC stop (at N. Capital St & K St NW) on time for our 11:15 am departure, and we seem to be making good time! Prior to departure, we were greeted by an usher who steered us to the correct bus. Today, this route has very light ridership, so everyone has a whole section to themselves.

WiFi Working Well: I've been working from home the last few months, so I figured I might as well give myself a change of scenery and once again work on the long bus rides. So far the Megabus Wifi service has no issues.

Meet Cristina: My friend Cristina has joined up on this adventure and will be blogging about our travels on a post-trip entry. In the meantime, she's checking our trip progress using her iPhone's GPS. This driver seems to be making good time. I think we may be early!

Exploring on Foot: If it hasn't been made clear in past posts, the point of Megabustrips.com adventures is to explore as much as possible by bus and foot first. In any case, we didn't have a particular plan in mind for this trip, but since it is a day trip, we are probably going to pull off one or two museums, and a late lunch/early dinner. Cristina found some museums she was interested in, and a few were within easy walking distance of the Megabus stop. Unfortunately, the same was not true for her restaurant picks, so I had to improvise using Yelp.com users' suggestions.

Here's are the itinerary options what we came up with:


View Larger Map

This map includes stops at the Virginia Holocaust Museum, the Edgar Allen Poe Museum, Comfort or Croaker's Spot for soul/Southern food, and some Virginia beers at the Capital Ale House.

Megabus to Expand DC Service to New York and Philadelphia

Megabus announces weekend express bus service between New York and Washington, DC: 

"The buses will begin running nonstop on Friday, April 1 for as many as 10 trips each day. They are taking reservations now."

The Washington to Philadelphia route is also adding more trips. They are taking reservatons for travel March 31 and beyond:

"The expanded service will now offer 13 daily trips Thursday through Monday between the two cities and 8 daily trips Tuesday and Wednesday."

Preview Tripmaster's NYC Quickie: The Daily Show & Explosions in the Sky

[ Find out how I scored Daily Show tickets below! It is nerdy...]


UPDATE: The Daily Show has a ton of tickets available right now for the week of Monday, April 11 to Thursday, April 14. Anyone Megabusing to NYC that week?

Though this blog is mostly focused on well-researched group trips, occasionally I won't be able to help talking about my more haphazard and random one-night trips out of Washington. When I saw that one of my favorite bands, Explosions in the Sky, were set to play Radio City Music Hall in NYC, I thought that would be a special show worth traveling for. I later read an article in Pitchfork that said:

If you've ever seen the band live, you know their slow-building churns can make for a moving spectacle. The idea of seeing them inside a venue as huge and gorgeous as Radio City is the kind of thing that makes me want to book a flight to New York.

I guess we were thinking similar things, but unlike the writer, I just went ahead and booked tickets to New York. I hate to sound like an infomercial, but from Washington, Megabus is a kick-ass way to see concerts and entertainment in other cities without breaking your budget. In May, I am going to Philadelphia to see Adele in concert (she sold out in D.C. before I could get tickets), and in April, I am heading to New York to see Explosions in the Sky (EITS) at Radio City (they are also playing a few blocks from the Megabus station in Richmond, VA on Monday, April 3).