Europe's Double-Decker Luxury Bus Comes With Fully Reclining Seats, Wi-Fi, And A Snack Bar For Overnight Travel

Because of Europe's small size, interconnectedness, and solid transport infrastructure, there are many ways to explore it. Some travelers jet-set from country to country, others use intracontinental trains, while campervan holidays and purchases are booming in countries across the continent. Beyond those, buses are a popular, and traditionally cheap, way of traversing European borders, too. And, although they haven't been winning any awards for comfort, with Swiss company Twiliner's new night bus service, perhaps that's about to change.

Trust the Swiss to find a way to make bus travel luxurious. Twiliner's double-decker night buses journey around 600 miles through Europe, and each one is fitted with 21 fully-reclining sleeping seats inspired by the comforts of business-class flights. Passengers onboard have access to free Wi-Fi, USB charging ports, a drinks and snacks bar, a bathroom, and a separate changing room. Twiliner has also developed a patent-pending safety system allowing customers to lie down and sleep securely during road travel. Launching this November, bookings are already available on the Twiliner website.

While luxury can be expected to come at a cost, Twiliner's initial pricing is quite reasonable. From Zurich to Amsterdam, a nine-hour overnight journey, the cost of a one-way ticket is set around $188. Although the train journey is generally much cheaper (about half price), flight prices between the two cities are comparable.

Twiliner's destinations exemplify why there's no travel experience in the world quite like the best European road trips. Cultured capitals built of ancient stone, fishermen drinking rotgut spirits in breezy portside cafes, gently rolling countryside where wine is fermented and cheese is pasteurized, stupendously beautiful castles steeped in folklore, and mountain ranges with some of the best skiing and hiking in the world. No other continent offers such a diverse clutter of cultures and experiences squeezed into so small a patch of land.

Travelers aboard Twiliner can choose from one of two routes: the northbound Zurich to Amsterdam, or the southbound Zurich to Barcelona. The northbound bus stops in Basel, Luxembourg, Brussels, and Rotterdam — cities which often fall to the wayside as tourists flock to the better known destinations surrounding them. But Basel, for example, has a stunning old town full of squares and fountains that could hold a candle to the best old towns in Europe. And although Luxembourg may have an unenviable reputation as one of the least-friendly places in the world to visit, it's pretty in the most picture-book, European of ways. Brussels, for all aesthetic it's faults, is still one of the cultural capitals of Europe, and Rotterdam has crawled out of Amsterdam's shadow and is now considered a reason to visit the Netherlands in its own right. Meanwhile, the southbound Twiliner stops in Bern, the Swiss capital, and Girona, a beautiful and underrated Catalonian city that's a good alternative to crowd-weary Barcelona.