How pickthebus works
pickthebus lists every direct bus that crosses a border: one bus, no change, from a stop in a city in one country to a stop in a city in another. FlixBus, Greyhound and BlaBlaCar Bus, in Europe and beyond, plus the Twiliner sleeper bus, which publishes no timetable.
Where the times come from
Only from the operators' own published timetables (GTFS), never from scraping booking sites. Every Monday we fetch the newest file from each source below, check it, and rebuild the site (last checked Sun 18 Oct 2026). The times cover 18 Oct to 14 Nov 2026. Each route page names the files its times come from and the date each one was made; the full list is in sources.json.
All times are the local time at each stop. FlixBus writes its timetables in UTC and BlaBlaCar Bus in Paris time, so we convert every time to the clock of the stop it belongs to, including the nights the clocks change.
What counts as a direct bus
A bus that calls at a stop where you may board in city A and later at a stop where you may get off in city B, with A and B in different countries. Stops count for a city when they lie within its reach: a couple of kilometres for a small town, up to 25 km for a big city, and only in the same country (a stop in Kehl is Germany, not Strasbourg). Cities come from GeoNames; a stop that no town reaches (a ski resort, a coast village) keeps the operator's own name for it, and motorway service areas and petrol stations are left out. An overnight bus is on the road at 03:00 local time where it left, for a ride of 5 hours or more.
Bus, train or plane
Each route page adds up the trip city centre to city centre: getting to the stop (typical public-transport times, estimates), 15 minutes at the stop, the fastest direct bus, then into town. The direct train comes from our sister site pickthetrain (its door-to-door time), the nonstop flight from picktheflight, with check-in and security (1h30, or 2h outside the Schengen area), a typical flight time for the distance, and getting out after landing. No prices: this compares time.
Sources and licences
| Source | What | Licence | File of |
|---|---|---|---|
| FlixBus | FlixBus across Europe (also Ukraine, Moldova and the Balkans) | ODbL 1.0 | 11 Oct 2026 |
| FlixBus UK | FlixBus to, from and within Great Britain | Published openly by FlixMobility; no licence stated | 11 Oct 2026 |
| FlixBus / Greyhound | FlixBus and Greyhound in the USA, Canada and Mexico | Published openly by FlixMobility; no licence stated | 11 Oct 2026 |
| FlixBus Türkiye | FlixBus in Türkiye and across to the Balkans | Published openly by FlixMobility; no licence stated | 11 Oct 2026 |
| BlaBlaCar Bus | BlaBlaCar Bus across Europe | ODbL 1.0 | 18 Oct 2026 |
| Twiliner | Sleeper bus lines (no times) | Checked by hand, with sources | 18 Oct 2026 |
| GeoNames | Which city each stop belongs to | CC BY 4.0 | |
| pickthetrain.com | Direct trains, door to door | ODbL 1.0 | |
| picktheflight.com | Nonstop flights (from Wikipedia) | CC BY-SA 4.0 | |
| Natural Earth | Map outlines and borders | Public domain |
Contains FlixBus timetable data (FlixMobility, transport.data.gouv.fr), ODbL 1.0.
Contains BlaBlaCar Bus timetable data (transport.data.gouv.fr), ODbL 1.0.
FlixBus publishes its UK, North American and Turkish timetables openly at gtfs.gis.flix.tech for journey planners without stating a licence; we use only the timetable facts in them and credit FlixBus. The combined data we publish (the site and the API) is available under the ODbL 1.0, with attribution to the sources above.
Who runs this
pickthebus is run by Goldcote Ltd. No ads and no cookies. Bus, train and airline links go straight to the operators' own sites with nothing added. The one exception is the hotel's "Book this hotel" button: it is pickthehotel's, and pickthehotel earns a commission when you book through it (it never changes your price or which hotel is picked). "Where to stay" comes from pickthehotel, also run by Goldcote. A bus we got wrong: contact@goldcote.com.