Sunday Trips

When planning a bus trip in Scotland we often recommend Traveline Scotland though you need to remember to “untick train” to avoid its suggestions to use more expensive train travel - which is often not much faster than the bus and may well involve more changes.

Sometimes your journey can be managed entirely on Stagecoach buses and then we recommend the Stagecoach Journey Planner.

But both these planners suffer from a problem recommending some journeys because they insist on requiring at least 5 minutes between arriving on one bus and departing on the next bus - and at bus stations they insist on it taking at least a minute to walk from one stance to another.

So, if your inbound bus is scheduled to arrive at a bus station EXACTLY 5 minutes before your next bus is due to depart then these planners will NOT recommend that journey.

A typical example of a journey that involves such a 5 minute change is a Sunday trip from Crail to Perth:

The Sunday 95 typically arrives at St Andrews at 10 past the hour, while the 65 departs every 2 hours at 15 minutes past the hour:

But the journey planners don’t think this is enough time to change buses and will recommend catching the 95 an hour earlier and waiting in St Andrews for an hour…

Now, if you definitely must catch a particular 65 to get to an appointment, that may be the safest approach - because, as you can see, the 65 only runs every 2 hours on Sunday.

But if you are happy to just be out for the day, you might think that if you miss the 65 you can certainly catch the X24 to Dunfermline instead?

Or the 99 to Dundee:

So, if you are flexible about where you want to go, just enjoying the day out, then it doesn’t matter that there is a very slight chance that you might miss the bus to Perth.

The last 65 from Perth on Sunday is at 19:05 and that connects better with the 95 than some of the earlier buses:

The 65 runs regularly every 2 hours on Sunday, there’s another bus that runs approximately every 2 hour on Sunday, the Moffat & Williamson 64 that travels its meandering route around Fife tourist spots:

Catching the 64 can be quite tight as you see the 95 from Crail at 10:40 is due to arrive at St Andrews Bus Station at 11:10 but the 64 is due to depart St Andrews Students Union also at 11:10.

You can get off the 95 opposite the Students Union on Sundays as the 95 travels along South Street and Bell Street on its way to the Bus Station - but if the 95 is running late even this may not give you enough  time to catch the 64 - so maybe you need to catch the 95 at 07:55 to catch the first 64 at 09:25 - or the 95 at 12:40 to catch the 64 at 13:20?

The Sunday 64 doesn't go past Fife Zoo, but it does visit many other tourist destinations:

Some buses that we recommend for Day Trips don’t run on Sundays - like the Go-Flexi rural bus, or the Glenfarg Community Transport bus that’s a convenient way to get to Kinross or Dollar.

But the Stagecoach Express buses do tend to continue to run, even if they start later, finish earlier, and don’t run quite so frequently.

So, it’s always worth checking out the timetables to see how far you can get on your day out.