Chicago Bus Stations
Lasting Impressions....
"The bus station was a complete madhouse. It would be quiet for maybe 20 minutes or so, and then a bunch of buses would arrive with people pouring out." (T.J.)
Quick Reference Station Guide
Here is some information that we've picked out of from your reviews. Be sure to read the review pages for the most up-to-date info:
- chaos
- strange characters
- clean washrooms
A few airport reviews from the archives
by Mark
"It was about 6 years ago during the Christmas Holiday Season. I was in Basic Training, and we were allowed to go home for two weeks of leave. I, being the frugal (cheap) individual that I am, purchased a round trip Greyhound ticket from Columbia, SC to Medford, OR for about 170 bucks. The first night, I had a 9 hour layover in Chicago, IL. As I expected, the hotels were unbelievably expensive, so a few Army buddies and I decided to tough it out in the station. Besides the cost of cigarettes (Marlboro Box 5 when they ran 2), the stay wasn't all that bad. Besides the occasional bum or drug addict, the night was fairly uneventful. I met a lot of decent people, and managed to get a few hours of sleep. There wasn't much room to sit, but the staff had no problem with us crashing out on our luggage. The bathrooms were clean, and only a small amount of trash blew into the doors each time they opened. The bus ended up coming early, and I continued on my exodus to the homelands; )"
by T.J.
"I had purchased a Greyhound Discovery pass for North America. After a few days seeing a friend of mine in Windsor Ont. I decided to head down to Chicago to stay with my friend at UIC. I was supposed to arrive in Chicago in the afternoon and then get ahold of my friend. Oh, how foolish I was. It took forever to cross into Detroit, and by the time we did I had missed my connection and had to wait 7 hours. By the time I got to Chicago it was passed midnight and I had no way to get ahold of my friend. The bus station was a complete madhouse. It would be quiet for maybe 20 minutes or so, and then a bunch of buses would arrive with people pouring out. And whenever this happened, all of the street people seemed to come in and try to hustle. The staff seemed ambivalent towards everything and many of them looked as though they were about to pass out or were really high. I went outside to see if there was anywhere nearby to stay around 1:30 or so as I was getting pretty tired and sick of the chaos. As soon as I stepped outside some woman started raving about how she had been to jail for killing a motherf**ker, wanted to kill a motherf**ker again and in fact, wanted to kill a motherf**ker right now. Perhaps she was just talking big, but I wasn't going to chance it. I headed back inside and crashed out on the floor (as no seats were left and weren't really fit for sleeping anyway). It was a rough night of sleep, noisy, uncomfortable and at times intimidating, but may not be as bad as I recall as it was my first time travelling solo in the US. Watch out for thieves, scam artists, etc. A lot more weird stuff happened but I'll leave it at that. "
