Man tries to get as far away from London as possible using only public buses

An avid commuter managed to travel a whopping 260 miles out of London after setting himself the challenge to get ‘as far away as possible’ from the capital in twenty-four hours using only buses.

Jo Kibble’s unusual adventure saw him hop between countless buses – coaches were strictly forbidden – before winding up in Morecambe in Lancashire. 

The thirty-nine year old civil servant documented his epic journey in a lengthy Twitter thread, where he shared updates on his location, bus delays, his thoughts on various bus station designs and, perhaps most importantly, the packed lunch his wife had made for him.

The reason behind his somewhat bizarre mission was, in his words, wanting to get out of London after ‘eighteen months of having exciting travel plans cancelled.’

Well, get out of London he did. 

He set off on his journey at 3am on Friday, August 20th, on the N9 to Heathrow, encountering a number of landmarks he said he would have otherwise missed travelling by train. However, there were plenty of downfalls to his route – Jo experienced several delays, particularly between Northampton and Leicester. 

Eventually making it to the North West, Jo paid tribute to the ‘remarkable architecture’ at Preston Bus Station and stopped for a ‘rapid dinner’ in Piccadilly Gardens before heading over to the ‘sparkly’ Shudehill Interchange to catch the number 8 Diamond bus to Bolton. 

And, despite all the bus delays, Jo actually arrived six minutes ahead of schedule – after twenty-one hours and twenty-four minutes, for a much-needed rest in his hotel room in Morecambe.

By then, he had gained thousands of spectators on Twitter, who had all been following his journey (which cost him a grand total of £56.95, by the way.)

That’s £17 less than a walk-up £73.50 train fare between the destinations, but nearly £17 more than the advance price of £40.90 that he had booked home (yeah, he didn’t get the bus back, believe it or not.)

Jo told his Twitter following: “When I came up with this idea of a stupid, long bus journey just to amuse myself I didn’t think it would be of any interest to anyone much else apart from me.

“So I am amazed and really pleased that people have had so much fun and enjoyed the tweeting. Thank you so much for your support, kind words, encouragement and advice, it meant a lot.”

To watch Jo’s bus antics in full, check out the Twitter thread here.