Do you know FlixBus?
FlixBus is a long-distance bus company headquartered in Germany.
I was able to have a very comfortable bus trip with FlixBus.
Bus travel within the Netherlands
With FlixBus you can travel from Amsterdam to Rotterdam from €3 each way. Traveling with Dutch Railways (NS) costs €18 each way, so this is a big savings.
There are 14 FlixBus stations in the Netherlands, and you can visit cities by FlixBus such as Den Hague, Utrecht and Maastricht, as well as towns near the border such as Nijmegen and Venlo.
Depending on the destination, there may be only early morning schedule or late night schedule, but there are many timetable between big cities and it takes about the same traveling time as the train.
It is very convenient to install the FlixBus app on your smartphone as you can purchase tickets easily and quickly, anywhere anytime.
Even from Amsterdam to Maastricht, which is the longest distance in the Netherlands, it costs €12 one way and taking 3 hours, so I think it’s a cheap way to travel if the arrival and departure times fit into your schedule.
FlixBus stops within the Netherlands：Amsterdam、Den Haag、Delft、Rotterdam、Utrecht、Vianen、Arnhem、Nijmegen、Kaatsheuvel (Efteling)、Tilburg、Eindhoven、Venlo、Roermond、Maastricht（January 2023）
Bus travel in Europe
I was able to travel from Amsterdam to Düsseldorf in Germany for €15 each way taking FlixBus. It takes about 3 hours one way, which is about 1 hour longer than the train, but the fare was less than half the price of the train.
Sometimes getting stuck in traffic is a disadvantage. However there are likely to find cheap tickets even the day before, so it is an advantage to be able to travel when you want.
FlixBus stops are a lot in Europe. The longest distance from Amsterdam to Bucharest in Romania is about €100 one way, but the travel time is over 40 hours, which is not realistic.
A one-way trip from Amsterdam to Paris costs around €20, which is cheap, but the trip takes about 8 hours. If you ride the high-speed train (Thalys) it only takes 3 hours and 20 minutes, however the ticket will be more than €100 one way.
FlixBus has free Wi-Fi and there is a toilet in the bus, so you can spend a comfortable during the bus trip. However you have to sit all the time. It will make you tired, and you won’t be able to enjoy sightseeing afterwards.
When using a long-distance bus for the first time, I really recommend a bus trip around 3 to 5 hours. I think it would be a good idea to try traveling to a neighboring country first, and then extend the distance traveled next time.
From the Netherlands, Cologne and Düsseldorf in Germany, Brussels and Antwerp in Belgium can be reached in about three hours.
Countries with FlixBus stops: Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Czech Republic, Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Poland, Denmark, Spain, Portugal, Turkey (January 2023)