On the buses

Nicola, Pete, Lola and Nell want to travel the world with a difference. We hope to get a taste of many countries without adding to climate change (with needless emissions from aeroplanes) or having to waste hours of holiday time in airport terminals. We hope our adventures inspire you to take a Grand Tour of your neighbourhood whatever the weather. This post is from Nicola

It’s not your obvious tourist destination, and yet Wakefield is a brilliant place to stay. It’s in Yorkshire (good), boasts at having part-educated sculptural legends Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore (v gd) and seems full of friendly people (v v gd as I’m constantly getting lost as I make my way around the city and having to ask for directions which invariably include instructions for me to “turn right at the cathedral”). And the tourist info centre was voted the best in Yorkshire last year (2006).

But what I like best about Wakefield is the bus station. It’s clean, the departures board and timetables are easy to understand, there are lots of places to sit, and even on a Sunday morning two shops were open – Bakers Oven for snacks and WH Smith for the papers. Admittedly my last experience hanging around at a bus station was in the disaster of Workington. It may have had the first covered passenger waiting area in Britain but hasn’t yet realized that these days we also need somewhere to rest our weary legs while we wait for our bus to turn up.