Washington DC to Boston using only public transit (2024)

That Rhode Island bus stop on the side of the highway is criminal

Imagine actually connecting transit systems together, something transit here in Texas has yet to figure out.

If only the trains connected!
- MARC and SEPTA meet in Newark DE
- SEPTA and NJT meet in Trenton NJ
- NJT and Metro North meet at Penn Station NYC
- Metro North and CT Rail meet in New Haven
- CT Rail and the MBTA meet in Springfield
Also:
- Metro North and CT Shore Line meet in New Haven
- CT Shore Line and the MBTA meet in Westerly RI
You wouldn't have to deal with busses!

Great detective work! I looked for Washington-to-NYC many years ago but at that time couldn't find a way from Perryville to Newark DE.

DART pays SEPTA to operate the Delaware trains, and SEPTA charges a higher, non-subsidized fare for trips to NJ. SEPTA used to have a daily trip all the way to Jersey City from the West Trenton Line, but they got rid of that for obvious reasons decades ago.

I've heard about proposals to extend MBTA rail to New London (it currently goes to Wickford, RI, which is probably about halfway along the NE Corridor between Providence and New London). If only they had that link, this trip would've been a lot easier.

I live in the midwest and there are so many regional rail agencies in this video that I've never heard of. The MARC, NJTransit, CTRail, MBTA. Like I get it's probably easier to do public rail transit in smaller east coast states, but God I wish my large midwestern state could have a passenger rail network other than the one, inconvenient Amtrak route we have. I would love to have the option to not drive on the interstate

i visibly pogged when he got on tha marc train

Thanks for making this. Solid proof that the Northeast is a megalopolis.
It's continuous urban/suburban area so large that going from city end to end flying is the best option (if we had true high speed rail it'd toss up between that a flying and dependent on where in the city you are going).
If you wanted to do the full megalopolis, you'd start as south from Washington DC that links to as north of Boston before public transit cutoff. At Boston South Station there are privately owned busses that function enough like public express busses that bring Maine and New Hampshire into the megalopolis.

You know he means business when the Jellyfish Jam/Stadium Rave A is playing in the intro...I see you're a man of culture as well. While yes, the SEP in SEPTA stands for Southeastern Pennsylvania, SEPTA is more of a representation of the Philly metro area, which northern DE, Trenton, and of course southeastern PA are a part of (also, the Delaware segment is funded by DelDOT through an agreement with SEPTA). And it's great that SEPTA serve Trenton and Delaware to better connect the region, though they should really make the regional trains more convenient, since you pointed this out at 5:06.
And as a New Yorker, I can confirm that is not excessive walking. Sure we like to take the subway, but we also like to walk. We have places to be! I mean we're associated with *"HEY, I'M WALKIN' HERE!"*

I have no idea why this appeared on my homepage, but I really needed this

as a former terp and crew member myself, absolutely loving the scarf selection

I could have hooked you up with friends in New Haven overnight!

Finally got the chance to watch this - I'm so glad someone finally documented this trip on TH-cam! Great video, and thank you for the shoutout in the description!

The PVTA segment almost made me nostalgic for all those times in college I sat freezing my ass off in a bus shelter at Hampshire College for like half an hour since the transfer between the two buses I needed to take to visit my friend at another college did NOT sync up! I wish I was surprised that you couldn't go the other way through Connecticut, but there really is an suburban void between New London and Providence huh

Shnorpleshnaff, and a fascinating journey!
I did a shorter version of this trip back in 2006. My mistake was not taking a couple days off work to do the round trip from Boston, where I lived at the time. Instead I left work on Friday, drove to New Haven, took the Metro-North etc to Philly and spent the weekend.
Then I took a different route home:
1) PATCO from Philly to Camden;
2) River Line through the Delaware River marshlands to Trenton (which was a far more beautiful, smoother, and less bureaucratic ride);
3) NJTransit to Penn Station NYC;
4) LIRR to Port Jefferson (you have to change from an electric to a diesel train in Huntington);
5) Walk a steep and downhill mile or so to the port;
6) Ferry service to Bridgeport, CT;
7) Walk a couple flat, paved, but poorly marked blocks;
8) Metro North four stops back to New Haven Union Station.

W vid. I saw a video of someone doing Boston to Nyc and they had to take Amtrak from westerly to new London

i’m impressed how traveling 400+ miles on different public transport companies costs about as much as a single brightline train from miami to orlando (200mi)

Great adventure. Thanks for taking us along!

Maybe need to retitle to "regional transit". Now, need a similar vid for Seattle to Vancouver Canada and to Portland Oregon, maybe after a vid for LA to Tijuana

This was so enjoyable, love public transit!

When you told us there'd be a spoiler alert that something would go wrong, I would've thought that'd be on MBTA's part. That's why I sometimes refer to the MBTA as the "Morbidly Broken Trains of Agony". XD

As someone who does not drive but is looking to attend a 2026 World Cup game in Boston, this is helpful. Thank you.

As a Baltimorean who travels to Boston like every other month, this is something I would try!

Great vid! And you’re welcome :3

As a public transit fan, I love this so much. Thank you for sharing your journey! I've ridden on most of the transit lines you used and lived in a lot of these locales, from DC to Boston. Hope You enjoyed Boston, my favorite city. (Tiny niggles: It's New-ARK, Delaware, not NEW-urk (in NJ). Also, it's WUH-stah.)

I've always enjoyed doing these types of long-distance public transit trips. I have in the past went from San Diego through Los Angeles all the way up to San Francisco and Beyond, a distance of over 500 Miles using public transit. Ironically it's way more expensive than traveling Direct on any other mode of transportation but fascinating seeing all the different local systems and the experiences throughout.

Love your video style and your fun journey. Greetings from Germany!

As a long-time - and enthusiastic - user of public transport in both Europe and much further afield, this is very interesting to me. Your buses and trains were very empty compared to what I am used to in Europe and Asia!

This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve always dreamed of doing this in the opposite way and trying that.

Just a tip SEAT offers micro transit service which is a bus you can book like an Uber and take it up to the border.

So Newark, DE isn't pronounced the New Jersey New-urk (or Nork if you really want to fit in with the locals) way, but rather it's pronounced as it reads. New-ark. That being said, I'm glad you didn't take a MARC Camden Line train from College Park towards Baltimore at the beginning and opted for the Metro, as then that would've been cheating since it's outside DC and not Union Station.
And man do I love that Maryland flag at 2:09. Truly a masterpiece with a touch of Old Bay. While other states put their coat of arms in the middle of the flag, Maryland said, "It's free real estate" and made it the entire flag. It's the heraldic banner of arms of Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore. It consists of his father's banner (black/yellow; used by pro-Union Marylanders during the Civil War) and his grandma's banner, the Crossland banner (red/white; used by pro-Confederate Marylanders during the Civil War).

This is awesome! Do you recall by any chance how many other people were on your marc train and stayed on past penn station? I'd be interested to know if anyone actually rides that trip besides transit nerds.

as someone who is local to the area, it is so funny seeing cecil transit in these videos

“Yeah I’m sailing! Woohoo!” Great bonus clip😂

I went to Umass, currently live in Worcester, and grew up in the Boston area
It was so fun knowing you got to see so many cool places I spent countless hours in!

What a superbly well done video. I’ve been curious about the logistics of this, and have never seen it done. Use of music, humor is first rate. Pacing is just right. Nice job.

This is awesome. I live 360mi from the nearest stop, but while staying with my boyfriend's family in Queens I took a stop to Penn station like 2 weeks ago, it is always cool to see recently familiar places in a recent video, as well as a few other stops I've been to in the past. Excellent choice of music as well lol, especially Joji and M83

I go to college in Amherst MA. B43 is essential!!

A cute guy who likes public transit and has a great taste in music, I think I have a crush

I'm not sure what this is or why this is, but I'm here for it

Hey dude I love this video especially your choice of music for the soundtrack , Matt from England

Mark Twain would be a great name for a MARC train

As someone from UK where rail/bus is very common transport it was cool to see the US side of things. Looked a fun journey but that Rhode Island bus stop is criminal

This is so wild to watch as a Canadian

This video is exactly why it bums me out when I read about how in the early 1900s, I'm pretty sure someone could take trolley lines from NYC to Chicago if I remember correctly.

That’s an awesome idea, I was thinking the same thing the other day sitting on the damn Amtrak. Wish you the best.

Glad you got to experience PVTA! And yes the 3 looks like the 8!! Used to live around there.

Great video man, a lovely little Northeastern tour

Sounds like a Miles In Transit video

I went to UMass Amherst, so the PVTA was the only service you named that I WAS familiar with, haha. I never thought this kind of trip would be possible. I have family in Maryland, so I've traveled between Boston and DC many times, but only ever by car or plane. I'm tempted to try this sometime.

Lol I’m surprised this doesn’t have more views
Good work bro

This is super cool, really enjoyed watching! Really hope we can make transit more convenient, affordable, and accessible in the future

Transit with copyrighted music...I like this!

It's actually possible to travel by Transit bus from San Clemente (roughly halfway between Los Angeles and San Diego) to Fort Bragg (~1.5 hours north of San Francisco). Add in a trip on Metrolink through Camp Pendleton (there's bus service into the base from the south, but not the north, and Metrolink does not stop in the base), and you can travel from the Mexican border to Fort Bragg on public transit.

damn the northampton footage is like 2 minutes from where i'm sitting rn shoutout 413. the b43 bus is classic, me and my friends took it to the hampshire mall in high school to see movies and f*ck around at target

Dude, this stuff is great! I've taken several legs of that journey but putting them all together is something else. Nice job!

so weird to instantly recognize the college park metro station right at the start of a youtube video

This is largerly underrated

I know you said no Amtrak, but you can take an Amtrak directly from DC to Boston for like $40-$70 depending on the day/time you go.

damn cameron u really were sailing

Very cool! There was a group of transit nerds who in 2007 coined the word Megaloping to refer to what you did here. They made some videos on here of their trip from Fredericksburg, VA to Maine via public transport only. They took that other route you mentioned for the CT->RI portion. I believe they took 4 days to do the trip. At the time trains to Springfield, MA were only an Amtrak thing IIRC. Their objective was to use as many transit systems/vehicles as they can, so they used less commuter rail and more in the way of light rail/local subways where possible. NJ has such options available instead of only doing commuter rail. I live in Philly so I'd like to do the trip as 2 separate ones (would be weird passing through 'home' on 1 long trip from one end to the other end of the megalopolis).

My dad and I have been trying to plan this trip from an Idea he had years ago, but I heard the cecil transit bus got cancelled, but I suppose I should have looked closer. Congrats on the awesome trip!

Imagine living in a country where travelling between two major cities by public transport is hard.

This is like a route I recently investigated between Howell, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario, which I think is the farthest you can go in the Detroit area. Which has no rail.

This is so cool. Seems like areally beautiful journey despite the cold.

This is a gem of a video. Salute to you for taking the time to film your journey.

You've inspired me to try this trip again - I couldn't even get from Boston to Newark, DE, in one full day and I didn't plan on doing a second day. I blame SEPTA entirely for this.
Side note: the northbound route through SEAT territory is a bit more palatable if you transferred from the 108 in Mystic to the Stonington HOP on-demand service - it serves a lot Rt. 1 all the way right up against the RI border in Pawcatuck which used to be part of the 108.

So much car dependency and even difficult in the northeastern states. Even riding only local trains between Tokyo and Osaka is a chore requiring at least five trains over three operators and over eight hours rather than two and a half via fastest Shinkansen.

I'm vibin with your video style, I'll subscribe so I can say I was sub #65 to flex on people when you have tons.

I very much enjoyed your video. You are funny with your editing

I'm a tram and I approve this video! Definetely wasn't aware of the connection between Marc and SEPTA

bruh said "wooster" for Worcester

Let’s go PVTA!!
Hope it gets even better soon
Also, I'm not sure what day it was nor what time you boarded the G73E, but you could've taken the R29 to Amherst from Springfield for a transferless trip, and it would've taken roughly the same time as the G73E and B43. Only issue with that is the lack of R29 frequency of every 2 hours and it only serves Springfield on weekdays. Just something worth noting.

Pioneer Valley native here. You know you're an out-of-towner when:
1. You pronounce Worcester as "woo-ster"
2. You pronounce Amherst as "am Herst"
Anyway, thanks for documenting your adventure. I'm glad you stayed safe throughout (you went through a few sketchy areas).

Idea: Try doing this from Florida to Maine (at least plan). So far I've done some research and you can go almost to Jacksonville.

you have good taste in music

great video! now try doing it using ONLY Local Buses. Also Newark, DE is pronounced "New-ARC" not like Newark, NJ and the State of Delaware funds the SEPTA service in Delaware and NJ has SEPTA because it's convenient to transfer to NJT and it's the end of electrification anyways on the West Trenton Line

This is top tier content.

Wow! First of all great music choice. Secondly, an impressive mapping of B routes, because it's good to not have to rely on Amtrak and coach busses. And of course, an excellent map of local-level service gaps on the Northeast Corridor. As others have mentioned below, I'm also in favor of filling those gaps and extending service to Springfield (although I think more frequent regional service is in order, not an MBTA extension. Lake Shore route with additonal stops west of Worcester, 5 times a day... the Downeaster of the west!) And you did pretty well at pronouncing Worcester

Good research digging up that Cecil Transit connection between Perryville and Newark. PVTA is a bit better known, and it's certainly more convenient than going via Providence...

Damn I thought taking the Megabus from DC to Boston was bad

joji in the video makes this video 10x better

2:01 This made me nostalgic because I at eat the exact location where that pigeon was last Christmas with my mom before we went back home.

bro why is this playlist literally fire LMAO

Pretty cool video!! I like to take multi stop bus trips with no hotels so this sounds like a fun idea!! As a Rhode Islander, sorry about that stop!!!

I love this. It's adventurous to go anywhere in the US without a car, even if they're two of the busiest cities on the east coast!

Technically you have 14 connections if you count the dc metro taking you to the Marc but I reslly enjoyed the video ima watch a few more and sub

This video just reaffirms my opinion that there being no train between Springfield and Worcester is truly ruining the flow of non Amtrak train travel in the northeast

Nice Tomcatter's pfp, VF-31 rocks

I'm glad that you took the mbta

Ayyy, Amherst! Cool to see my hometown here! I used to ride the B43 a ton growing up.

Genius. Fantastic. Thanks dude.

you absolute devil, you! i can't believe you succeeded on this journey!!!!

great looking trip, need to do more :)

I mapped out something similar when I was like 15, but couldn't figure out a way to get from New Haven to Boston as I was trying to connect through Providence. Alas, my parents wouldn't've let me do the actual journey anyways given that I was well 15.

Great video!!! Love to see peeps using public transit

Wow, this is a new niche of TH-cam content that I enjoy!

Please drop a playlist of songs! I literally switched device just so I could rewatch and shazam the music. Edit: Just checked the description- awesome!!!!

Great video!