Hello and welcome to the final independent travel podcast of the week with me, Simon Corder.

And as a bit of a treat to myself, I've come along to one of my favourite transport hubs anywhere.

It is Victoria Coach Station, this beautiful art deco building on Buckingham Palace Road, very close to Victoria Railway Station, not close enough, some would say, and utterly unsuited to its 21st century role. I'm just looking at the departure board, the range of choices. Aeckel, Alfredo, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Basingstoke.

That's how it begins.

How exciting is that?

Whole range of operators, National Express probably has the majority,

but Flix bus and megabus are also in with a shout.

And it's a joy coming here because it's a very well-organised place.

You can board your bus up to two minutes before departure.

That's a wonderful thing.

You will almost always have a professional driver who will be very helpful and very, very good.

And it's just a great way to travel day and night, or indeed sometimes right through the night.

Just look at the other end of the ball. Landrake, no idea where Landrake is,

which is embarrassing to me. I do know where Helston is in Cornwallum. So many places aren't

actually accessible direct from London, but they are accessible from here. It's always buzzing.

Lots of people, particularly foreign visitors.

I think they like the range of destinations and also the prices.

Just looking again, hang on, there are three different buses.

Two leal about to leave, two of them from blah blah car, one of them from Flix bus,

overnight departures to Lille. How exciting must-it, 10 o'clock. Who doesn't want to be going to

Mustit? Also, a very clever thing that they do is Bournemouth University, Bristol University,

Cardiff University, East Anglia University, you get the picture. With a bus, you can go wherever

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