I didn’t think I’d like Europe’s first luxury no-fly sleeper bus – I was wrong
It was midnight somewhere on the roads between Amsterdam and Basel as I resisted nightmare-inducing thoughts of dentist’s chairs. Activating the “bed” function on my seat caused my legs to rise and my back to lower. I slipped my feet into the safety net and wondered whether I could get comfortable enough to doze off ready to wake up in a new country around seven hours later.
Europe’s first lie-flat sleeper buses were launched last month by Twiliner, a Swiss startup, and I was among the first clutch of people to test them out. I had joined the Amsterdam–Zurich route, which departs three times a week with stops in Rotterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg and Basel.
Another itinerary, between Zurich and Barcelona, stopping in Berne and Girona, started on 4 December. Twiliner also has ambitions to add Rome, Cannes and San Sebastian to its network.
Flight-free travel has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years with several mainstream tour operators offering no-fly trips, the launch of new sleeper and high-speed routes and an uptick in business – Original Travel, for example, saw a 37 per cent increase in bookings for trips by train between 2023 and 2024. But Europe had yet to offer the kind of long-distance sleeper buses that are typical in parts of Asia. Twiliner has stepped in and seeks to fill some gaps where night trains are not available.
Ticket prices (from £140 each way) are comparable to overnight rail travel, and it’s also less carbon intensive than flying. By Twiliner’s calculations, when using biodiesel (hydrotreated vegetable oil fuel), its buses create less than 10 per cent of the carbon emissions of a flight of a similar distance. It says when running on diesel, the bus emissions are similar to that of a sleeper train.
I tried its bus service as part of a no-fly London – Amsterdam – Basel cultural mini break. With the Amsterdam to Basel portion taking around 11 hours, it offered a similar sleeping experience to business class on a long-haul flight – albeit with a bumpier ride.
The journey started in Amsterdam (Photo: HumbertoJose92/iStockphoto/Getty)
The night passed in a soporific blur of tyres rumbling over bumps in the road, slight weaves to the left and right and sometimes a few minutes of silence as we pulled into a service station so that the crew, which consisted of two drivers, could grab something to eat.
I was on the third journey the bus had taken, and there was only one other, quiet passenger on board, so I didn’t need the complimentary ear plugs. There are 18 seats upstairs, and the layout is not dissimilar to a plane. Even if it had been full, I think the way the beds are constructed would still give some privacy once lying flat. I found the bed quite hard and put a spare duvet from another seat on top as extra cushioning.
As the hours whizzed by, I enjoyed this novel way of pairing two city breaks. I had already spent a night in Amsterdam, having arrived via the Eurostar. I was glad to avoid airport queues and strict luggage allowances on the four-hour trip that, with a Premier ticket, included a four-course meal.
The seats convert into beds (Photo: Fotograf Remo Vettori)
When the train pulled into Amsterdam Centraal Station, all I had to do was hop on the free ferry to the Amsterdam Noord neighbourhood and then walk 15 minutes to my hostel, Bunk. The property has both dormitory and private rooms inside a huge, red-brick church building. I made the most of its free cultural arts programme – there was live jazz the night I was there, for example.
Amsterdam is among the European cities struggling with overtourism, so I decided to seek out less crowded attractions. After breakfast, I walked to Nieuwendammerdijk, around 20 minutes away, also in Amsterdam Noord. This narrow street of wooden homes was built by shipbuilders, fishermen and traders in Amsterdam’s 17th-century golden age.
Next, I hopped back on the ferry to the centre to visit Oude Kerk, the city’s cavernous old church, and its tucked-away courtyard café. I used the I Amsterdam City Card (from €65 (£57) per day for entry to more than 70 attractions, use of public transport and bike hire) to visit Our Lord In The Attic Museum, a perfectly preserved “house church” that dates from the 1600s when Catholics were forced to pray in secret. My last stop was the Houseboat Museum, a 23m-long barge that traces life on the canals. After that, with 25,000 steps under my belt, I needed a lie-down – it was time to board the Twiliner.
The Our Lord in the Attic museum (Photo: Birute/Birute Vijeikiene/iStockphoto/Getty)
It was a relief to see the slick purple double-decker pull into its bay among the many green Flixbuses. I was the only person boarding at Amsterdam’s Sloterdijke bus station and I had the pick of the top-deck seats. It was a bit of a scramble to get myself sorted before the double-decker bus pulled off. I wanted to grab everything I would need for the 11-hour drive – laptop, charger, PJs, toiletries, eye mask, ear plugs, snacks – not to mention needing to familiarise myself with the buttons on the arm of my chair.
Soon, I was relaxed and cosy, hooked up to the Wifi, with my phone charging in the chair’s USB port and a mug of complimentary peppermint tea. I watched a film on my laptop while the miles clicked by. With most of the journey on main roads, after dark, there wasn’t much of a view.
There was a toilet and a changing room on the lower deck, as well as an area with free hot drinks and snacks for purchase using a QR code. The stairs up to the top deck were steep and I was pleased when one of the crew offered to carry my case and hook it into a safe position.
The facilities on the Twiliner (Photo: Fotograf Remo Vettori)
There are three seats in each row, with an aisle, and a fluffy rug underfoot. The cabin was a cosy 23°C when I boarded, but it thankfully dropped to 19°C when we slept.
It was a rude awakening getting off in Basel, an unfamiliar city, at 6.45am, but the Twiliner served its dual purpose of comfortable accommodation and overnight transport. At first, I was wide-eyed with aborted sleep as I trudged through the streets, but the sun shone all day, and I soon felt awake enough to make the most of it.
I started at the Kunstmuseum, a 1930s modernist building that is a work of art in itself. Its Ghosts exhibition, running until March next year, is a thrilling exploration of how the supernatural has filled us with unease for centuries, defying our understanding and attempts to control it, from spirit photography (from the early days of photography when ghostly figures would appear in long exposure shots) and portraits to spooky video and sculpture.
Basel Town Hall in the northern Swiss city (Photo: Westend61/Getty/Werner Dieterich)
Afterwards, I took a free, self-guided tour with the This is Basel app through the old town including the traditional Christmas Market in the Cathedral square.
Later, I joined locals on the riverbank between the Schwarzwaldbrücke and Wettsteinbrücke bridges for a glass of Glühwein.
I rang the bell on one of the ferry landing platforms to let the Fährimaa (driver) know I wanted to board and crossed the Rhine for the last time. The Twiliner, the backbone of my city-hopping break, had offered a fuss-free, efficient journey – but I was looking forward to a quiet night in a hotel bed, with considerably fewer bumps in the night.
How to do it
Twiliner buses run between Amsterdam and Zurich twice a week in each direction. Departures from Amsterdam at 8pm. Tickets from 150CHF (£139).
Eurostar Premier tickets from London to Amsterdam start from £229 each way, including fast-track check in and lounge access at St Pancras International.
