An incomplete taxonomy, assembled over four years and something in the region of sixty overnight journeys across Europe.
The long-distance coach
Reclining seats, a toilet nobody should use after the second hour, aggressive air conditioning. If you are under about 175cm these are survivable and you will get four hours of something adjacent to sleep. If you are taller, the recline in front of you arrives at your knees and stays there until morning.
Always take a seat ahead of the rear axle and away from the toilet door. The back row does not recline, amplifies every pothole, and you will spend the night being gently thrown against a window.
The border-crossing overnight
A category of its own. Everyone is woken at two in the morning, made to stand outside with their passport while a dog goes through the hold, and returned to their seats forty minutes later. Nobody explains anything. There is nothing to be done except expect it and stop counting the night as sleep.
The regional service that becomes an overnight
The most interesting category. A daytime service that runs late, picks up parcels for half the villages on the route, stops for an hour at a roadside restaurant at one in the morning, and arrives whenever it arrives. Unbookable, unpredictable, and the source of most of the good stories.
The equipment that actually matters
- A long-sleeved layer. The air conditioning is always set to arctic and there is no negotiating with it.
- Earplugs, not headphones. Headphones fall out; earplugs survive.
- An eye mask. Interior lights come on at every stop, and at the border they stay on.
- Your bag with you, not in the hold, if it fits. Hold access at three in the morning is not a thing that happens.
- Water, and less of it than you think — the stops are not frequent.
None of this makes a night coach pleasant. It makes it survivable, which is the correct target.