I use National Express regularly. My parents live in a town with no train station and this is the easiest way to visit.

National Express tickets can be bought online, they have an easy to use website and you can print off your ticket there and then. They also have a mobile ticket option which texts you your ticket if you don't have access to a printer (small charge for this).

It can be tricky to turn up and buy a ticket if you are travelling from a less used stop or out of office hours. I once had a driver nearly refuse to take me from Northampton on a Saturday as he didn't want to sell us tickets. There was no other option of buying a ticket and in the end he agreed.

The coaches are generally fairly comfortable. Some routes have leather seats and the leg-room, although not huge, isn't too bad.

Your journey is obviously dictated by the road conditions and on a Sunday evening or other peak times it isn't surprising to be delayed.

The other side of this is that the timetable is fairly generous and if you get good traffic you will often arrive early or if your coach starts off late, they often make up the time on the way.

The good thing about National Express is that they offer FunFares which are low cost fares to popular destinations (from £1). They are non-refundable but can offer amazing value.

My default mode of transport is normally the train for the comfort and the speed, however this can be really expensive sometimes and so the coach normally beats this significantly.

I've not taken a long-distance journey. The most I've travelled is 3hrs so not sure how they factor in breaks and things for journeys spanning the country.

I've not had too many nightmare journeys, the worst are normally due to bad traffic.