When you start looking on Google for the best way to travel from Belgrade, Serbia, to Szeged, Hungary, it looks pretty simple. Things are not what they seem. Even Rome2Rio seems to get it wrong and it’s normally a very useful site.
I’ve spent most of this year travelling around the Balkans and I’ve found it’s very hard to find accurate travel information online. That’s why I often share tips and information about my journeys. If I struggle to find the best way to make a certain trip and waste time following a lot of dead ends, it stands to reason other people may have the same problem too.
The best way to get from Belgrade to Szeged is via minibus. No doubt about it. The best way to explain why is to share the problems I had trying to find transport for the trip.
However, if you just want to learn how to make the journey, forget about the rest of this blog post and contact GEA Tours.
If you want to see how unreliable some of the online travel information is, and why I believe a minibus is the best option, read on.
The Options Rome2Rio Gave Me for Travelling From Belgrade to Szeged
Rome2Rio is a very useful site that gives you options for getting from Point A to Point B. I use it all the time but during the last year, I’ve learned to double check the information it provides.
Rome2Rio gave me several options to make the trip from Belgrade to Szeged.
The first option was to take the bus from Belgrade to Subotica and then get a bus from Subotica to Szeged. Rome2Rio said there was a bus from Belgrade every four hours, but the bus from Subotica to Szeged only ran once per day. The expected journey time was just under five hours.
The second option the site gave me was to take a bus from Belgrade to Srbobran then catch another bus to Szeged. For the first leg of the journey, there was apparently a bus every hour. For the second leg, again, there was just one bus per day and, travelling this route would take nearly six hours.
Rome2Rio’s third option was to get a bus from Belgrade to Senta and then a second bus from Senta to Szeged. In both cases, there is only one bus per day (according to Rome2Rio) and the journey time would be just over six hours.
The other option Rome2Rio gave me was to go by train. Believe it or not, the journey was longer still (8hr 39 mins).
That would be one train from Belgrade to Kiskunhalas, a second train to Kiskunfelegyhaza, and third train to Szeged. The train was the most expensive option but, in every case, the site was showing several trains per day between each station. I initially decided to travel by train, but I didn’t trust the information available.
In collaboration with Google Maps, Rome to Rio told me to go to the train station in the centre of Belgrade, near the bus station. That’s station has not been used for years. There’s a new station which was just 10 minutes walk from the apartment I was renting.
I walked to the station and found the international ticket office. There was only one woman working and she was dealing with a group of six. For each one she had to do all the paperwork by hand. It was very slow and inefficient. I stood waiting for over 30 minutes. Then I showed her the route Rome2Rio was giving me. She said it was impossible to get from Belgrade to Kiskunhalas by train at that time. The only way would be to get a bus to another city and then try and get a train. That’s just for the first station, remember. If I did the jounrney, I could still find there were other problems along the way.
When I went to the bus station, the staff there said there were no buses from the station to Szeged. They suggested I try a tour company instead. I asked at a couple of tour companies and they only ran bus services to Budapest. I could have spent money ringing around the companies Rome2Rio was showing me, but I’ve done that in the past only to have companies tell me they don’t do the routes Rome2Rio says; so ringing around was the last resort.
My next port of call was the Fudeks bus company. Again, the company only offers a bus from Belgrade to Budapest. However, the man at Fudeks told me the best way to travel from Belgrade to Szeged is by minibus. He also told me two minibus companies I could use. I chose to go with GEA Tours. It’s an excellent service and I’m very glad I did. In fact, the company is active in many European countries and I’m so impressed with the service I’ll be using GEA Tours again.
What Google Told Me About Making the Journey
If you are looking for the best way, or any way, to travel between Belgrade and Szeged, you cannot trust the Google search engine results. It’s possible you may get lucky, but it’s equally possible you will waste a lot of time.
For instance, three of the top answers Google gave me were Rome2Rio, BusBud, and BusRadar. There was also the option to search the TripAdvisor website to see if there were any good answers there.
According to the SERPS, BusBud could get me there.
But no! The BusBud website said differently. It didn’t have any departures on that day. I tried many other dates and got a big, fat zilch. I’ve done this before with BusBud they pull you into the site and keep offering alternative destinations instead. It’s somewhat like going to Google and then being hijacked.
As for BusRadar, that was a waste of time too. The SERPs tell you the site can get you “cheap coach tickets”.
The BusRadar website draws a blank and suggests you try BlaBlaCar instead.
If you’ve read this far, congratulations on your patience. I’m sorry this is taking so long, but I really feel the need to illustrate how unreliable the online information is.
I found out about the minibus thanks to a man working a Fudeks. One of the guys I travelled with in the minibus found out about the minibus thanks to a personal recommendation as well. Sometimes when you are in a city it’s best to speak with people who know and forget wasting time looking for answers online.
My Experience Travelling with GEA Tours
It turned out the GEA Tours office was not far from my apartment, so I popped in and saw someone in person. They gave me the price in euros and said it would cost me €20. I did not have to pay there and then. Instead, I had to pay the driver on the day.
GEA Tours have Minibus services every day. The bus goes from Belgrade to Budapest, but if people need to go to other Hungarian destinations it drops them off along the way. The route changes to match the passengers’ requirements.
The best thing of all is, there is no need to go to the bus. It comes to you. Right to your door. In my case, it also dropped me off right outside the building I was travelling to in Szeged. Door-to-door service? Wow! I’ve never had it so good. I usually do a lot of walking with bags strapped to my back and my front.
Travelling with GEA Tours was faster and cheaper than any of the other options. If you need to travel from Belgrade to Szeged, Budapest, or any other Hungarian destination, it’s probably going to be the best way to go. I recommend GEA Tours 100%.
Apparently, a company called Terra Travel offers a similar service so, if GEA is fully booked on the day you want to travel there is another option available.
– – – – –
– – –
– – –
– – – – –