A bus company in Hong Kong is offering customers a bus ride without a destination but including a key component: hours of sleep. It is called the Sleeping Bus Tour and it lasts five hours.
According to CNN, Hong Kong’s residents are facing some of the toughest obstacles to travel. Although domestic travel has resumed in mainland China, Hong Kong has not been included in the same plan. Any resident who wants to travel abroad is subject to a mandatory quarantine of up to 21 days upon their return. The financial center remains closed to nearly all visitors, and even local residents who are fully vaccinated face expensive hotel quarantines if they leave the city and come back.
“When we were brainstorming new tours, I saw a friend’s post on social media saying he was stressed with work and couldn’t sleep at night,” Kenneth Kong, manager of Ulu Travel, told the Associated Press. “He also said that when he traveled by bus he could sleep well. The post he made inspired the creation of this trip that allows passengers to only sleep inside.”
The travel industry is just waiting for the border to reopen. They’ve been waiting for two damn years.
Kenneth Kong, manager of Ulu Travel
Tickets cost between 11€ and 43€ depending on the seat you choose between the two floors of the bus. At the entrance passengers receive a small bag with an eye mask and earplugs.
In the first edition of the Sleeping Bus Tour some people even brought blankets and slippers to use during the trip. In Hong Kong, a city of about 7.5 million people, there have been just 213 coronavirus deaths. This was in part due to the strict early measures taken to control the spread. The Sleeping Bus Tour offers an opportunity, if small, to fight the fatigue caused by the travel restrictions. And to imagine themselves traveling again.
