Transportation from kalispell to Missoula

To be honest you might get quicker answers if you ask on the Montana Trip Advisor website. MaryEllen who is a Destination Expert lives locally and is excellent as are some of the others.

www.tripadvisor.com/ShowForum-g28947-i982-Montana.html

I'm not a fan of Greyhound travel but for a short ride it might not be too bad.

Holy cow..I just tried to get an estimate of an Uber ride from Kalispell to Missoula and it ranges from $240-$345! I suspect there are few drivers available.

It might be more reasonable to rent a car for the trip altho you'd have to figure in the drop off fee for the one-way. If you are a Costco member some people report a good rental rate with them and no drop off fee.

~Pam

www.rome2rio.com/.../Missoula I use this site to find alternate forms of transport. May give you idea of best option.

In reply to TravelHound:

I do look at rome2rio for European travel but I just looked at it for this particular trip and it does not even mention the direct bus from Kalispell to Missoula. The search program must be built to default to train travel first as it tries to route you to the nearest Amtrak station which is not useful in this part of the country.

In reply to PamInIdaho:

I see the direct bus route when in run the inquiry. Maybe I attached the wrong url. Try rome2rio.com and then enter in your from/to.  Shows 13 hours 17 minutes, including transfer times.  75-95 dollars.

In reply to TravelHound:

Yes, that actually was exactly what I was talking about. That is not the direct route as they are routing a person out to Great Falls then to Butte and Missoula.

The Greyhound website shows a bus direct from Kalispell to Missoula at 430P, arriving at 730P for $28. The route they show is the one you would expect to drive in a car - directly south from Kalispell, around Flathead Lake and on to Missoula. This does take about an hour longer than you would expect if you drove the route - so 2 hours and some change for a car drive time, 3 hours and some change for a bus.

I'm not even sure the connections on the long route would work out as one of the buses only runs once a week. It's weird that the bus they show is a local county transit company for part of it then smaller regional bus lines for the other parts. No Greyhound at all so maybe they don't have permission to use their schedule?

BTW, I'm not trying to be argumentative or contrary. It just puzzles me greatly at the Rome2Rio routing suggestions. I have personally used them successfully to plot out trains in France, Belgium, Germany and Italy but this is a mess. I'm very glad you mentioned it because I would not have keyed in to using Rome2Rio for US transportation.

~Pam

In reply to PamInIdaho:

Oh I thought you only got 3 options in lieu of 4. No worries. Good to know. I use as a research tool and have found some routes I would not have thought of. I don't take results as gospel but it gives a good starting point. Being from the East Coast I get frustrated at lack of trains going N/S in the middle of the country.