Getting around Edinburgh
Buses in Edinburgh
When you’re traveling within Edinburgh by public transport, you’re usually using a bus.
… local bus companies have super-frequent connections (you should never wait more than a few minutes for your next ride), and most buses run between 6am and midnight. For late travelers, the city is also home to some pretty frequent night buses.
Most people pay for buses by card—you simply tap onto a bus when you enter. That said, you can only do this when you have a card that works in the UK (so, if you don’t have one, it’s worth getting a bank account with Monzo or Wise or Revolut or whatever).
It’s also possible to pay for your bus tickets with cash… but you need to have the exact change. Stupid, I know.
With both cash and card, you pay when you get on the bus (not before you embark).
Typically, single tickets are around £1.80, and day tickets are around £4.50 (at the time of writing, anyway).
Though many bus companies run within Edinburgh, most routes are serviced by Lothian Buses and First Bus (and you’ll take the majority of—probably all of!—your journeys with one of these two companies; especially Lothian Buses). Remember: if you buy a day ticket for one bus company, your ticket is only valid on buses operated by that company.
Buses from all companies run a little less frequently on Sundays.
You can buy passes to cover multiple trips, but we’ve covered that soon in the ‘tickets and transport passes’ section of this guide.
