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I'm traveling to Brno for a conference, and am making last-minute travel plans. The recommendation is to fly into Vienna and take ground transportation from there, as Brno's own airport is very small. Someone at the office here in the US suggested that there's a bus between the two cities, but, of course there's also the train, and the conference info page suggests that they're about the same price. A couple of decades ago I took the train from Dresden to Prague, and that was fine.

In my mind, trains are pretty much always better than buses, but I don't know how things stand in the Czech Republic. Would there be any particular advantage to the bus?

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There are no objections to taking the train from Vienna airport to Brno. However, in your precise case, the bus has two advantages.

  1. The bus is direct. You get in the bus at the airport and get out off the bus in Brno. No need to change. With the train you have to change at least once, sometimes even twice or three times. You have to carry your luggage through the stations, there is a risk of getting lost or of missing a connection.

  2. The bus is cheaper. A single ticket is 17 euros from Vienna airport to Brno. The single train fares are more than 30 euros.

For train fares and schedules, you can refer to the website of the national railway company. For information on buses, you can refer to the airport's website.

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    For what it's worth, I'm on said bus right now and am very pleased. For one thing, there is indeed free wifi. It's also pretty comfy, and goes right from the airport to my hotel.
    – mattdm
    Feb 18, 2013 at 15:59
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There can be a few reasons, generically, why the bus can be better than the train:

  • sometimes, the bus is faster! For example, from Buenos Aires to Rosario (Argentina), the bus is faster than the horrendously slow train.
    • sometimes the bus is cheaper! (Although you've mentioned in this case it's not). In the previous example, the bus is also cheaper than the train (no idea why anyone takes that train except for perhaps the next reason....)
  • sometimes, the schedule is better. Trains and buses aren't always a regular thing - they may leave hours apart, or twice a week, for example. Check out the schedule, it might be more convenient to arrive when the bus arrives.
  • some buses have wifi, in my experience - more often than trains do. So if you're after that, it could be useful.
  • buses quite often run from the airport, meaning you don't have to worry about getting from an airport to the city's train station.

For getting to Brno, Wikivoyage notes that there are several options, and indeed you could even fly into Prague and get there in under 3 hours by train, while there are also frequent buses from the Prague airport itself, which might be more convenient for you. Have a read of the page, you may see an option which is more preferable to you.

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  • Whether buses have wifi more often than trains I don't know, but I'm pretty sure trains more often have electricity sockets.
    – gerrit
    Feb 12, 2013 at 20:31
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    @gerrit - indeed (although the ones in Russia hardly worked), and trains more often have beds, etc etc, but he wasn't asking for advantages of trains, he was wondering why a bus would be better. Thinking about it, the bus from Vilnius to Riga and to Tallinn also had food, power sockets, AND wifi - was amazing :)
    – Mark Mayo
    Feb 12, 2013 at 20:39
  • For getting to Brno, flying to Vienna is usually the better option (100 km bus ride from VIE, 200 km from PRG; both direct routes). Of course, not all airlines fly to Prague or Vienna - that might be the deciding factor. May 10, 2013 at 20:45
  • In case anyone is reading this, another point worth noting is that the bus goes straight from the Vienna airport to the main train station at the city center in Brno, but in Prague, it goes first to the city center and there is a change of buses.
    – mattdm
    Aug 30, 2016 at 17:50

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