Get ready for the biggest party in Europe!

Oktoberfest is Munich is hailed as the world’s premiere beer drinking and autumn festival. Last year, Bus2alps brought 800 people to Oktoberfest over its 3 weekends of insanity. This year Bus2alps returns to Jaeger’s Hostel, the Stoke Campsite, and providing transport only options.

Check out our trips here.

All Bus2alps packages include round trip private transportation, Bus2alps trip leader, and accommodation based on the package you choose.

Bus2alps Oktoberfest 2011 Dates and Packages:

September 15
September 22
September 29

Jaeger’s Hostel – One of Munich’s many top hostels, Jaeger’s is conveniently located near the festival grounds, and offers an awesome after festival party. If you are looking for a comfy bed to crash land into after a day of dancing on tables and belting out drinking songs, Jaeger’s is the place!

Stoke Campsite - If you want a true Oktoberfest experience, then setting up camp at the Stoke Campsite is the way to go! The Stoke site boasts a wild after party with an all you can drink bar, hot breakfast and dinner barbecues, and a wild after festival party. Oktoberfest is one giant tailgate party and the Stoke Campsite is THE place to experience it!

Transport Only - Fancy finding your own accommodation? What are our’s not good enough for you! Well then, we will still make sure you get to Oktoberfest in the best way possible. Jump on board the Bus2Oktoberfest, where you will be taken straight to the Munich main train station and be provided with an onslaught of uber information from your Bus2alps tour guide!

Get the fun of Oktoberfest at a fraction of the hassle by headed to Munich for their Springfest.

Dancing on tables, prosting steins of delicious beer, belting out joyous songs, and eating greasy meals is Munich’s namesake. The world over knows of the raucous that is Oktoberfest, an event that was only cemented in American pop culture by the wonderful movie, ‘Beerfest.’ While Munich is known for the 16-day mayhem of 6 million people toasting frothy glasses of goodness, only the lucky ones get to experience Munich’s miniature celebration for the coming of Spring, Fruhlingfest. Fruhlingsfest does not have the legacy of the fall festival, but has been slowly creeping up as the ideal way to enjoy Munich’s best traditions. At Oktoberfest you’re likely to find yourself clawing for accommodation already six months in advance, negotiating bloated airline prices, and waking up at 6am to pray for a chance to get into the top beer tents. Munich’s Springfest, however, allows all the same singing, dancing, and drinking without the hassle of waking up for the early morning commute. Imagine a beer festival in Munich where you can enjoy a bike tour and a beer in the English Garden, and leisurely stroll down to the festival grounds in the late afternoon for a night of singing, dancing, and prosting. Ah, Fruhlingsfest.

Grab your Lederhose, your Drndels, stretch the vocal cords, warm up your beer drinking hands, and ring in the beautiful weather with hundreds of other people in Europe’s happiest City.

We love to tag each year with a unique label that we can forever remember just why that year was so unique. I can’t imagine a world without us reminding ourselves just why each year was so special, a world where a white Ford Broncos doesn’t make me think of my innocent youthful years of 1994, or hearing the word “poking” reminds me of how Mark Zuckerberg changed the world in 2004. For many, 2010 will be painted by their life-changing experience in Europe.

With that it is time to look in the shiny, reflective side-mirrors of Bus2alps 2010, where things are closer than they may appear, and rejoice at the all the memories we have made in Europe’s top destinations with some of the United States’ coolest people.

The year kicked off and ended with thousands of students from across Europe roaming the Alpine wonderland of Interlaken, Switzerland in search of beautiful scenery and powder. 2010 rolled through the adventure and thrills of Interlaken into Italy’s largest street festival, Venice Carnevale, followed by incredible spring break trips, including Greece (Athens, Corfu, and Aegina) and The Northern Loop (Prague, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Paris), culminating with Easter Weekend in Corfu, Greece, where over 200 students were unleashed on a wild time of toga parties, booze cruises, and Greek love.

As the sun shone, destinations like The Amalfi Coast, French Riviera, Croatia and Cinque Terre brought us to Europe’s most beautiful beach spots. Of course, we would be reminisced to not dedicate part of this memoir of this thrill-packed year to the largest party in the world, Munich’s Oktoberfest. This year Bus2alps made our mark on Munich’s cherished festival. With 600 plus people strong, Bus2alps showed the Germans that those of us from the States do know how to party!

Despite the post-Oktoberfest haze, we continued Bus2alps and our guests continued our wonderful 2010 blitz on Europe, making return splashes to the Northern Loop and Greece for Fall Break. Bus2alps takes over Europe culminated with an incredible, family-style Thanksgiving dinner and weekend in Interlaken, and one last foray into Interlaken’s snow-covered winter wonderland.

2010 was as special year that Bus2alps will always remember. In 2010, Bus2alps launched began a full schedule of departures from Barcelona, Prague, Paris, and London, in addition to many successful new trips including The Northern Loop Spring Break, Croatia, Cinque Terre, and Florence & Tuscany. Most of all, Bus2alps will always remember 2010 for the thousands of awesome guests whose lives we had the privilege to be a part of.

This week’s Bus2alps Featured Blogger, Curtis Chude learned about the Happiest Place in the World and recounted it in his blog. Below is an excerpt from 2nd day at Oktoberfest with Bus2alps. Click here to read his entire blog.

Oktoberfest

After an exhausting day previously, Saturday was spent with intention to just enjoy the festival and not so much down as many steins the festival. By 8am, the staff of Bus2Alps and Stoke waked most of the camp for breakfast and beer, which after two days seemed rather normal. The bus was filled with eager souls and when Colin, Niko, and I went to the HB tent – the lines were already ridiculous and the breakfast crowds in the tents were kicked out the tent to make way for the busiest day at the festival. There must have been thousands on the streets by mid afternoon. Most of them were Germans and in their lederhosen attire. I didn’t really have much success getting into tents with the crowds, the rain and losing my group. So I went to some local restaurants and grabbed a beer and ate some German dishes, which made absolutely no sense to me; Cheese, pretzel sticks, 3 different meats, horseradish (or it could have been wasabi cause I was crying when I took a big bite, and some mozzarella cheese topped off this one dish. Kind of embarrassed myself in front of some Germans since I didn’t finish most of the meal on the wooden platter and ate it with solely my hands. I was out of it by this point – didn’t really care. Tons of beer gardens were all around the place to grab a stein and walk around the site, so had to get my drink on soon. It was getting about that time to go back to the campsite since there weren’t as many busses being supplied on the day 2 and previously. I made it in minutes before the bus arrived and left suddenly not really waiting for others. Getting back to the campsite couldn’t find my tent mate Colin. It was rather worrisome since it was both our first times in Munich.

I began my regular social clout again as previous days and started having conversations with people from California, Florida, Aussies from Stoke, Indiana, and New York. I’m sure there were more people I made friends with their from other parts of the globe. Music played into the night as the staff joined the company of the group.

Went to the tent early to take a power nap since my body was still in exhaustion of the previous day. Awoke probably at about 4am when most were sleep or drunk.. The one Italian guy was using the poles from the food tents to hold himself up. He found his way to bed with orange neon paint all over his face, which I guess was from a girl out of her mind earlier just painting people. Had about 4 beers and went to sleep – still no tent mate.

Bus2alps Ltd. organizes emergency transport for 200 Amercian students stranded in Munich
Students celebrating the annual Fruhlingsfest in Munich were among the thousands stranded this past weekend due to the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano ash cloud. Bus2alps Ltd, a Switzerland based student travel agency, made sure they got home in time for class on Monday.

Munich, Germany, April 18, 2010: This weekend more than 1,000 American study abroad students travelled from all over Europe to congregate at the opening weekend of Munich’s annual Frühlingsfest. This cultural weekend abroad suffered a major setback when the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano ash cloud shut down the surrounding airports and all departing flights were cancelled. Trains departing Munich were sold out in minutes leaving hundreds of students stranded in Munich with no confirmed date of departure, and no way to make it back for their last week of classes and final exams.

Swiss based student travel agency; Bus2Alps Ltd. had brought more than 150 passengers to the opening weekend of Frühlingfest. Bus2alps was quick to offer up the few empty seats on their buses returning to Italy. As word spread the main office was inundated with phone calls and emails from students and parents requesting help. While the head office fielded phone calls and assuaged the fears of worried parents, the Bus2Alps team in Munich began to organize more transport options. Together with help from Wombats and Jaegers youth hostels, Mike’s Bike Tours, and Seitz Reisen Bus2Alps was able to secure additional buses.

Capacity on the buses was filled as quickly as it was made available. By 10:00 am Sunday morning the Bus2Alps team had secured 4 extra buses to transport more than 200 students back to Barcelona, Florence and Rome in time for class on Monday morning.

When asked why Bus2Alps would go through this extra effort, founder Simon Okeeffe stated “We are the top student travel agency in Europe. We are dependent on students enjoying travel, and traveling safely. Regardless whether the students were our passengers or not, if we didn’t help out we would be breaking the trust we have with our clients, their parents, and their schools.”

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Media Contact:
Jonathan Fauver
Bus2Alps Ltd
Hauptstrasse 15
3800 Matten b. Interlaken
Switzerland
www.bus2alps.com
jon@bus2alps.com
Phone: +41 (0) 33 534 98 76
Skype: jonfauver

Lights, camera action…

Bus2alps presents the ‘Why We Ride’ Video Contest. Bus2alps is on the lookout for students who have been (or will be) documenting their trips. Whether you’re an aspiring director or love the video option on your camera a little too much, we want your videos, and we’re offering free travel for the best.

Easy work, free travel, the chance to be the next Youtube sensations? Why woudn’t you enter…

You never know, it could be your ticket to the cheapest trip ever.

How it works…

- Video clips can be between :30 and 3:00 in length
- Multiple entries per person are allowed
- Each prize can only be claimed by one person
- Each video must be uploaded to Youtube and posted to the Bus2alps Fan Page on Facebook
- Videos can contain anything you did on a trip (i.e. skydiving or canyon jumping in Interlaken, throwing confetti in Venice, etc.)
- See below for a video example

Criteria for Video

- Videos are to be uploaded to youtube
- After uploaded, post the link to the Bus2alps fan page

All submissions must be tagged with the following labels:

- Bus2alps
- Student Travel
- Student Travel
- The destination
- Study Abroad

The person(s) must state the following during the video:

- Who they are
- Your University
- The Bus2alps destination you are in
- Why you ride with Bus2alps
- ***Note: If it is a pre-existing video not containing, you may add a voiceovers or text to the video. If you do not have this capability, you must put all of this information in the video description when uploaded.

- Video does not have to be of professional quality
- Videos should showcase the destination you are in
- No nudity, foul language, or excessive drinking (video will be removed)

Judging

- The final 5 videos are determined based on Youtube ratings as voted on by friends and Youtube users as well as feedback from staff
- The winner will be determined by the Bus2alps staff Prizes

THE DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION IS MAY 1, 2011

WINNER WILL BE ANNOUNCED MAY 7, 2011

Final Prize

Winner will receive a cash prize to compensate them for all of the incredible experiences they had while studying abroad.

Check out the Bus2alps Why We Ride Video Example: