Best Budapest Bus Tours
You can check off almost all the must-see places in Budapest with a bus tour. These are cheaper than travelling across the city by car, and you don’t need to put in the same physical exertion or be wary of traffic as you would with bike, scooter or Segway tours.
There are two main types of bus tours, the hop-on hop-off tours and the coach tours. Both have their own benefits, and you have a variety of options for either in Budapest, which we will explore here.
Hop-On vs Coach Tours
A hop-on hop-off sightseeing tour is basically a bus service that runs on a fixed route, and you can jump on or jump off at any time you like. While there are numbered stops, the two companies in Budapest have around 20 stops, you don’t need to follow the schedule from start to finish. You can get on at a later stop, travel partial circuits, and easily get back to the spots you missed before or wanted to leave for later.
Coach tours can have options for you to hop off, but these are built into the schedule. These are fixed tours where groups of people sign up for dedicated time slots. There is no coming and going of passengers onboard. These tours can also have live guides instead of recorded multilingual audio guides.
Hop on Hop Off
- Do it yourself tour
- Repeat stops and get off where you want
- Tickets for 24, 48 or 72 hours
- New buses approximately every 10-25 minutes
- No live guides
- Ride in open groups
Coach Tour
- Structured overview of the city
- Live guides who can also answer questions
- Same-language or bilingual groups
- Ride in closed groups
- Follow the fixed schedule
- Only lasts around 2-3 hours
- Fewer language options
Picking between the two really depends on how you prefer to travel. A coach tour runs on a fixed schedule, with a local live guide who talks you through what you are seeing. You travel with closed, same-language or bilingual groups, which many visitors find more comfortable because you have some common ground to socialise with your fellow adventurers.
Hop-on hop-off is a more flexible type of tour, and your ticket can last anywhere from 1 to 3 days, so you can keep using the services even after you have done an entire loop. This flexibility also helps you cram in more activities – you could get Parliament tour or river cruise tickets, and use the hop-on bus tour to get to these places.
Experiences Comparison
Below is a brief summary of the best bus tours Budapest has to offer. There’s more detail about schedules, price breakdowns and routes below, in the full reviews of each bus tour. And there’s also direct comparisons with very similar tours – like the Big Bus vs City Sightseeing hop-on bus tours.
| Bus Tour | Price | Duration | Guide / Languages | Highlight | Sites Missed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big Bus (Hop On) | €39, €44, €49 | 24, 48, 72 hours | Audio, 16 languages | Includes 1h free Parliament walking tour | Castle, Parliament |
| City Sightseeing (Hop On) | €39, €44, €49 | 24, 48, 72 hours | Audio, 16 languages | Includes 1h free Parliament walking tour | Castle, Parliament, Citadel |
| Cityrama Grand Tour (Coach) | €35 | 3 hours | Live, 2+ languages (sometimes bilingual) | Castle walk | – |
| Cityrama Grand Tour (Coach) with Parliament | €65 | 3 hours + 1.5 hour | Live, 2+ (sometimes bilingual) | Includes parliament tour | – |
| Eurama Grand Tour (Coach) | €44 | 3 hours | Live, up to 5 (sometimes bilingual) | Castle walk + Citadel photo stop | – |
| Eurama Grand Tour (Coach) + River Cruise | €54 | 3 hours + 1 hour | Live, up to 5 (sometimes bilingual) | Includes 1h river cruise | – |
| Amphibious Bus (Coach) | €27, €32 | 50 – 90 minutes | Audio, 13 languages | Land tour and river cruise | All of Buda |
| BeerBus (Coach) | €27 | 1 hour | Host, only English | Unlimited beer | Castle, Margaret Bridge, downtown Pest |
Hop-On Hop-Off
There are two companies in Budapest that do hop on bus tours: Big Bus and City Sightseeing. You can’t use tickets you buy with one company for the other’s buses, so you need to pick between the two. Now, there aren’t many differences between the Big Bus vs City Sightseeing hop-on, hop-off bus tours, they both have around 20 stops, follow nearly identical routes, and both start and end at the same times.
Also, neither of them enter the Buda Castle District, this is important to note. The prices are also very similar. But there are some minute details that are worth pointing out, which we have done below.
Big Bus Hop On
Big Bus is a UK based company that operates in multiple countries around the world, and it has been in Budapest since 2011. Buses arrive very frequently, and there is also a free Big Bus Tours mobile app with which you can track when the next bus will arrive.
- Availability: 10:00 - 17:00 every day. 10-25 minute frequency
- Duration: 1 hour 50 minutes
- Ticket prices: €39, €44, €49
- Ticket options: 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours
- Extras: 1 hour downtown walking tour
- Provider: Big Bus Budapest
- Stops: 21
- Guide: Pre-recorded audio, 16 languages
Big Bus uses double-decker buses, with both open top and closed top, and buses are air-conditioned or heated when required. The mobile app is a neat extra, and another perk Big Bus has over its competitor City Sightseeing is that the Citadel stop actually takes you up the base of the Citadel. The City Sightseeing route has a Citadel stop, but it drops you a little further from the main spot, so you have to still walk upwards to get there. Also, Big Bus buses come slightly more frequently, but this also depends on the traffic.
Big Bus Route Stops:
National Museum, National Gallery, Academy of Science, Margaret Island, Gellért Baths, Transport Museum, Funicular, House of Terror Museum, History Museum, Széchenyi Baths, Museum of Fine Arts, Zelnik (Gold) Museum, Budapest Zoo & Botanical Garden, Kunsthalle Art Museum, Underground Railroad Museum, Hungarian Jewish Museum, Ruin Pubs, Rudas Baths, Lukács Baths, The Ethnographic Museum
Big Bus audio languages:
Hungarian, English, German, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Polish, Swedish, Korean, Greek, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew, Portuguese, Dutch
City Sightseeing Hop On
The Seville-based brand has a much larger international presence than Big Bus, and it arrived in Budapest in 2014. It, too, has open-top and closed-top double-decker buses, with air conditioning and multilingual pre-recorded audio guides.
- Availability: 10:00 - 17:00 every day. 10-15 minute frequency
- Duration: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Ticket prices: €39, €44, €49
- Ticket options: 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours
- Extras: 1 hour downtown walking tour
- Provider: City Sightseeing Europe
- Stops: 20
- Guide: Pre-recorded audio, 16 languages
So the main drawbacks are that the City Sightseeing bus doesn’t have a mobile app like Big Bus, and the Citadel stop drops you a little further down the hill. Neither bus goes up to the Castle District, but the City Sightseeing Castle stop drops you off a little closer to the base of the castle, where you can either get the Castle District bus, get a trip on the Funicular, or walk up. The slightly shorter trip time (because of that Citadel stop) and slightly more frequent buses mean you can get around quicker than with Big Bus, which is a strong perk.
City Sightseeing Route Stops:
Basilica, Chain Bridge (Pest), Deák Square, Synagogue, Anker Köz, Andrássy Avenue, Opera, Liszt Ferenc Square, Heroes Square, Keleti Railway Station, New York Palace (Blaha Square), Time Out Market, Párisi Udvar, Citadel, Gellért Bath, Várkert Bazár, Funicular, Batthyány Square, Margaret Bridge (Buda), WestEnd City Centre Shopping Mall, Parliament
City Sightseeing audio languages:
Spanish, Turkish, Chinese, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Polish, Portuguese, Russian
Guided Coaches
Funnily enough, the coach tour industry is also a bit of a two-horse race, with Cityrama and Eurama dominating the market. They also have tours that go to the countryside or nearby towns, but let’s focus on the Budapest tours, which come with live guides and optimally designed routes.
Cityrama 3h Live Guided Tour
The Cityrama coach tour explores key locations on either side of the Danube with scheduled stops in the Castle District and quick photo stops, Cityrama’s 3-hour tour of Budapest covers all the essentials. You can ask your hosts questions about the city, but take note that sometimes the tours are bilingual. You can book in English or Spanish, but there are bilingual guides who also speak German, French, or Italian.
- Availability: 10:00 start or 14:00 start
- Duration: 3 hours
- Ticket prices: €35
- Start: 1054, Budapest, Báthory utca 19, (Cityrama office)
- Provider: Cityrama Budapest Travel Agency
- Guide: Live guides, 2 languages (more with bilingual guides)
Unlike the hop-on buses, this Cityrama coach takes you up to the Castle District, where you get time to walk through the historic streets and monuments. The guided coach takes you across the Elisabeth Bridge, passing the Central Market, the Jewish District and Synagogue, and finally up to the Liget City Park. This area is explored in detail, as you circle Heroes Square, the Budapest Zoo, and Széchenyi Baths, before heading back down Andrássy Avenue. Finally, it places you in the centre of downtown Pest, past the Opera House and St. Stephen’s Basilica.
Be warned that sometimes you won’t find all language options displayed, in which case you can contact the service provider (Get Your Guide or Viator), or contact the tour operator directly. But do note that sometimes the tours are bilingual, to combine groups of same-language tourists.
Cityrama Grand City Tour with Parliament
The Cityrama Grand City Tour with Parliament is similar to the 3-hour tour, but with a Parliament tour extension. This extends the tour time to 4 hours total, comprising 3 hours in the guided coach and a 1-hour audio-guided tour of the Parliament.
- Availability: 10:00 start or 14:00 start
- Duration: 3 + 1 hours
- Ticket prices: €65
- Start: 1054, Budapest, Báthory utca 19, (Cityrama office)
- Provider: Cityrama Budapest Travel Agency
- Guide: Live guides, 2 languages (more with bilingual guides)
This tour has everything in the 3-Hour Guide, but it doesn’t end in downtown Pest but brings you past St. Stephen’s Basilica and goes on towards the Parliament. You end here, and then you can head to the Parliament tour entrance. The tickets are not skip-the-line ones, so prepare for a little waiting time before you can enter, especially during peak season. This ticket gives you a guided tour of the Parliament, which takes around 1 hour.
Now there are two reasons this tour is worth considering. Not only is it a combo deal that saves you around 20% if you were to buy Parliament Tour and 3-hour coach tickets separately, but also Parliament Tour tickets can sell out quickly. In fact, we found that sometimes these tickets are the only ones still available when regular Parliament ticket tours have run out.
Eurama Half-Day City Tour
The Eurama half day tour, like the Cityrama coach tours, starts in Budapest’s historic 5th district in Pest. But the Eurama tour starts and stops at the foot of the InterContinental Hotel (the Eurama main office is inside), which sits on the Pest Danube embankment, a more scenic spot. The route and stops are a little different from the Cityrama coach tours’ ones.
- Availability: 10:00 start or 14:30 start
- Duration: 3 hours
- Ticket prices: €44
- Start: 1052, Budapest, Apáczai Csere János u. 12-14 (Eurama office)
- Provider: Eurama Travel Agency
- Guide: Live guides, 5 languages (sometimes bilingual)
This tour heads to Heroes Square first, passing by the Opera House, St. Stephen’s Basilica, and some architectural marvels in Pest. There, you make a short photo stop before boarding the coach and heading back towards Buda. In Buda, the coach ascends Gellért Hill and puts you in the Castle District, where you have a full guided tour of the area. Then, it goes to the Citadel, where you get another photo stop to capture amazing aerial shots of Pest and Buda.
Finally, it heads back to the starting point, and you finish at either 13:00 or 17:30, depending on whether you took the morning or afternoon tours. It costs slightly more than the basic Cityrama coach tour, but the additional viewpoints and the starting/ending location add more excitement. Also, this tour is available in English, German, Italian, French or Spanish, but it is also often bilingual, with guides combining languages to accommodate larger groups of tourists.
Eurama City Tour + 1h River Cruise
This is an extension of the City Tour, where you end in front of the InterContinental Hotel but the action doesn’t stop there as you have a 1 hour river cruise to look forward to.
- Availability: 10:00 start or 14:30 start
- Duration: 3 + 1 hours
- Ticket prices: €54
- Start: 1052, Budapest, Apáczai Csere János u. 12-14 (Eurama office)
- Provider: Eurama Travel Agency
- Guide: Live guides, 5 languages (sometimes bilingual)
The river cruise sets off from Dock 6 at Vigadó Square, which is just a 5 minute walk from where the Eurama City Tour coach leaves you. These are the standard Mahart PassNave boats, with a lower indoor deck and a rooftop open one.
The savings on this combo deal are not massive, considering how many budget boat tour options there out there, but it is a very convenient extension. You are dropped off so close to the dock, and it is the perfect way to round off the coach tour.
More Bus Tours
Want more bus tours? The options keep coming. If you want something a little different from the norm, you can check out the further bus tours below.
Amphibious Bus Tour
This vibrant yellow bus is quite the spectacle, and riding it is an adventure like no other, especially when it splashes into the water and turns into a boat. Then, you get a short river cruise loop on that vehicle, before it heads back to that splash point and heads back onto land, and takes you to the starting point in Széchenyi István Square.
- Availability: 13:00 (50 minute), 11:00 or 15:00 (90 minute)
- Duration: 50 minutes or 1 hour 30 minutes
- Ticket prices: €27 or €32
- Start: 1051, Budapest, Széchenyi István tér 7-8
- Provider: RiverRide-Tours Ltd.
- Guide: Pre-recorded audio guide, 13 languages
This is one of the more adventurous tours out there, and it feels like a two for one deal on bus and river tours. The Amphibious Bus operates throughout the year, but from April to October it goes 4 times a day (on non-maintenance days), otherwise, there are only 3 scheduled tours per day (on non-maintenance days). Tuesdays and Thursdays are maintenance days all year round. One final thing to note is that the exact starting times can vary by season, so please double-check these.
So, you have a choice between a 50 minute trip and a 1.5 hour one. Both of these travel through Pest and hit the Danube River, and neither ventures into Buda (the buses are not designed to be driven over bridges, or on the hilly terrain in Buda).
With a 50 minute trip, you spend 30/20 minutes on land/water. The land tour goes up to Heroes Square and back, before going up to the Dráva Street ramp. Then, you hit the waves, and this 20 minute river tour goes nearly as far as the Parliament, before turning back to complete the loop.
The 1.5 hour tour gives you 45/50 minutes on the land/water, so with this trip you actually spend a little more time in the Danube. The land tour goes to the Jewish District in downtown, then up Andrássy Avenue to Heroes Square, and then on towards that special ramp. Then, the 50 minute water tour goes as far south as the Chain Bridge, so you get far more views of the Buda Castle, Gellért Hill, Parliament, and other embankment sights.
Both trips use the same ramp, they have their own starting times, fit up to 10 people per tour, and have 13 language pre-recorded audio guides.
Audio guide languages: Hungarian, English, Danish, French, Hebrew, Polish, German, Italian, Russian, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish and Ukrainian.
Beer Bus Budapest
The beer bus is a quirky way to see the city. It is pretty laid back, instead of guides you have hosts who keep the spirits up.
- Availability: 13:00, 14:15, 15:30, 16:45, 18:00 start
- Duration: 1 hour
- Ticket prices: €27
- Start: 1051, Budapest, Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út 16
- Provider: City Attraction 7569
- Guide: Host, only English
The beer bus is only an hour long, barely covers downtown Pest, and has no guide to fill you in on what you are seeing. But it is not about that. This is the tour you go on to drink beer, party to loud music, and befriend like-minded beer enthusiasts. It is very highly rated among English speaking guests, and while there are multiple scheduled tours every day throughout the year, these sell out quite quickly.