Ibiza - we love you - and your buses!

If you are on holiday in one of  Ibiza's main areas and not in a haven of rural isolation, help save the planet (and money). Get around using Ibiza's fantastic bus service rather than hiring a car.

We were in Eivissa (Ibiza town) and found that we could get all around the island even out of season. The buses don't go via all the housing estates as they seem to in England so the journey times were good.

Fares were, with a few exceptions,€1.75 each one way, regardless of destination. (The airport bus was more) and the buses run every half an hour or every hour (airport bus is every 20 minutes). Also they all seem to go at the same time - it really was true that no buses come at all and then three or four come at once!

If you're going from Eivissa terminus, note that you often need to buy a ticket before getting on the bus. Not only that but you need to go to the right place to buy it. It's easy once you know!

There is a main obvious ticket office covering for instance, Portinatx and San Antonio and then a ticket booth in a bar about 100 metres down the street for other buses (including the airport bus).

I guess this keeps queuing to a minimum in high season and makes for more employment in the area too, so all in all seems a good idea once you understood it.

For a return journey, ask for "ida y vuelta" (which means going and coming back).

If going out of season, it is a wise precaution to ask the bus driver what time the buses return, rather than relying on the timetable at the stop.  Though most were up to date, we did find one or two that had not been updated to the autumn schedules, which could have left us with an expensive return taxi bill!