The Magic Bus

Words and photographs by Christy Munson.

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Choosing Happiness

By May of 2013, my love and I need adventure. We need to heal our hearts and soothe our souls. We trust intuition and take a bit of a gamble.

We choose to wander. To meet the world anew. To restore our hope and awaken our joy. We recommit to ourselves, taking real steps to rejoin life after accidents, cancer, and family tragedies have taken a toll.

My husband, Brian, and I make arrangements and plant our bums in seats, traveling from Washington's Dulles to London's Heathrow, touching down seven hours later in my ancestral lands.

By then, Brian and I have chatted online several times with Jack, a Londoner and fellow fan of New Model Army, a Bradford, England-based folk/alt/rock band. NMA has announced tour dates across Europe, and while we can't afford every show, we want to catch as many as we can.

On the band's online forum we learn all about Jack's proposed communal bus trip! First we've ever heard of such a thing. How fun!

Jack suggests an ever-changing roster of NMA fans join him in renting seats in a 15-passenger bus, opting to travel together, gig to gig, city to city, for as many dates as each person's plans and budgets allow. The added bonuses? A hired driver, fluent with Europe's roads, all inclusive pricing for transport and gas, plus dedicated space for luggage.

It's risky. Anything could go wrong. But we need a vacation, in a bad way.

We choose a 10-day itinerary, taking the plunge, signing on to the ever-evolving cast of characters—strangers—who've heard the call to live for a time on the road.

Our route begins in London. Then its onto South Hampton (2.5 hrs), to North Hampton (2.5 hrs), to Sheffield (2.5 hrs), to Edinburgh (5 hrs), to Inverness (3 hrs), to Preston (9 hrs). After we leave The Magic Bus, we travel on our own to Glasgow (3 hrs) and Isle of Skye (5 hrs) to celebrate our anniversary.

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The Magic Bus

Our journey begins when we find Jack in the parking lot, where suddenly appears The Magic Bus.

Soon this escapade becomes more than an international roadtrip. More than a coddiwomple∗. More than a tour following a band. We experience day trips, walk about's, pub crawls, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, gigs, and so many new friends. Later, in Scotland, we'll have alone time.

It's the best of all possible worlds.

It's magic. Human magic. Fae magic. Magic magic. The sort of arcane wonder that spreads unadulterated bliss and wraps a soul in splendor. The magic clings to The Magic Bus and follows us everywhere, arising from the haar, evaporating gently, revealing magnificence at every turn.

The ebb and flow is constant, and lovely. Travelers come and go, joining The Magic Bus, and leaving it in time. Some flew greater distances than we did. Many came by car. Several arrived by train. A handful arrived by sea. Two hitchhiked a hundred kilometers after their rental car crapped out.

Fans come from everywhere: Amsterdam, Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Spain, Switzerland, Florida, Virginia, California. Literally everywhere.

Each night we make new friends, some of whom had been acquaintances from the forum—with online handles we'd heard for years but whose faces and voices we'd yet to discover.

The Magic Bus restores us, gives us back being alive, being human, existing for more than work, duty, responsibility, and recovery from loss. It gives us back a sense of mystery, surprise, and wonder. We truly live in the moment.

We enjoy the best of everything: cultural exchange, connection, community, differences, similarities, drinks, laughter, mayhem, meals, storytelling, frivolity, intellectual debates, ghost stories, music, wonderings, exploration—historic cities, open spaces, wild expanses, incredible, indelible sights and sounds.

We seek and see as if through brand new, happy eyes.

We rediscover our truest selves.

Although each person who joins The Magic Bus brings a different tongue, unique preferences and potentially contrary priorities, we lean into what we have in common: NMA's music and an unquenchable thirst to meet life where it finds us.

The road blurs after a while, so we sleep when we need to, drink when we want to, and laugh nearly all the time because someone's always making jokes in any number of languages. Some things get lost in translation, but never the joy.

Hour after hour, we listen to each other's music and the miles roll on. We hear different styles from every corner. New sounds, lyrics, languages, instruments, voices, and beats!

Eventually we arrive at the bitter cold North Sea. Some brave souls are daring, for more so than I.

Hidden treasures, stolen moments. We could feel cold melt into the warmth of strangers turned to friends.

We'd found it. Our happy place. On the road!

I cannot recall a time when I was happier than I was during that trip.

The nights blur together too. But there are ales and brews, more laughter and dancing, great meals and long talks, more music and more dancing.

It is the best of being alive.

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One day, somewhere in England, a song had come crackling over the bus' airwaves. For the first time absolutely everyone, regardless of nationality, knows the song. Every single word. "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley.

For 4 minutes, 33 seconds we lot belt, hearts out, chorus and verse. We're in the moment, together, raising voices, grinning ear to ear! "Don't you know ... I'm caught in a trap!"

I've never felt more alive, happier, better seen, or richer.

That moment was everything—the unexpected, the shared, and the treasured. That's our reason. Why we wander.

Thank you, Elvis!

Thank you, Jack!

Thank you, Magic Bus!

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Copyright © 05/09/2024 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.

And thank you, New Model Army, for having fans who travel the world! And to the Levellers, whose music made us all dance across space and time throughout this journey!

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Author's Notes: "Coddiwomple" is English slang. It has been defined as “to travel in a purposeful manner towards a vague destination.”

Word count: 996