Is there a website better than craigslist for finding rides to various cities?

http://www.greyhound.com/

…but seriously, have you considered asking Craigslist if they knew? Also, if you check your local phone book they have several listings of registered carpools/vanpools in the area. Some people make a pretty swift living driving people to and from work every day. If it’s for work, there may even be a carpool set up by other employees for you as well.

Sorry I wasn’t clear. I’m looking for some service that caters not to carpools, but people going on trips (sometimes long trips) looking for people who are going on the same trip to split gas with.

Greyhound is cool—but splitting gas is sometimes cheaper.

Oh, big trips… I gotcha. I know of no such thing other than http://www.ridester.com/

How well it works? I don’t know. I have a car, and I’d rather pony up extra bucks to know those wierdos won’t kill me in the middle of my night and leave me on the side of the road with a pacifier wedged in between my buttocks.

@lapilofu Try to avoid Greyhound, especially overnight. Did you see this story?

@lapilofu: Are there any colleges near you? When my dad and I lived in Michigan while he was going to college, he would always post on the bulletin boards around campus for other students making the trip back to New Jersey/Pennsylvania/New York for holidays and stuff… they’d help my dad driving (he had 2 cornea implants while we lived there) and split costs.

@Marina: Canada. Woo…

Try to avoid Greyhound because their buses are uncomfortable as hell, not because of one bizarre homicide.

@MacBean It only takes one.

@Marina—I doubt it’s going to happen again tomorrow. Or next week. Or next month. Despite the HORRIBLE DISCOMFORT (I really really really [really x infinity] hate bus travel), it’s not outstandingly dangerous.

Oh my God, I almost just said something about how bus travel is almost enough to drive me to homicide and then I realized… that’s essentially what we’re talking about. Oh dear.

Plus, you get one person with poor hygiene on the bus… whoooooooeeeee is that a terrible trip.

@Marina I would guess (based on, admittedly, no facts) that a larger proportion car travelers die in car accidents than Greyhound riders die in homicides. You’d just as soon avoid traveling altogether. I’m sure there are a lot of travel related deaths.

I actually rather like Greyhounds. I’ve never found them stupendously comfortable, but more comfortable than riding in a full car. Especially if the Greyhound isn’t full and you can curl up across two seats. (If no one’s sitting in the back, you can curl up across the three seats in the back… I’ve ridden a lot of Greyhounds.) They’ve never been timely, but timely enough for the price. And you don’t have to worry about anything—being sociable, or taking a turn driving, or reading directions, or asking the driver to pull over for a rest stop. You can just relax and watch the country roll by. I find it to be a rather pleasant feeling, actually.

However, I still prefer to pay less by splitting gas with a carful of folks.

I really didn’t help you much. I don’t know how to plug into the bus networks and ride shares these days. I always did it through college bulletin boards too. Is there an electronic equivalent of those?

Good luck.