Route Research — SLW Travel team
Rome2Rio is one of the most useful transport planning tools on the internet. This is not a piece about why it’s wrong. It’s about what it’s built for — and why that matters if you’re trying to get somewhere without flying.
What rome2rio optimises for
Rome2Rio’s default sort order is fastest route. It surfaces the flight first because, for most people, the flight is the fastest option. For a traveller who has decided not to fly, it’s less useful — you can filter it, but you’re working against its defaults.
What bysloth optimises for
bysloth.com was built with a single constraint: no flights. Every route it produces is surface only — trains, buses, shared taxis, ferries.
The train from Istanbul to Tehran runs three times a week and takes around 30 hours. It doesn’t appear prominently on rome2rio. On bysloth, it’s the primary connection for that corridor.
The planner also includes modes that don’t appear in aggregators at all — the Caspian ferry between Baku and Aktau (no published timetable; 12–20 hours depending on conditions), marshrutka routes through the Caucasus. These are documented from Caravanistan and Seat61 rather than operator APIs.
Where rome2rio is better
For anything within Europe, rome2rio’s rail and coach data is more comprehensive and more current. If you’re planning London to Prague, rome2rio is faster.
Where bysloth is different
A route from Istanbul to Kathmandu involves roughly 15–20 legs across 7–8 countries. One gap — Central Asia to South Asia — has no viable surface connection at all. bysloth will tell you that. Rome2Rio will suggest you fly.
They’re not competing for the same user.
Sources: seat61.com, caravanistan.com, rome2rio.com