John Rosenberg found a last-­minute flight for $200 last month from Washington, D.C., to Nashville, Tenn., to see Pearl Jam. But flights home were $600, and there was no easy way to take the train.

Rosenberg started searching for buses online. He stumbled on Napaway, a company that promised premium overnight accommodations on an 18-passenger bus with seats that fold into a flat bed and come with a pillow and plush blanket.

The week before, Rosenberg and his friends had spent 18 hours at Midway Airport, in Chicago, after they were bounced off their connecting flight to Washington. He spent the night cold and slept a total of 45 minutes in the airport chapel before security kicked him out.

The Napaway, Rosenberg reasoned, could not be worse. And at least he would be traveling, not waiting.

He booked the flight to Nashville and a ticket home on the Napaway for $125.

“My friends were all making fun of me,” said Rosenberg, 47. “You’re going to spend 11 hours on a luxury bus?”

He was.

On a Sunday night, after spending the weekend in Nashville, Rosenberg joined five other passengers, including me, on the Napaway, which in June began taking travelers back and forth from Washington to Nashville.

The company and other premium bus companies like it are betting that Americans will abandon the image of the rumbling, cramped bus as the transport of last resort for the cash-strapped and embrace long-haul coach travel.

Giant sleeper buses have been a staple of travel in parts of Latin America and Asia for decades. But in the United States, the concept has never taken hold, despite our vast highway system. Around 2017, Cabin, a two-story bus with beds tucked into private pods, began taking passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco for overnight trips, but stopped in 2020. Gaetano Crupi, founder of Cabin, declined to comment on why the service ended.

More successful have been high-end coach services that offer shorter journeys, including Red Coach, Vonlane and the Jet, a 14-seat bus that ferries people from Metro Center in Washington to Hudson Yards in the New York City borough of Manhattan.

Napaway is the only “fully flat” sleeper bus in the country, said founder and CEO Dan Aronov. He is aware that many travelers may be skeptical of taking a 10- to 11-hour bus ride when a flight from Washington to Nashville takes less than 2 hours.

He responds by pointing out how miserable the airport experience can be. Flying is faster, but a passenger will still spend several hours getting to the airport, going through security and then waiting at the gate. And that is assuming a flight is not delayed, said Aronov, 29.

Contrast that experience with traveling while lying on a memory foam mattress pad and snuggling under a blanket, he said.

“You were going to spend 7 to 8 hours asleep,” Aronov said. “Now you’re just doing it in motion.”

The ‘stars have aligned’

Ironically, it was companies such as Megabus and BoltBus, which offered $1 rides and curbside pickup in the early part of the 2000s, that paved the way for premium coach travel, said Joseph Schwieterman, professor of public service at DePaul University in Chicago and director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development, which studies intercity bus travel.

Those companies renewed interest in intercity bus travel and spurred more innovation and investment, he said.

Now, as train service remains elusive in much of the South and air travel continues to frustrate travelers, it is possible the “stars have aligned” for premium coach travel, Schwieterman said.

Premium coach lines have significantly fewer overhead costs than rail and especially airlines, which have much higher fuel costs and need a “small army” of employees to operate, he said.

By contrast, a premium bus requires a crew of one to two drivers and perhaps one attendant, which means that even if a company sells fewer than half of its seats on a trip, it can still cover its costs, so long as it does not lower fares to compete with conventional bus lines, Schwieterman said.

I arrived in Washington on Friday to catch the Napaway with my friend Theresa.

We found the bus at 9:30 p.m. at the designated meeting spot — a well-lit parking lot on L Street NE near the Wunder Garten, an outdoor beer garden where Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.” blared from the speakers and the sound of laughter wafted over the fence.

We were joined by three other passengers: Ammie Conner, an 80-year-old retiree who was visiting her grandson in Nashville; Guillerma Saltano, a shy, 50-year-old woman from the Dominican Republic; and Catherine Lee, a 50-year-old graduate student studying social work.

We gawked at the bus, an enormous black coach with a galaxy of stars painted on the side. Inside, there were 36 seats — two for each passenger — that convert into flat, sort of S-shaped beds.

Aronov is hoping to add more routes — passengers have requested trips from Washington to Atlanta, New York and Boston. The bus has added stops in Knoxville, Tenn., on the Washington-Nashville route and in November will add Wednesday and Thursday to the weekly schedule.

Travelers have ranged in ages from 9 to 93, Aronov said.

Aronov joined us on my trip — he said he tries to ride the Napaway as much as possible. As the bus pulled away, he described how to lower the seats and pull down the black privacy screen. Each passenger received a sleep mask, toothpaste and a small toothbrush, ear plugs and a disposable towelette.

I woke up briefly at 2 a.m. If anyone was snoring, I could not hear it over the soft whirring of the engine and the rumbling wheels. The bus jostled, but the rocking motion was lulling. As I drifted back to sleep, I imagined this was how a baby nestled in a carriage feels.

I awoke at 7, surprised by how refreshed I felt.

The bus dropped us off in downtown Nashville, where my friend and I spent about 36 hours — plenty of time to visit the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum and RCA Studio B, catch live music at Rudy’s Jazz Room, and overeat at Biscuit Love, Peg Leg Porker and Monell’s.

I met Rosenberg, the Pearl Jam fan, on the ride back to Washington, where we were joined by Conner, Lee and Aronov.

The trip home was as peaceful as the trip down. An accident on Interstate 81 created a 5-mile backup around 5 a.m., delaying our arrival by about an hour.

No one seemed annoyed.

“I would go anywhere on this bus,” Conner said, as she stretched and rose from her seat.

Rosenberg said he slept well — about 4 hours, a typical night’s sleep for him.

“This was fantastic,” he told Aronov as he stepped off the bus and shook his hand. “Most comfortable I’ve ever been on a bus.”

I asked Rosenberg if he would ride the Napaway again.

Yes, he said, but only if a one-way plane ticket cost more than $300.

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IF YOU GO

Napaway

>> Tickets on the Napaway start at $125 each way. The Napaway travels from Washington to Nashville, with stops in Knoxville. It currently leaves only on Friday (with plans to add Wednesday and Thursday) at 10 p.m. from 180 L St. NE in Washington and arrives in Nashville at 8 a.m. Central time the next day. The bus will drop you off at 421 Rep. John Lewis Way N, about a half-mile from Broadway.

>> The Napaway leaves Nashville at 7:30 p.m. Sunday and, barring unforeseen traffic, returns to Washington the next day at 7:30 a.m. If you have time before meeting the bus and feel like spending $15 to $18 on a cocktail, stop for a drink at Skull’s Rainbow Room, a bar and restaurant with friendly, skilled bartenders that is a 7-minute walk from Napaway’s meeting spot.

>> There are no snacks on the Napaway, although every passenger gets a bottle of water. The bus has free Wi-Fi fast enough to stream Netflix or Hulu on your own device. Napaway offers a free online library of movies such as “The Joker” and “Ratatouille.”

>> There is a bathroom on board, but it is tiny, so wear clothes you are comfortable sleeping in or use your privacy screen to get changed at your own seat. The bus stops twice briefly, once for pickup and drop-off in Knoxville and for roadside rest stops. The hope, said Aronov, is you won’t notice because “you’ll be fast asleep.”

>> Info: napaway.com

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