Binghamton Wine Tour Charter Bus

Finger Lakes wine country, a bus ride north of Binghamton

Binghamton sits at the southern gateway to New York's most famous wine country. Head north and the land opens into the Finger Lakes — and on the east shore of Seneca Lake, in the village of Burdett, you'll find Catharine Valley Winery at 4201 NY-414. For years, groups out of Binghamton have been making this exact run: leave town in the morning, climb up into the hills above the lake, spend the afternoon among the vineyards, and roll home that evening.

We're the operator that drives it. Busbie puts a 56-passenger motor coach — or a small fleet of them — at your pickup point in Binghamton, runs the whole route to Catharine Valley and back, and stays with your group all day. Nobody has to drive, navigate two-lane roads, hunt for parking at the winery, or draw the short straw and skip the tasting to stay sober behind the wheel. A professional driver handles the road, the route is taken care of, and your whole group moves together — whether that's one coach or four.

Why a motor coach is the right call for a wine tour

A wine tour is the one trip where the vehicle decision is also a safety decision. The whole point is that everyone gets to relax — which means no one in the group should be driving afterward. A full-size motor coach settles that in a single move: the designated-driver problem is handled for all 56 people at once.

It also keeps the group together. Caravans of personal cars come apart on the roads winding above Seneca Lake — someone misses a turn, someone stops for gas, and your group trickles into the winery over forty minutes. On a coach, everyone arrives at the same time and leaves at the same time, on one schedule.

What a 56-passenger motor coach gives you

The motor coach is the largest vehicle in group transportation — the full-size highway bus. It rides high, with big windows for the climb up through the Southern Tier, climate control front to back, and room underneath for everyone's coats, coolers, and cases. It's the difference between a tour that feels like a shared day out and one that feels like a logistics exercise.

Built around Binghamton University groups

Most of the Finger Lakes wine-tour groups we move out of Binghamton are university crowds, and that shapes how we run the day. Student organizations, Greek chapters, graduate cohorts, department outings, milestone birthdays, and end-of-year and graduation celebrations make up the bulk of these trips. Chartering a coach with a professional driver is simply the grown-up way to run a tasting trip — the responsible call made once, for the whole group.

Mix and match: coaches, party buses, and school buses

Most Binghamton wine-tour groups don't ride in one kind of bus. A common setup is a party bus or two up front for the core group, motor coaches for everyone else, and sometimes a school bus to move a big overflow on a budget — all leaving together, all on one schedule. You don't have to choose a single vehicle. Tell us the full headcount and the vibe you want, and we'll build the mixed fleet, run it under one operator, and quote the whole thing as one trip.

The route: Binghamton to Catharine Valley Winery

Catharine Valley Winery — 4201 NY-414, Burdett, NY 14818 — sits on the east side of Seneca Lake, in the heart of the Finger Lakes. The drive from Binghamton runs north through the Southern Tier and up to the lake; plan on roughly an hour and a half each way, depending on your exact pickup point and the time of year. Your driver follows the itinerary you set — a straight run to Catharine Valley and back, or a loop of two or three stops along the Seneca Lake Wine Trail.

What's included, and how the day works

Every charter includes a professional driver for the full day. The driver and the coach stay with your group between stops — there's always a safe ride from one winery to the next, and back to Binghamton at the end. Busbie operates as a USDOT-authorized carrier, and every trip is backed by $5,000,000 in BIPD liability insurance. You choose the wineries and the timing; we handle the route, the driving, and the logistics.

Planning and booking your trip

Two seasons fill up first out of Binghamton: late spring, around graduation in May, and the fall harvest stretch from September into October. If your date lands in either window, book early. Group size sets the coach count — figure one 56-passenger coach per ~50 riders, scaling up to a four-coach fleet for a 200-person event. However far ahead you book, the price is locked the day you sign your agreement, not the day of the trip.