For students who can’t hitch a ride home or lack wheels to drive themselves home, Eastern offers an alternative.

A bus from Eastern to several Chicago-area locations is offered for each university break, including Thanksgiving, winter break, Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday and Spring Break.

Tickets are already sold out for Thanksgiving break, but students can start planning for the winter break trip home.

Usually just one bus makes the trip. Each bus holds 55 people. If the bus does sell out, Eastern tries to get another bus to accommodate students.

One round-trip ticket costs 44 dollars to get to any of the six stops.

Tickets go on sale two weeks before the scheduled weekend trip. They’re sold up until the bus leaves, but tickets usually do sell out, said Diane Pepperdine, a staff clerk at the ticket office.

Right now most passengers are freshmen.

“They get homesick,” Pepperdine said.

But by the spring semester, passengers are a variety of students.

The ticket office is open from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday.

The bus option has been around since before Pepperdine began working for Eastern 14 years ago.

Pepperdine recommends students come in early to get tickets. Tickets can be canceled until the Wednesday before the bus leaves.

Eastern works with a Monticello bus company for the busses and drivers.