Is a long commute worth it to live in the country? (move to, location)
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OP, a 45 minute commute isn't bad. But the point that the city could grow to swallow up your "outskirts" location is a good one. What I'm wondering, is if you could make the commute easier on yourself, by driving to a bus stop or terminal, and taking transit to work. You could relax on the bus and read, or check your email, maybe organize stuff for work on your tablet, or whatever.
Sometimes you can find something that's in the city, but isn't really city.
The first home I bought was in a densely populated city/suburb of a major metropolitan area. However, I only considered townhomes in two specific developments. The one I bought was overlooking county-owned land and a water conservation park. Even though I was technically in a densely populated city, I had no homes (or possibility of homes) behind my house, and had a view of greater than 180 degrees. Every day after work I went over to the water conservation park to walk around the lake and look at birds.
If a place like that had not been available, I would have continued to rent.
This kind of thing is a great solution, too. Look for pockets in the city that border on parks or natural areas.
I’d opine that the longer commute is NOT a significant consideration. Commuting-time and commuting-hassle isn’t necessarily egregious, first because much of your driving might be on rural roads, and secondly because a more urban residence, while much closer in distance to work, may mean low-speed high-density driving on city streets.
Rather, the real tradeoff is housing costs, and in particular housing appreciation. There is reason believe that American consumers are increasingly preferring housing that’s closer-in. This means potentially that rural housing will stagnate in price, while urban and suburban flourishes. Suppose that you and your friends all buy comparable houses today, but they buy in the city or inner suburbs, while you buy in the countryside. Fast forward 15 or 20 years. Their houses have doubled in price, and maybe doubled again. Your house is still worth exactly what you paid for it. There are few feeling worse, than seeing oneself fall behind one’s peers, despite seemingly having done everything correctly! This falling-behind is tremendously grating and self-debilitating, to the point where one starts to actively wish that said peers would struggle and fail, just so that one’s own choices come to seem wiser.
So again I say, the choice is less about logistics, be it the logistics of commuting or whatever else, and more about the sheer dollar-numbers in how real-estate markets do.
It depends. When I was working in Seattle, my country commute was 3 hours each way and I finally said enough.
Now I'm moving back to the same area, but I don't have to work and a 20 or 30 minute commute to the grocery store (civilization) doesn't bother me at all.
A lot of it depends on what you're willing to put up with for how you want to live. For many years, I had about a 20 mile (30-40 minutes) commute to get to several of my jobs. Didn't bother me at all. My dad threw a fit over having to commute 8 miles to his job and wanted to move closer because of it (and he had no traffic problems).
Don't forget a long commute is going to cost you in gas and car repairs plus taxis or Uber if your car breaks down and towing will be more expensive the further out you live, your car insurance will probably be higher and gas is going to go up again. Also, many employers want to know if they call you in, you'll be there within a certain time. If you can't be, you may be turned down for promotions and management positions. On the other hand, when I lived 3 hours away from my job, no one bothered to call me at the last minuted to cover a shift.
Not something that I would do willingly. Then again in the 35 years or so that I have worked I have lived close by my place of employment. Last year two of us from work were taking a class in Irvine, 104 miles from home. That was a 2 and a half hour drive on a good day. We would leave at 5:30 to make sure that we were in class by 8:30. Luckily the class was only once a week, every other week. I could not imagine doing that every day. If I could change anything it would be to cut my commute time from 15 minutes to 5 or less. From the time I lock up my front door of my home until the time I walk into the hospital is about 8 minutes. I also get plenty of country to see. The ocean and the strawberry fields. Also miles of mountains in the distance.
I went from a 15 minute commute to about a 40 minute commute (well, 35 minutes most days as I speed too much). It is farther than I really wanted to commute, but it's the tradeoff I made to live where I want. So far it hasn't been nearly as bad as I expected, because:
1) I do not have any backed-up/bumper-to-bumper traffic along the route (that is a soul crusher)
2) The commute is essentially 2 parts: back roads and highway, so it mentally breaks it up the trip so it never seems all that long
3) I work from home at least one day a week (often more)
4) I rarely have a meeting scheduled before 9 AM, which is a change from my former job where meetings started at 8 AM or earlier. Because of this, I give myself permission not to have to arrive to the office at the crack of dawn.
5) Because my job is flexible, I leave most days by 4 PM and log back in once I am home.
So I work in a downtown metropolitan location in a major city. But I want to live in a quiet area with very few people out in the far outskirts of the city. However, my commute to work would probably end up being anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes (including traffic) each way. I grew up in the country and now that I'm soon to be 35 and looking at buying a home, I want to return to that lifestyle. Even though I live in the city, I frequently spend my free time driving out into the country to go hiking and do other outdoor activities. It just feels natural to me and it's always been my "comfort zone," even as a young person. I'm just drawn to it. Has anyone done this? Moved to the rural outskirts of a major city and commuted into the downtown for work five days a week? Did you get used to it? Is it worth it?
I know that it would add probably 3-5 hours per week of extra driving. It makes me sick to think of all the things I could do in 3-5 hours a week instead of driving (e.g. exercising, reading, gaming, whatever). But I know for a fact that I prefer rural life, having lived in both rural towns and big cities like NYC throughout my life. It has always been my dream to live the rural lifestyle.
I suppose the other option is to buy a place close to work, have extra free time for personal activities and just visit the country on the weekends or whenever. But I feel like it would be a missed opportunity to truly live where I want to live.
What do you think? Is it worth it?
To me it depends on the kind of drive. I live in a quiet, rural part of an otherwise growing county, and I work in 2 different locations, one about 45 minutes and the other closer to 50-55. Both locations have "back ways" to get to them, with little traffic. The farther facility is actually my favorite to drive to even though it's farther, because it's in an even more rural area, and I sometimes only encounter 1 or 2 other cars for much of it, and it's quite scenic.
If I had to drive into Philly or anywhere near it, I would hate the drive because the traffic is horrendous. It's already difficult to have that extra 90 minutes or 2 hours subtracted from my day, and sometimes I don't get home until 7 or 8. It is only worth it to me because of the easy drive traffic-wise.
I can also choose my hours somewhat, and don't have to be in at a specific time. Do you have to travel with the pack at 7:30, 8am, or can you go in earlier or later to avoid traffic? My fiance often works in the Philly suburbs which is horrendous to get to at rush hour, but he leaves by 6am and avoids much of it. So that is a factor too.
So for me, time driving is less important than stress. I despise traffic, and all the competitiveness and "cheating" and going from 60 to a complete stop and never knowing why....I wouldn't want to drive towards a city even if the commute were shorter and took less time.
It would absolutely be worth it to me but everyone is different. How big of a life impact would losing 5 hours a week be to you? For that matter, the price of gas and oil, wear and tear on your vehicle,etc are all factors you need to consider.
So I work in a downtown metropolitan location in a major city. But I want to live in a quiet area with very few people out in the far outskirts of the city. However, my commute to work would probably end up being anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes (including traffic) each way. I grew up in the country and now that I'm soon to be 35 and looking at buying a home, I want to return to that lifestyle. Even though I live in the city, I frequently spend my free time driving out into the country to go hiking and do other outdoor activities. It just feels natural to me and it's always been my "comfort zone," even as a young person. I'm just drawn to it. Has anyone done this? Moved to the rural outskirts of a major city and commuted into the downtown for work five days a week? Did you get used to it? Is it worth it?
I know that it would add probably 3-5 hours per week of extra driving. It makes me sick to think of all the things I could do in 3-5 hours a week instead of driving (e.g. exercising, reading, gaming, whatever). But I know for a fact that I prefer rural life, having lived in both rural towns and big cities like NYC throughout my life. It has always been my dream to live the rural lifestyle.
I suppose the other option is to buy a place close to work, have extra free time for personal activities and just visit the country on the weekends or whenever. But I feel like it would be a missed opportunity to truly live where I want to live.
What do you think? Is it worth it?
I've done a couple of long commutes--enough so that I hate them.
The problem is that you spend 10 hours per week sitting in your car, which to me is a gigantic waste of time. Also--2 hours a day of Florida drivers on the road all going the same direction drove me pretty crazy. Those interstate left lane slow drivers are very obnoxious.
When I could get my commute down to 15 minutes on local roads--much happier.
But, I do know a man who lives an hour from his office and drives it every day, but loves listening to audio books, so he plows through a lot of books and is fine with it.
I'd try it for a week if you can to see how bad the commute is.
OP, a 45 minute commute isn't bad. But the point that the city could grow to swallow up your "outskirts" location is a good one. What I'm wondering, is if you could make the commute easier on yourself, by driving to a bus stop or terminal, and taking transit to work. You could relax on the bus and read, or check your email, maybe organize stuff for work on your tablet, or whatever.
If you call making 8 hours pay in 9 1/2 hours which makes how many extra hours needed per year? - not bad - please commute.
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