US vs. Japan

[ddrueding]

I spend about 200 minutes a day commuting. It was always meant to be temporary; just until we found out if the relationship would work, and one of us could get a different job. It's been nearly 2 years now, and I drove ~78,000 miles last year (and am on track to beat that this year). This is not fun, and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. I justified it by saying that the quality of life here is better than down there, and it would be, if I spent any significant time here.

 

[jtr1962]

I commuted 2 hours/70 miles each way to college and 1.5 hours/20 miles each way to high school. Both experiences made me realize that I wouldn't want to do that with a job. I had and needed the summers off just to recuperate from the sheer exhaustion of my schedule. Doing that 52 weeks a year, forget it. As it is I estimate I logged about 60,000 miles between high school and college. It's not so much the distance as the time. If you happened to have high-speed rail stations near your origin and destination a 100 mile each way commute would only be a very tolerable 35 to 40 minutes. It takes that long to get from home to Manhattan.

I personally can only justify a long commute if there are no alternatives. With school my parents obviously weren't going to move closer to the school. I couldn't see a long commute if it means living in a more desirable place. When you put in hours like that, you're basically just sleeping at home and too exhausted on weekends to enjoy it much.

 

[sechs]

There are several people that I work with that have 90+ minute commutes. Now, this is mostly by train (Metra) in Chicago. I know very few people that drive regularly to work. However, that's still 3+ hours a day spent commuting, even if you don't have to deal with traffic.

Given, it's still time away from home, but, unlike driving, you can do something useful on the train. Like sleep.