Opinions on a daily commute to London over 1.5hours

Mudd14

Does anyone do the daily commute to London more than 1.5 hours away (each way)? Wondering what your thoughts are on long term? Is it manageable?

somethingcorporate

We did it for a couple of years, from Southend into London and round to Tottenham Court Road. It was about 90 minutes door to door on a great day, twice that on a bad one and they happened more frequently than I would have liked!

It was fine, you get used to it, although the pull of home proved too much so we moved back North a few years later and haven't looked back.

IYKWIM

Depends on the workplace. If you are working in the city doing 10 hours then yeah its unmanageable. Civil Services 9-5? not too bad.

Mudd14

Was that driving part the way?

Should have mentioned by train; commute would be 1.5 hours on national rail and 30 mins on underground.

Mudd14

IYKWIM wrote: »

Depends on the workplace. If you are working in the city doing 10 hours then yeah its unmanageable. Civil Services 9-5? not too bad.

Would be a 9-5

whodathunkit

Depends on whether it's a simple A to B commute or whether you have to change trains/switch to the Underground. IMO, the more changes, the less manageable the commute.

IYKWIM

Mudd14 wrote: »

Would be a 9-5

General flexibility? Working from home on a Friday makes a huge difference. Coming in at 10 and leaving at 6 can makes a huge difference. etc

somethingcorporate

Mudd14 wrote: »

Was that driving part the way?

Should have mentioned by train; commute would be 1.5 hours on national rail and 30 mins on underground.

It was 10 walk, 60 minutes train, 10-25 minutes underground, 10 minutes walk. No driving fortunately.

For a 9-5 it would probably be OK, we often had varying work hours that made the long days very looooooooooooooooooong. My wife often got taxis home in the wee hours (paid for by work of course).

Elfbert

I did 2hrs door-to-door for 4 yrs.

Walk (or cycle), train, change, train, walk.

Hove-Shepherd's Bush. I left home at exactly 0526 every morning, got home at around 1930/2000.

It wasn't much fun, but it was do-able. Should add I didn't have any kids, and I did have a partner who would do most of the cooking when I fell in the door at the end of the day!

Eventually gave it up, bought a flat in London - am a million times happier not doing the commute, even if our flat here is smaller than our old one we rented.

It got to the stage where at least a day a week I'd be late into work, and sometimes I couldn't remember the last time I'd been home on time. Southern were terrible!

HappyMJ

60 minutes on a train flys by. You can do other things. Don't just sit there. Catch up on your news. Have a coffee etc...etc.. Do some study.

PenguinJim

Get a 9-10" Android tablet for ~£100 and watch TV and play games for the train journey. I got through Breaking Bad and Arrested Development in a few weeks! And Kingdom Rush is some sort of time-devouring monster.

IYKWIM is right about 10-6, though - far less stressful... IYKWIM!