unusual commutes

colino

As has been mentioned the Scottish Islands have plenty of hardy commuters, Bute (Rothesay) and Mull probably being the most common. Lovely places to live but few decent paid jobs to be had on the islands.

27col

When I was an Electrical officer in a Cunard cargo liner.. My cabin was on the Boat deck just by the lift down to the engine room. Hence, just a 65 ft trip in a lift to get to work. Quite convenient I think.

knightstyle

There are several large houses in Northern France built round a small airstrip for the owners to Commute to UK and Germany to work each day.
Beats hours on the M25 car park!

colino

27Col when I was duty engineer on BP tankers, I'm sure my cabin beside the pool wasn't a great deal dissimilar in distance, but my response, lift or otherwise had to be PDQ.

Clive_Woody

I project manage clinical trials for a company in California, but live in Sussex. Fortunately I work from home so my commute is across the landing from one bedroom to another which doubles as my home office (maybe 5 metres). Sometimes I detour downstairs to the kitchen for a cup of tea before coming back upstairs and turning my computer on in a morning.

My car is 4.5 years old and has traveled just over 22,000 miles and spends most of the time tucked up in the garage. Most of those miles were clocked in a previous job where I had a 5 mile daily commute plus various holidays around the UK.

telboyo

jaydeeuk1 wrote: »

My friend used to live in a flat above tesco express where he also worked. His commute involved rolling out of bed at 8.48, chucking some clothes on and then going downstairs.

Despite having possibly the shortest commute known to man, he was hardly ever on time and was eventually sacked for being late.

If you live an hour from work and are five minutes late leaving the house there is a possibility of making it up, if you are only 1 minute from work and are five minutes late you are going to get sacked.

Spidernick

agrinnall wrote: »

I'm fairly confident that there will be people who live on Scottish islands who do this, although perhaps not many who do it every day, for the same reason of the cost of transporting a vehicle on the ferry.

The Scottish islands to Haywards Heath is one hell of a commute!

One a more serious note: I have also heard of people who commute to London from the Isle of Wight. It seems mad to me, but a lot of people who live on the Isle of Wight do really love it there and think it is worth it (it's quite a quaint place and in some ways makes you feel like you are going in a time warp back to the 1970s!).

We had a lady in our office who lived on the Isle of Wight and loved it so much that she couldn't even put up with the ferry to Southampton (where she worked each day) and ended up getting a job (not as good as the one she had) on the island.

OP, your final paragraph confused me a bit. Are you saying that this lady owns a third car (a Disco)? That does seem excessive to me and personally I'd go with the train at Portsmouth, as someone else has suggested. Where does the son live that makes this a good option?

Hintza

DKLS wrote: »

When my ex wanted to move to Bute, I would have been facing a convoluted commute to Glasgow, involving cars and ferries and trains thank heavens we spilt up I don't think I could done that commute long term.

I was going to argue that you could possibly have done that commute quite easily 100-150 years ago by boat. But I am struggling to find anything to back me up on that.

I do remember tales from folk of the clyde steamers racing each other to the pier to collect passengers in places like Rothsay and Kilcreggan.

colino

The Rothesay-Glasgow commute is a very common one, some people drive from their home on Bute to the ferry, catch the ferry (around 40 minutes in the, "new" ferries") and jump in their stashed mainland car and go from there. It's not a huge Island and some go the public transport route, bus to ferry, ferry drops you at Wemyss Bay station, train straight to Glasgow. Problem is, most people think anything over 30 minutes is a big commute.

Spidernick

colino wrote: »

Problem is, most people think anything over 30 minutes is a big commute.

Agreed. I continue to be amazed at the amount of threads I see on here with people not sure whether to take a good job as it involves an hour's commute each way or more.

I've probably had that for over half my working life and it's far from unusual. Commuting time needn't be the 'wasted' time that most people seem to assume it is. If you're on a train you obviously have more options, but even driving you can catch up on the news, etc.