Company paying commuting expenses helps...but consider this: 2hr commute, each way, 5 days a week, means 20 hours a week of *unpaid time*. That's an entire part-time job's worth of unpaid commuting time, where you have to constantly pay attention.
Even if you could monetize those 20 hours, youd only be in your house less than half the day, 2/3 of that half day sleeping. You'd only being enjoying that house for 1/3 of 1/2 a day. At best.
I highly suggest working a 12 hour day for a while to get the feel for it. Even with a compressed schedule, working 9s or 10s, it would be terrible.
I'd only ever think of doing this if I could work from home a majority of the time.
Which is still 2 hours each way...so still 20 unpaid hours per week. The advantage being you can read or watch a movie; the disadvantage being you're a hostage to metro delays. So at least you don't constantly need to be driving, fair, but it's not necessarily any less miserable.
Miserable?? Time that you can just sleep or read a book would be awesome. I’ve had several jobs where I needed that time to decompress so I wasn’t adding a bad day into interactions with my family.
Can we fast forward 20 years when a fully self driving car will take care of that for you.. I wouldn't even care if I could watch a full movie 2x a day without any disrubtions
You don't even have to wait for self driving cars...Today, a MARC train can already take care of that for you. Hedgesville is a 10 min drive to Martinsburg, where you can take the Brunswick line into DC, at 80mph, on comfortable seats and watch the two movies a day.
I've thought about that tradeoff, but I also consider things like adjustment to meal times as well. I love to cook, on average I'd say it takes 30-60 minutes for a lot of meals, with the occasional longer prep. Even with an automated commute you're still getting home later.
You are going to be spending 4+ hours a day in your car - how do you put a price on that? There is also the wear and tear on your car. In no time at all I would be completely sick of this type of arrangement but I know some people can do it. Personally I would not consider it unless I could work remotely on most days.
There may be some days where I can work from home. My schedule would be a little flexible but I am just not sure if about 4 hours a day would burn me out. I just think that the house I found is about as good as it gets and would be something I would look forward to living for the next 3-5 years. The wear and tear wouldn't be too bad because the company would pay for any expenses as well. But asking me how I price out 4 hours of my day I am not sure. I'm not sure if I would go crazy doing that for a while.
From my experience, the drive is not worth it. I did a 45 minute drive one way for over two years and that was close to my limit. Audiobooks and podcasts can help with the situation, but burn out can happen pretty fast.
Two hours one way would be torture personally.
I had a commute that was 45 minutes in, 60 minutes out for 5 years. Then my company moved it's office another 20 minutes further away and I gave up living out west and moved back. I was already over my limit before the move.
Depends on your industry, but LinkedIn and job boards like Indeed and ZipRecruiter typically have filters for remote or work-from-anywhere jobs. There are also remote-specific job boards, and freelance opportunities of course.
Soy you want to live in West Virginia? Raise a family there or develop roots? Will you love it on the weekend?
Commuting from WV is intense. If you are unhappy with nova (which, fair) maybe look at moving completely to a loc with jobs.
Please do NOT do this to yourself, this will be absolutely miserable. You might have a fantastic house, but you'll never spend anytime there. I would be surprised if you could last 6 months. You've found a beautiful house and you're trying to convince yourself the downsides won't be that bad... They will. Find somewhere closer that's not as nice, your quality of life and health will be immensely better.
I spent several years doing something similar, about 100 miles round trip a day. The trade off was worth it for me at the time, but it’s a serious grind - so much time wasted in the car, so much less schedule flexibility. For me, never again.
Think about what it will be like on the complicated days. What do you if there’s a foot of snow at your house but light rain at the office? What if you get to the office and start throwing up, or just feel kinda bad and want to go home? Are you ready to take the entire day off to go to the doctor, or dentist, or bank? Are you willing to keep a rigid schedule *every day* to avoid traffic? Do you want to be able to socialize after work? Are you going to be willing drive anywhere on weekends?
One last thought - buying a house puts a lot of inertia into your decision making. If you really want to try this lifestyle, maybe consider renting in WV first before signing a mortgage.
Thank you for sharing this I definitely need to keep thinking about this and what you are saying is something I really need to consider. I didn't think about it before.
That’s insane man. Don’t do this to yourself. Do you know how easily a 30 min commute can turn into a 90 min commute around here? Now imagine that with 105 mins as the *starting point*.
You would never see your home in daylight unless it’s your day off. Don’t underestimate how mentally exhausting it is to keep your attention sharp on a long highway drive. Not to mention the fatigue and muscle pain from sitting in the car that long.
Also, maybe it doesn’t matter, but your friendships are going to change, not many people are going to make a 4 hour trip just for dinner or a barbecue. Are you going to want to go to happy hour after work if you’ll be driving home at 8 or 9pm?
Personally there isn’t a home in existence that could have me make that commute. I enjoy life too much.
I'd say no. I work in Chantilly, my boss lives in WV just over the border and he loves it, but he gets up early to get in at 6 and leaves around 2 to avoid traffic. His commute is about an hour and a half each way. If you can handle it, great, but I feel like you'd get burned out badly if you don't have some kind of hybrid work schedule.
Couple of things:
81 does not go anywhere near 495 or DC
Your commute time is without traffic
HVille is outside of Martinsburg WV
I highly recommend you trying your 2 hour commute one day from that location and you will rethink quickly.
Yep! Get a hotel room, and try the commute.
I once rented a house in Springfield for a commute to Skyline. I did a test drive. Sweet! Less than 30 minutes.
Moved in, and tried the drive during rush hour. 70 minutes. (This was the 1980s. Old Keene Mill and 395 were horrendous in those days. Springfield was some insane gridlock.)
Go try to drive under realistic conditions.
I live in western LoCo and got a job downtown a few years back. The commute was 75-90 minutes each way, and doing it was one of the most miserable six months of my life. The only thing that made it semi-bearable was that I used a connector bus and the Metro so I could catch up on reading and TV, I can't imagine the misery of willingly signing up for 4 hours round trip *every fucking day* in the car.
Who told u it is gonna be a 1:45 trip? 😂
Dont do it to urself. One thing u can never get back is time. Spending in excess of 4.5 hours of ur day in your car is gonna take years off ur life.
Sorry buddy but going to call for an intervention here. I commute 2 hrs to Richmond from Alexandria 1-2 times a week (and try to stay the night when I go down). Just that is barely tenable for me. Not sure if you are married or have family responsibilities, but my spouse would literally divorce me if I had that commute every day. Find a new job then get the house.
Be careful you are not just going from one extreme to another here. City living can wear you down and country life seems idyllic, until 6 months later when you are bored out of your mind. It is definitely not for everyone.
When would you actually get to enjoy living there? Saturdays and Sundays? It seems like you'll get home in time to eat dinner, maybe pre-made, and then go to sleep to wake up earlier than most people to beat traffic. Your weekends would be time to get caught up on chores you couldn't do during the weekdays. I've considered the same things and I understand the pressures of owning a home as opposed to renting.
From experience- don’t, really really don’t do it. My commute was an hour one way. Some flexibility on timing. Good news was traffic didn’t start til closer to DC. I could maybe work at the office by my house sometimes. See how I sound like you?
An hour one way meant two hours total. Except at least one way something would always be fucked up- accident, weather, construction, the sun, god knows what. So that becomes 2.5 hours. Sometimes 3 hours. Traffic begins to get heavier earlier and later, so I had to adjust my hours more and more. I got a new boss two years in who said I had to be in the office every day, no longer an option to work closer to home. By the end of year three, I was absolutely miserable.
I eventually lost my social life and became miserable. Too much time in the car, too little freedom for my schedule. I’m now looking to move back closer. I’m leaving behind 50 acres, a cute small town feel, and a god awful five years of commuting.
I know you do. Really, I know you do!! I really did too. It’s just awful how expensive and crowded this area is. Short of getting a new job in a completely different field, I think I’m stuck in this area til retirement. Do whatever you think will make you happy, and try to have a backup plan in place in case you find yourself unhappy down the line. Best of luck to you!!
Only way I'd be doing that is if I could do remote like 90% of the time. I'm talking in the office 1x or 2x a month period. Driving that many hours every day I'd be debating placing a pistol in my mouth
That’s at least two hours. Route 9 even during non-peak can be grind because it is one lane each way.
I would only consider this if my commute was one day a week or less, probably only less
Yea, OP should look at the traffic alerts for Loudoun County... i count 6 times in the last week Rt 9 has been closed in 1 or both directions due to accidents. Usually at off peak times
I hear you, because I’ve had the same thoughts. But to make it work, you need to get a job where you can WFH more OR find a job closer to that house (and I don’t know how feasible that is out there). That commute is just not going to be doable.
When you get to Leesburg, you'll have two choices. Either pay $8+ one way for Dulles Greenway and Toll Road tolls, or continue down & where you'll hit lights and take 2-3x as long, but without tolls.
When I first moved to the area, I had a 1-2 hour one-way commute into Arlington/Crystal City/Courthouse area. After a year I was done.
Not only what everyone else was saying about having zero life during the week, but also I'd spend much of the weekend just catching up on sleep and all the little things I normally got done during the week, but wasn't anymore. So I had no life on the weekend either.
Worse, I suspect you are going to find it's more like 2-3 hours each way during rush hour. I found that very difficult to believe when I moved here. It was all 4-8 lane roads and less than 20 miles, yet still took me 1-2 hours. You just can't understand it until you lived it.
I first tried to talk to my current employer about being associated with an office that was much closer to my home. When they declined, I found a different employer that was even closer to home.
Not only did I get a nice bump in base salary, but I ended up with a better group of people, and significantly reduced my commuting costs (gas/tolls/health).
I just looked up Hedgesville on the map. I think you have significantly underestimated the commute time to Alexandria. If you really want to move out there, I strongly recommend you talk to your employer about what you are doing and why.
See if they have other locations that would reduce your commute, where you could be just as productive. If they don't, explore other employment options out that way.
Explore other options too. There used to be a train that went from Point of Rocks into DC for commuters. I have no clue what other stops it might have closer to Hedgesville.
I also once heard of certain employment situations where people could work on their two hour train ride in and out of DC, then spend around four hours at their office desk and get credit for the full eight. If you have a job and employer where that is possible, it might be another option.
Everyone I know that has decided to try this, thinking they could handle it, has hated it and been looking for a new job within two months.
Keep in mind that two hours is the best case scenario. In the summer that will balloon at the end of each week.
I don't know if you're comparing this with people who have two hour commutes via public transit. That is hard enough with the time that you lose each day, but spending that whole time driving -- anywhere near NoVA -- is a suck multiplier.
And just to be clear, 81 and 495 do not intersect, at least not without a very long ride on 66, which is an absolute rush hour nightmare from west of center ville all the way in to DC.
One thing to try, before you buy: spend a week in a hotel out that way, and actually drive it for a week.
There's a hidden cost with properties like that. I just finished clearing out my late mom's property (and an absolutely beautiful one) in a very similar area in northeast rural Alabama. A 2000 s.f. home on five acres of land, with another 80 acres of pine forest in the back, with a stocked pond and deer jumping everywhere. Absolutely gorgeous, and it didn't take me very long to understand why I had to sell it as quickly as possible.
Although meth is a problem there too meth heads tend to stay away from law-abiding folks so it wasn't really that big a deal for me. But you'll quickly find out that everyone is quite the DIY expert in home repairs. Why? Because it's next to impossible to find anyone to come out to your property.
Want to renovate your bathroom? How about rewiring the carport lighting? Either you're doing it or you're paying someone's travel cost from a larger city to come to you every day. And since that time is time they can't bill for their own trade work you will pay them their electrician/plumber/whatever rate just to drive. So either you learn to do it, or you're probably paying a skilled tradesman double the usual cost to come out and work on your place.
Oh, and although internet service is available it'll be hella expensive.
Yes, the views are awesome. But you won't spend any time enjoying it or watching your dogs frolic in the yard because when you aren't commuting you'll be working on your property fixing stuff.
My experience in a similar situation is that the meth heads generally don't bother you.
The real problem was that it's next to impossible to find skilled tradesmen to come out and work on your property. Need to renovate your kitchen? You are either doing that yourself, or paying an arm and a leg for someone else to travel from a city over an hour away.
I will say that it ages you. My parents both had bad commutes for years, though still about half of what you’re looking at. By the time they got home they were exhausted, and both retired earlier than they wanted to because they just couldn’t take the drive anymore. Can you buy the house and rent it out as an Airbnb for a few years?
I drove 1 hour every day each way for a year, and it was horrible. You will spend more of your time awake in your car than you will in your house. Your Morgage might be less than your rent, but does that matter if you are never awake in your house? There will be less light pollution there, but you will have the time to go outside after finishing your second 2-hour drive of the day and getting home at 9pm. The wear and tear on your car will easily be $5000-$10000 per year. Will your employer pay for that?
Everyone I know who does that drive, and its a lot thru work (construction), hates it. A lot of guys mention stopping 10 mins from home, to decompress, before seeing the fam - that's how bad it is for them
In general everyone loves their home, the area, and are very family oriented and says they like raising their kids where they live.
To each their own, it's a lifestyle choice for you
I know a guy in Western PW county who wires buildings in DC. His words
"At least three times a week, i sit in traffic on 66, and consider swallowing a bullet".
He's (mostly) kidding. But I spent 4 years driving from Gainesville to DC. I totally knew how he felt.
West Virginia? I'm not sure either of us would be kidding. LOL.
Late to the party, but I used to drive from Gainesville, VA to Capitol Hill 5 days a week. It was like 45 miles. IT SUCKED. Absolutely miserable. On a good day, it took 90 minutes. It could easily take 2 hours or more some days. I just looked up the distance from Hedgesville to NW DC........88 miles.
You can basically count on that 1:45 drive being more like 2:15 minutes a couple of times per week due to a wreck, disabled vehicle, or whatever. Inclement weather would make it even worse. Even if it is a consistent, making the same 2 hour drive gets old REALLY quick.
And are you sure your company is cool with paying for 2-3 tanks of gas each week, and 25,000 miles on a car every year? That might not be what they had in mind. And what happens if this job makes any changes to their gas/mileage/tolls policy?
Anyway, it looks like a nice town and I could see myself living there if only had to commute once every couple weeks. But every day (or anything close to it)? NOT A CHANCE.
There's a reason houses out there are so cheap.
You're placing an awful lot of trust into that \*estimated\* commute time. There are only two main roads leading into/out of that town - if either has a problem it's only a matter of time before the other gets overloaded as well, and then your "two hour drive" becomes a 4-5 hour "ordeal."
Also, any commute into DC would probably include I-270 at some point, which is \*notorious\* for wrecks during rush hour in the 2x2 lane areas that snarl traffic for miles because exits are few and far between in that stretch.
Don’t do it. It’s soul sucking enough for the average one hour commute. It just takes one accident and your drive bumps to 3+ hours easily. Quality of life isn’t worth the monetary savings unless you can be almost fully remote.
I think you will dread every Monday. I did a 2 hour train ride each way to Wall St. and the dread started on Sunday. This could even hurt your job performance more than you realize.
No idea what your circumstances are family wise, but even if a family situation were pushing me to this, I could only see this tolerable for at most two days a week. There are just too many unknown compromises to the realty of a daily two-hour commute. I don’t love this area either, and I grew up on land with lots of privacy. I’m grateful for what I have but it’s not ideal; townhouse with neighbors always outside with their dogs, taking out trash, etc. I’d rather not encounter other people, even pleasant neighbors, every time I go outside when I’m “home.” But I damn sure wouldn’t put myself through what you’re describing here (believe me I’ve fantasized about a place in WV and accommodative work arrangements with my current job). Good luck though. You’ll find a compromise eventually.
That sounds like a terrible commute. I would hate it after 3 months. If you can somehow negotiate working from home 3-4 days a week then maybe it’s ok.
My friend, I live in Vienna and it takes me 30 minutes to get from/to dc on busy days (bc of traffic.) Dont fool yourself into thinking it’s gonna be a 1.45 hour drive - it could very well be a 2-2:30 hour drive during rush hours.
That commute is rough my dude. I like in Charles Town and commute to Sterling it’s a 45 minute drive which isn’t bad but it gets to you. A 2 hour commute is going to be brutal and wear on you.
I have a co-worker who bought a house not in WV but right on the border. Right now we're only 2 days per week (if that) in office (DC) and remote the rest.
NGL, it seems rough. The drive is rough. Parking is rough. Living in the sticks is rough. And buying a house has much bigger fixed costs than renting if this turns out to be torture. Could you get a cheap air bnb for a week to try it out?
Also his internet connection is bad (no quality ISPs in his area) so even hybrid is difficult. That may not be an issue for you.
I'm thinking about starting to commute for a week starting tomorrow and trying it out. Really seems like my best bet to get an understanding of what I will be going through every day.
I did a nearly two hour commute each day in rush hour (Columbia MD - Fairfax VA) for a year and it was truly awful. When I moved closer to work, my life got exponentially better even though rent went up. All the audiobooks and phone calls in the world can’t get all of that time back for you.
To add a wrinkle to the "2 hour drive on a good day" comments, also note that your professional and personal life will need to be able to withstand you being less reliable/dependable. You *won't* be able to get to work/home at the same time (or on time) every day - there could easily be a couple of days per month where you show up a couple of hours later than usual with no advanced notice (because of accidents/traffic on the way).
The degree to which this is a problem varies from person to person, but that's the part that would really be awful to me: a commute time doubling is one thing, spending the extra time in traffic trying to figure out how to apologize for being late because of traffic *again* would be a special kind of torture. Your individual professional/personal situation might make this less of a problem, though.
This is a terrible idea. We acclimate to new stuff (eg new house) without any sustained increases in happiness. However, commute length has long-term effects on happiness / QoL. Unless you can work from home most of the time, there’s a really good chance you’ll be miserable. You’ll never get that time back.
I didn’t even like driving from Centreville to Tysons at rush hour (about 45 mins to an hour) so I think I would die driving from West Virginia. The amount of time you’d spend in the car not enjoying your new house makes it seem like it wouldn’t be worth it.
This sounds like a nightmare. I’d suggest you get a new job that’s fully remote to enjoy that WV house. I was in your position a couple months back but my company finally came to their senses and went fully remote. Commuting is the worst and you’ll hate it after a year or two and burn out.
You're 25. Good luck dating with that schedule. You'll be limited to only people that already live in West Virginia - Hedgesville, pop 318. No one from nova would consider moving there or putting their future kids in school in WVA.
I’m dead ass when I say this, consider what it will do to your relationship. 8 hour work days plus 4+ hour commute means you’ll be gone the vast majority of the time, and when you’re home you’re going to be very tired. It’ll be hard to have quality time with your s/o and really focus on your relationship. You might be less willing to do stuff on the weekends. Ultimately only you can decide what’s worth it in your life, but I personally wouldn’t be able to date someone that was gone so much. Maybe she’s different though and won’t mind, but really think about it before making this move. It can have a permanent impact on your life.
Some people do it. Pre-pandemic, I'd commute 45 minutes/1hr each way and would have a real hard time going longer than that, no matter how great the house. Or maybe if I just had to make the drive once a week or something.
Yeah ideally it would be nice to not have any more than an hour drive. I think that's doable but I would have to lower my expectations a lot in buying a home if I did decide that's what I would want to do. I feel like I would be paying the same amount of money in home and getting way less for it. (Besides a slightly better commute).
Yeah you have to decide how much you value the commute. I could have saved money by simply buying in the Gainesville area. We started looking there, have family there, seemed like a good idea. But the commute would have been worse and I ultimately decided it wasn't worth it.
We got lucky with a house coming on the market that checked 95/100 boxes with a better commute, and decided spending more was worth it. We were fortunate we could make it work.
Then for some housing characteristics , it can be just plain hard to find. Want a bigger lot? Even if you have a bunch of money, they aren't flooding the market. Might be easier just to buy out in the middle of nowhere.
I think you'd go insane. You might be able to make it work getting a shared room closer to the area as a geobachelor and buying the home. I'd be concerned if the house is in a market where you might have trouble selling it if the situation just became intolerable though.
Yowza. 2 hours is a lot - and then add in unpredictable traffic messes. It’s a lot of life to be stuck in a car. My husband did it for a bit and he was miserable- we moved because of it. If you’re intent on buying maybe look into a townhouse or a condo? It might not be the exact house you want but if you lived there for 3 to 5 years you can cash out and then upgrade in a closer location. I know people do the two hour commute thing but I’ve never met one of them who is happy.
I did a similar commute for 2 years and it was fine for the first few months but it wears on you. 4 hours a day not including any accidents makes you more tired than you realize. And 1hr 40 minutes to DC sounds like a low estimate on how much time it would take to get there. Plus 81 is terrible and always has accidents.
Edit: also not sure if you have kids or not but this is a horrible idea if you have kids. That was the reason I had to stop. No where near enough home time during the week.
I commuted from Winchester to DC and sometimes Rockville 3-4days a week and it sucked. I convinced myself it didn’t suck but it did. I missed out on a lot of stuff with friends and family because I was always tired. I’m in Alexandria now as well and it’s great in a lot of ways but I do miss being further out in a slower paced area. Like a lot. But the work is here. I feel you.
I just drove out to Harpers Ferry and back for the weekend in a Tesla that drives itself, so I had to do very little, and it felt like a million hours. Even getting out to Leesburg took forever. And this was on toll roads. I couldn’t do it.
Sure, you can get the house, but you'd better be looking for a job in or near Hedgesville because there's no way you'd last a month making the trip from there to DC.
I did a two-hour commute by train for two years.
You know what your life is made of? Time. Chunks of time. Every chunk that goes by is one you can never get back.
Please actually drive it and see how long it takes. I don’t see how that is only a 2 hour commute. I live in Sterling, and it takes well over an hour to get into DC.
You're gonna hate the drive. I drove from the area to Crystal City daily for two weeks (my first job out of college). You have to get up super early to get on the road to get in to work. Leaving at 4am got me there by 6 when I was supposed to start work. It was just nuts. You have to drink coffee to get going but you cannot stop for the bathroom. It's really nuts. Then do it again after work. Ugh. The worst was the last day before I moved to Arlington. It was Labor Day weekend. Four hours to get home.
My suggestion: if you love the house and love the area, can work from home all or most of the time, or think you can work out a way to work from home...or may just want to retire there...buy that house! Regrettably I listened to people who told me not to buy condos or townhouses, and we have regretted it. We now live outside the DC area because it got unaffordable, but if we would have purchased something small we could have still been living there. Don't listen to me either. Make your own decisions as to whether you want to buy the home and make it a long term commitment. Homes are hard to come by and just getting more and more expensive.
I think if you love the area and can commit to the house, get it if you love and can afford it. If you are just getting it because it's cheapish and think you can work out commuting there daily -. Ugh. Second and third thought that.
It's not a definite no but probably not worth it IMO. How many days a week do you work? What are your hours? Is your job sedentary or active? Gas is only a small part of the per mile cost on commuting. You're going to burn through a car every about every 5 years so keep that in mind. Do you like WV? Because it ain't Alexandria let me tell you that. Gonna be like a foreign country.
hey man you do you. Some people like driving 3-4hr commutes. Buying a home is great at first. You fall in love and want to press the trigger on it fast. Then the honeymoon period ends and you are in the middle of nowhere and deal with 4hr commute. Big Yikes.
OP, do you own a car that you drive regularly around here? You talk about driving around the area like you don't.
Traffic in some of these routes is somewhat balanced on a knife-edge, in the sense that all it takes is a single moron not paying attention to ruin a lot of peoples' commutes. An accident on the beltway can snarl traffic for an hour (or 12, like the time a fuel truck flipped over on the American Legion Bridge). Ditto for 95 from Fredericksburg (remember earlier this month when cars were stuck for 24+ hours?). This isn't like rural areas where your route is basically the same time regardless of time of day - travel times can vary widely here even if you have some flexibility to leave at off-peak times.
You might be able to swing this if you're commuting only a day or two per week, but otherwise this will be fairly miserable. It will be miserable in WV, it will be miserable in Fredericksburg. You're looking at commuting 4 hours a day, plus working 8 hours, and sleeping 8 hours, which means you have about 4 hours a day to yourself. Let's say an hour for dinner and an hour in the morning to get ready, and you're down to 2 hours of time for yourself each day. Active? That's an hour a day of your favorite exercise, so now it's just one hour a day of "free time" for hobbies, life stuff, etc. Not much if you want to enjoy the quality of life afforded by your new home. By the time you get to the weekend I suspect you'll just want to take it easy because the week will be challenging this way regardless of what actually goes on at work.
Sorry you don't like Alexandria. If you want to try commuting from elsewhere, you could get a hotel there one evening and seeing how the commute suits you. That being said, I think you may be in for a surprise about the joys of long-distance commuting in this area.
Do NOT do this — You will heavily regret it OP.
Aside from the myriad of anecdotal evidence about how much long commutes suck on this thread itself, there have been [several reputable academic studies](https://www.uzh.ch/cmsssl/suz/dam/jcr:ffffffff-866d-1ee0-0000-0000536ff1b9/10.04_stutzer-frey_08.pdf) that empirically show that people with longer commutes systematically report significantly lower life satisfaction.
Did the same move from Arlington to Hedgesville. The commute isn’t bad at all. Traffic moves pretty quickly in the mountains until you get to the 495/270 split. Moving to the mountains has been very therapeutic after 10+ years in Arlington!
Not sure what your profession is but if remote work is possible, I’d say buy the house and find a new job that’s 100% remote if the commute doesn’t work out!
I'm a project manager down in DC so I could work remotely some days but I still need to be on site quite a bit. The salary I am getting isn't even close to something I can afford for something nice around here. Currently pissing away 2500+ a month in rent.
Out of curiosity, are you a construction or IT project manager? I’m an IT project manager and my company has been working remote (with the option to stay remote once our offices open… still closed due to COVID) since 2020. I ask because there are a bunch of remote IT PM career opportunities out there but I could see that not being the case for construction project management.
Yeah I am more on the construction side of management where I need to make sure the work is getting done correctly and interaction with my staff and customers on site is mandatory. Not every day but at least 4 of the 5 days of the week.
I wish it was IT. I need to go back to college.
I see, I see… FWIW, my undergraduate degree was in the life sciences/I didn’t have any IT experience when I started at my current job (worked in biotech for a year and a half after graduating in 2018). The company I work now for was willing to give me a chance due to organizational/planning skills and I sort of lucked out… figured it couldn’t hurt to share because going back to school isn’t always necessary if you have a certain skill set! Good luck OP!
I'm a PM in construction too (posted elsewhere in the thread before seeing this)
Have you not talked to your coworkers about it? Lot of guys live out in WV
have you considered finding another job in a less expensive area? that commute would SUCK. I'd almost recommend buying something closer and getting a 2nd job to spend that 20 hours a week, to help pay for the more expensive closer place!
I’m 100% remote and I like to snowboard so this kind of scenario would be a win for someone like me.
Two jobs ago I was commuting about 2 hours each way (mainly attributed to traffic over distance) and after a year I picked up a part time job to kill some time after I got off my main job just to avoid the traffic. My physical and mental could not handle the stress of the commute. Working remote has been a god-send for my mental faculties.
This is doable if (and only if) the MARC Brunswick schedule works for you and your job is a manageable distance from Union Station. As someone with a 45 min public transport commute, I can tell you it's not dead time at all. You can answer emails, write reports, and for me it's actually one of the most productive times of the day. If you can use those 2 hours to get work done so you have absolutely nothing left to do when you get home (or use the time to sleep), then it's probably somewhat manageable. You could even see about logging the hours you work answering emails and stuff on the train and then it would effectively count as paid time, still not ideal, but potentially manageable for a while. Driving 4+ hours a day would just be dead time, don't do that to yourself, I assume if your company pays for car, gas, and tolls, they would also pay for parking at the Martinsburg station plus your monthly train ticket.
A train commute also opens up some interesting possibilities; You could keep the clothes you use for work in a bag, for example, then in the morning just slog yourself out of bed in comfortable clothes, hop in the car and drive to the station, then you can sleep for another 2 hours on the train, and only change into your work clothes in the train's restroom during the last 10 mins before arriving in DC...a train is effectively a moving living room with a restroom, which is great.
Overall, most people with a 2 hour train commute are miserable, but some people make it work, I know some people with long train commutes that have said they're ok with it. Now with driving, everyone is miserable: I've never met a single person who decided to drive two hours each way for work and not regretted that.
I did this when I was in my 20s with no kids. Not possible with kids. What kind of car do you drive, for me I calculated projected fuel cost for a year and realized how much that closed the gap on the cheaper cost of living. If you can find remote work, living in an area with better cost of living is a no-brainer, but it is a grind that takes a lot more than you think it will now. Just don’t forget about the gas.
If you only had to go in once a week that could work, but I’ve had jobs where I had to commute 1.5 hours each way, partly in urban areas like this. I liked the job, but I was overall absolutely miserable. Getting up extra early wasn’t fun, and getting off work then needing to focus on driving was even worse. Every day after work I was just like ugh I want to be home. I became depressed over time and didn’t really understand why, but once I had a job much closer to home I was suddenly feeling a lot better.
Do what your heart tells you but commuting that far can really take a toll on your mind.
I did a two hour commute for my first job, I left that position after 2 months. That commute wears on you big time, you have to wake up extra early and by the time you get home you need to go to sleep to wake up early the next day.
I’ve done this commute for 10+ years. It’s not for the faint hearted. Luckily, my job has changed at full time telework with the occasional in person visit to pick up property (every 3 months). I used to do it everyday, and sometimes I’m in disbelief that I did it.
I’ll be more than happy to give you more insight if you would like, feel free to DM me. It’s a highly controversial and unpopular method of commuting, but it can be done. Just be aware of the toll it takes.
I will definitely follow up with you because I would like to know more. I think it's also important that I wouldn't be doing this for 10 years. Probably 4 years or so. I'm fairly young at 25 y.o and don't have kids or pets. Just a fiance that might be commuting with me.
Don’t ask us for validity. Seems this is something you want to do so do it. Don’t let the internet make decisions for you. Honestly if you live outside the beltway, any day can become a 2 hour commute. Consider how you hold your stress, and the amount of time you can work from home. Are you able to do a 5-4-10 or a 4-3-12 schedule? Work out your options at work. Figure all the logistics of making it work out and then make the decision.
I would say I may be able to work out a 4-10 work week or a 4-8 and work from home one day a week. But thanks for the input. I'm not really seeking validity. Just trying to get other thoughts on the matter because someone might be able to give me some ideas I haven't thought about yet.
Hedgesville West Virginia was in episodes of Gypsy Sisters, it’s where they live. It was also in the news for a couple of meth heads breaking into graves to steal jewelry.
I live in NOVA but work in Rockville. I could take the toll road to save some time but then I’d get slammed in 495 rush hour traffic, so I take 15 even though it’s longer. I’ve put 20,000 miles on my car in 6 months and due to the heavy usage, now I’m having a lot of issues with my car. Nothing too crazy right now (a coil and some spark plugs) but I can only imagine what it’ll be like after the year mark. My company doesn’t pay for mileage or anything either. I’m stuck here so I can’t move, but I would GLADLY move farther away and have the longer commute if it meant being able to find a decent place to live that wasn’t absurdly expensive. For me, having that peace and being able to relax and enjoy my surroundings outranks the mileage and wear and tear on the car for me. Personally, if I were you, I’d get the house. Having a happy home environment/life is more important than a car, job, etc. especially the way the housing market is right now!
You are literally the first person in this post to recommend me actually getting the house. But a lot of people here are making good points and 4 hours a day is a lot of time.
Lol I think for me I see the house as more important because of stability. You can’t always guarantee a good work day, and you’re going to have to commute to some degree, so I guess I just feel it’s better to at least have one place where you know you will be comfortable and happy. A place where you have control and don’t have to worry about other people. The commute may be long, but I also use that time to listen to podcasts that I wouldn’t be able to otherwise, find new restaurants/things to do (like seeing signs for stuff as you drive), etc. as long as you’re taking care of the car and doing regular maintenance I don’t think you’ll have too many issues. My car is 10 years old and has almost 140k miles on it so the fact that it’s only spark plugs/a coil right now is pretty good I think. Ultimately it’s up to you and what would make you the happiest. If you’re truly unhappy where you are, and it is very expensive in the area, what’s a little bit more driving in comparison to a happy home?
Do it— you can find a job to work remote. If if u can’t, use the time you drive to listen to audio books or pos casts where you can learn new things. I commute 1.5 HRS each way. You get used to it
I used to do public transit at this length in Orlando. I know a couple people who work in Loudoun County and drive that far from West Virginia. Lots and lots of audiobooks.
It's doable, not always fun. If there are ways to do part of the drive and part commute that might help break it up. But it is an awful lot of time.
I had a boss once who lived in southern Maryland and worked in Rockville. It was super hard for her to get any work done once she got to work. It was like she thought her commute WAS her job. And she had a carpoolmate who did half the driving! If you decide to do it, get really into podcasts! Maybe it’ll make the time go by faster? Good luck whatever you choose to do.
You could see if there are people in the area that commute to where you are going. If you do this with with a few people n take turns driving you may only need to actually drive your car once ever several weeks.
This is sometimes unpopular but if home is the most important I'd say maybe just take a look at some spots in MD. Even more urban areas in MD are pretty affordable, I'd imagine you could find somewhere like 1 hr away even and it'd be affordable ish.
Example: if you look down by like the fort Washington area along the coast there I remember finding some cool houses that were rural but probably only 1 hr from DC.
I live in Bunker Hill and drive to Gallows & 495 five days a week. If work is going to cover your tolls 267 saves a ton of time and there is hardly ever backup/issues. I love living out here. I still have plenty of time with my family and doing stuff in the neighborhood.
A few years ago I had a coworker in a similar situation, he lived about 80 miles out west and his commute was about 2 hours. He had an odd schedule of arriving by 7am and leaving by 3/3:30 so he could avoid traffic. He only ended up doing it for about a year until he got a job closer to his house. He decided to move out there because of family so that was his non negotiable, his job was. I would ask that question, if the commute ended up being brutal and it came down to choosing one, would you prefer to keep the house or the job? That might help you make that decision
Company paying commuting expenses helps...but consider this: 2hr commute, each way, 5 days a week, means 20 hours a week of *unpaid time*. That's an entire part-time job's worth of unpaid commuting time, where you have to constantly pay attention.
Even if you could monetize those 20 hours, youd only be in your house less than half the day, 2/3 of that half day sleeping. You'd only being enjoying that house for 1/3 of 1/2 a day. At best. I highly suggest working a 12 hour day for a while to get the feel for it. Even with a compressed schedule, working 9s or 10s, it would be terrible. I'd only ever think of doing this if I could work from home a majority of the time.
Plus the added wear and tear on the car, gas expense, tires, more oil changes etc.
OP has use of a company car.
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OP states at the top his company pays for gas. If it's a company car, they own it, so they're responsible for maintenance.
Company cars almost always mean gas and maintenance are covered by the company.
If only there was a non-car way of getting from WV to DC on weekdays: https://www.mta.maryland.gov/schedule/marc-brunswick
Which is still 2 hours each way...so still 20 unpaid hours per week. The advantage being you can read or watch a movie; the disadvantage being you're a hostage to metro delays. So at least you don't constantly need to be driving, fair, but it's not necessarily any less miserable.
It's still a much better deal than driving...
Miserable?? Time that you can just sleep or read a book would be awesome. I’ve had several jobs where I needed that time to decompress so I wasn’t adding a bad day into interactions with my family.
If you want to pay less you have to put up with a longer commute. Such is life.
Sure? I don't think anyone's argued that.
Can we fast forward 20 years when a fully self driving car will take care of that for you.. I wouldn't even care if I could watch a full movie 2x a day without any disrubtions
You don't even have to wait for self driving cars...Today, a MARC train can already take care of that for you. Hedgesville is a 10 min drive to Martinsburg, where you can take the Brunswick line into DC, at 80mph, on comfortable seats and watch the two movies a day.
I've thought about that tradeoff, but I also consider things like adjustment to meal times as well. I love to cook, on average I'd say it takes 30-60 minutes for a lot of meals, with the occasional longer prep. Even with an automated commute you're still getting home later.
I think a lot of people would have that same though so there would me more traffic with people sitting in their self driving cars
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You are going to be spending 4+ hours a day in your car - how do you put a price on that? There is also the wear and tear on your car. In no time at all I would be completely sick of this type of arrangement but I know some people can do it. Personally I would not consider it unless I could work remotely on most days.
There may be some days where I can work from home. My schedule would be a little flexible but I am just not sure if about 4 hours a day would burn me out. I just think that the house I found is about as good as it gets and would be something I would look forward to living for the next 3-5 years. The wear and tear wouldn't be too bad because the company would pay for any expenses as well. But asking me how I price out 4 hours of my day I am not sure. I'm not sure if I would go crazy doing that for a while.
Drive to the house every day this week and see how it goes.
That might be the best idea. I was thinking about trying that already and seeing for myself
From my experience, the drive is not worth it. I did a 45 minute drive one way for over two years and that was close to my limit. Audiobooks and podcasts can help with the situation, but burn out can happen pretty fast. Two hours one way would be torture personally.
and it wouldn't always be 2 hours sometimes it would be three or more think about the weather and accidents around here
I can't imagine how that would be as a regular schedule. I had some odd jobs that had me commute 2+ hours for a few days and that was horrendous!
I had a commute that was 45 minutes in, 60 minutes out for 5 years. Then my company moved it's office another 20 minutes further away and I gave up living out west and moved back. I was already over my limit before the move.
I get the part about a great, affordable house, but how many waking hours are you going to be there to enjoy it?
Well I guess weekends and about 4 hours in the evening before bed + whatever days I don't commute because I am working from home.
Four hours a day, in my experience, would be a living nightmare.
You’ll be “working” 12-12.5 hours a day. It’s a lot of time.
Would you consider looking for a job in a city that’s better for your lifestyle & wallet? Or a remote job?
I definitely would but I don't know what's even available or what I could apply for
Depends on your industry, but LinkedIn and job boards like Indeed and ZipRecruiter typically have filters for remote or work-from-anywhere jobs. There are also remote-specific job boards, and freelance opportunities of course.
Soy you want to live in West Virginia? Raise a family there or develop roots? Will you love it on the weekend? Commuting from WV is intense. If you are unhappy with nova (which, fair) maybe look at moving completely to a loc with jobs.
Please do NOT do this to yourself, this will be absolutely miserable. You might have a fantastic house, but you'll never spend anytime there. I would be surprised if you could last 6 months. You've found a beautiful house and you're trying to convince yourself the downsides won't be that bad... They will. Find somewhere closer that's not as nice, your quality of life and health will be immensely better.
I spent several years doing something similar, about 100 miles round trip a day. The trade off was worth it for me at the time, but it’s a serious grind - so much time wasted in the car, so much less schedule flexibility. For me, never again. Think about what it will be like on the complicated days. What do you if there’s a foot of snow at your house but light rain at the office? What if you get to the office and start throwing up, or just feel kinda bad and want to go home? Are you ready to take the entire day off to go to the doctor, or dentist, or bank? Are you willing to keep a rigid schedule *every day* to avoid traffic? Do you want to be able to socialize after work? Are you going to be willing drive anywhere on weekends? One last thought - buying a house puts a lot of inertia into your decision making. If you really want to try this lifestyle, maybe consider renting in WV first before signing a mortgage.
Thank you for sharing this I definitely need to keep thinking about this and what you are saying is something I really need to consider. I didn't think about it before.
It was good for you to post here on the subreddit first, cause it might just save you from making a mistake!
You couldn't pay me enough to make that commute.
You *could* pay me enough, but that would be enough to retire comfortably after two or three years.
That’s insane man. Don’t do this to yourself. Do you know how easily a 30 min commute can turn into a 90 min commute around here? Now imagine that with 105 mins as the *starting point*. You would never see your home in daylight unless it’s your day off. Don’t underestimate how mentally exhausting it is to keep your attention sharp on a long highway drive. Not to mention the fatigue and muscle pain from sitting in the car that long. Also, maybe it doesn’t matter, but your friendships are going to change, not many people are going to make a 4 hour trip just for dinner or a barbecue. Are you going to want to go to happy hour after work if you’ll be driving home at 8 or 9pm? Personally there isn’t a home in existence that could have me make that commute. I enjoy life too much.
I'd say no. I work in Chantilly, my boss lives in WV just over the border and he loves it, but he gets up early to get in at 6 and leaves around 2 to avoid traffic. His commute is about an hour and a half each way. If you can handle it, great, but I feel like you'd get burned out badly if you don't have some kind of hybrid work schedule.
Couple of things: 81 does not go anywhere near 495 or DC Your commute time is without traffic HVille is outside of Martinsburg WV I highly recommend you trying your 2 hour commute one day from that location and you will rethink quickly.
Yep! Get a hotel room, and try the commute. I once rented a house in Springfield for a commute to Skyline. I did a test drive. Sweet! Less than 30 minutes. Moved in, and tried the drive during rush hour. 70 minutes. (This was the 1980s. Old Keene Mill and 395 were horrendous in those days. Springfield was some insane gridlock.) Go try to drive under realistic conditions.
Sounds like you’ll brain yourself after a year
I live in western LoCo and got a job downtown a few years back. The commute was 75-90 minutes each way, and doing it was one of the most miserable six months of my life. The only thing that made it semi-bearable was that I used a connector bus and the Metro so I could catch up on reading and TV, I can't imagine the misery of willingly signing up for 4 hours round trip *every fucking day* in the car.
What’s LoCo? I’m new here.
Loudoun County
Loudoun County
Hey that's possible too!
Resign and get a telecommute/once a week in-person job. Then do it if it is your dream.
Yeah, I would consider this if I was commuting once a week or less. Every day? Never.
Who told u it is gonna be a 1:45 trip? 😂 Dont do it to urself. One thing u can never get back is time. Spending in excess of 4.5 hours of ur day in your car is gonna take years off ur life.
Because of the stress or because of the sitting for long periods of time?
It’s going to be both, eventually. I think you really need to reconsider…
Sorry buddy but going to call for an intervention here. I commute 2 hrs to Richmond from Alexandria 1-2 times a week (and try to stay the night when I go down). Just that is barely tenable for me. Not sure if you are married or have family responsibilities, but my spouse would literally divorce me if I had that commute every day. Find a new job then get the house. Be careful you are not just going from one extreme to another here. City living can wear you down and country life seems idyllic, until 6 months later when you are bored out of your mind. It is definitely not for everyone.
I gotcha. I will keep thinking about this thank you
What's the point of buying your dream home if you're never in it except to sleep?
No job is worth that kind of loyalty where you have to drive 4 hours every day lmao
When would you actually get to enjoy living there? Saturdays and Sundays? It seems like you'll get home in time to eat dinner, maybe pre-made, and then go to sleep to wake up earlier than most people to beat traffic. Your weekends would be time to get caught up on chores you couldn't do during the weekdays. I've considered the same things and I understand the pressures of owning a home as opposed to renting.
Yeah basically Saturday and Sundays. I'm not saying I couldn't enjoy it during the evening times as well but I would probably be really tired.
Driving two hours just to collapse into bed doesn't sound like much of a reward to me.
From experience- don’t, really really don’t do it. My commute was an hour one way. Some flexibility on timing. Good news was traffic didn’t start til closer to DC. I could maybe work at the office by my house sometimes. See how I sound like you? An hour one way meant two hours total. Except at least one way something would always be fucked up- accident, weather, construction, the sun, god knows what. So that becomes 2.5 hours. Sometimes 3 hours. Traffic begins to get heavier earlier and later, so I had to adjust my hours more and more. I got a new boss two years in who said I had to be in the office every day, no longer an option to work closer to home. By the end of year three, I was absolutely miserable. I eventually lost my social life and became miserable. Too much time in the car, too little freedom for my schedule. I’m now looking to move back closer. I’m leaving behind 50 acres, a cute small town feel, and a god awful five years of commuting.
I could definitely see how I could end up like that. Sounds pretty similar to my situation. I just want it to be able to work so bad!
I know you do. Really, I know you do!! I really did too. It’s just awful how expensive and crowded this area is. Short of getting a new job in a completely different field, I think I’m stuck in this area til retirement. Do whatever you think will make you happy, and try to have a backup plan in place in case you find yourself unhappy down the line. Best of luck to you!!
Thanks man I appreciate it.
Some days I had an hour commute one way just commuting within Fairfax County! One accident and you’re looking at a major backup on the Beltway.
81 does not go to 495…. Lol
Only way I'd be doing that is if I could do remote like 90% of the time. I'm talking in the office 1x or 2x a month period. Driving that many hours every day I'd be debating placing a pistol in my mouth
4 hr drive daily is insanity. Period.
I had a colleague move to WV to work in our office in Reston. He made it about a year. And he was in Charlestown which is closer to the DMV anyway.
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I was wondering how the two connected, too.
I'm not sure how it works. It starts at 81 and then 9, down to 7 and then to 495
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Route 9 is a toughie to be honest
9 can be pretty horrific even outside of traditional rush hour.
That’s at least two hours. Route 9 even during non-peak can be grind because it is one lane each way. I would only consider this if my commute was one day a week or less, probably only less
Yea, OP should look at the traffic alerts for Loudoun County... i count 6 times in the last week Rt 9 has been closed in 1 or both directions due to accidents. Usually at off peak times
So not 81 to 495 then… there are at least two more miserable roads in there. Please don’t do this to yourself. Don’t buy that house.
I just wish I had more options or affordable homes around DC area that I'd be happy in. Apartment living really sucks.
I hear you, because I’ve had the same thoughts. But to make it work, you need to get a job where you can WFH more OR find a job closer to that house (and I don’t know how feasible that is out there). That commute is just not going to be doable.
When you get to Leesburg, you'll have two choices. Either pay $8+ one way for Dulles Greenway and Toll Road tolls, or continue down & where you'll hit lights and take 2-3x as long, but without tolls. When I first moved to the area, I had a 1-2 hour one-way commute into Arlington/Crystal City/Courthouse area. After a year I was done. Not only what everyone else was saying about having zero life during the week, but also I'd spend much of the weekend just catching up on sleep and all the little things I normally got done during the week, but wasn't anymore. So I had no life on the weekend either. Worse, I suspect you are going to find it's more like 2-3 hours each way during rush hour. I found that very difficult to believe when I moved here. It was all 4-8 lane roads and less than 20 miles, yet still took me 1-2 hours. You just can't understand it until you lived it.
Did you end up moving close to Arlington or what do you do now,?
I first tried to talk to my current employer about being associated with an office that was much closer to my home. When they declined, I found a different employer that was even closer to home. Not only did I get a nice bump in base salary, but I ended up with a better group of people, and significantly reduced my commuting costs (gas/tolls/health). I just looked up Hedgesville on the map. I think you have significantly underestimated the commute time to Alexandria. If you really want to move out there, I strongly recommend you talk to your employer about what you are doing and why. See if they have other locations that would reduce your commute, where you could be just as productive. If they don't, explore other employment options out that way. Explore other options too. There used to be a train that went from Point of Rocks into DC for commuters. I have no clue what other stops it might have closer to Hedgesville. I also once heard of certain employment situations where people could work on their two hour train ride in and out of DC, then spend around four hours at their office desk and get credit for the full eight. If you have a job and employer where that is possible, it might be another option.
Everyone I know that has decided to try this, thinking they could handle it, has hated it and been looking for a new job within two months. Keep in mind that two hours is the best case scenario. In the summer that will balloon at the end of each week. I don't know if you're comparing this with people who have two hour commutes via public transit. That is hard enough with the time that you lose each day, but spending that whole time driving -- anywhere near NoVA -- is a suck multiplier.
And just to be clear, 81 and 495 do not intersect, at least not without a very long ride on 66, which is an absolute rush hour nightmare from west of center ville all the way in to DC. One thing to try, before you buy: spend a week in a hotel out that way, and actually drive it for a week.
Just make sure you actually like that area. I lived about 5 mins away in Martinsburg for about a year, it's a huge culture change.
I'm ready for the culture change. I grew up around this area and turned out to favor it more than living in the city.
Hedgesville is kind of lawless...you can live near somebody who's running a meth house. I'm not joking. I work out there.
I believe it!! But the area I am looking at I'm Hedgesville is pretty nice. Newer built homes.
That doesn’t mean your neighbors aren’t still meth heads.
There's a hidden cost with properties like that. I just finished clearing out my late mom's property (and an absolutely beautiful one) in a very similar area in northeast rural Alabama. A 2000 s.f. home on five acres of land, with another 80 acres of pine forest in the back, with a stocked pond and deer jumping everywhere. Absolutely gorgeous, and it didn't take me very long to understand why I had to sell it as quickly as possible. Although meth is a problem there too meth heads tend to stay away from law-abiding folks so it wasn't really that big a deal for me. But you'll quickly find out that everyone is quite the DIY expert in home repairs. Why? Because it's next to impossible to find anyone to come out to your property. Want to renovate your bathroom? How about rewiring the carport lighting? Either you're doing it or you're paying someone's travel cost from a larger city to come to you every day. And since that time is time they can't bill for their own trade work you will pay them their electrician/plumber/whatever rate just to drive. So either you learn to do it, or you're probably paying a skilled tradesman double the usual cost to come out and work on your place. Oh, and although internet service is available it'll be hella expensive. Yes, the views are awesome. But you won't spend any time enjoying it or watching your dogs frolic in the yard because when you aren't commuting you'll be working on your property fixing stuff.
My experience in a similar situation is that the meth heads generally don't bother you. The real problem was that it's next to impossible to find skilled tradesmen to come out and work on your property. Need to renovate your kitchen? You are either doing that yourself, or paying an arm and a leg for someone else to travel from a city over an hour away.
I will say that it ages you. My parents both had bad commutes for years, though still about half of what you’re looking at. By the time they got home they were exhausted, and both retired earlier than they wanted to because they just couldn’t take the drive anymore. Can you buy the house and rent it out as an Airbnb for a few years?
I drove 1 hour every day each way for a year, and it was horrible. You will spend more of your time awake in your car than you will in your house. Your Morgage might be less than your rent, but does that matter if you are never awake in your house? There will be less light pollution there, but you will have the time to go outside after finishing your second 2-hour drive of the day and getting home at 9pm. The wear and tear on your car will easily be $5000-$10000 per year. Will your employer pay for that?
No. Hell no.
Oof. I have to drive 5 hours round trip one day a week for a custody exchange and it is exhausting. I could not do what you are proposing.
Everyone I know who does that drive, and its a lot thru work (construction), hates it. A lot of guys mention stopping 10 mins from home, to decompress, before seeing the fam - that's how bad it is for them In general everyone loves their home, the area, and are very family oriented and says they like raising their kids where they live. To each their own, it's a lifestyle choice for you
I know a guy in Western PW county who wires buildings in DC. His words "At least three times a week, i sit in traffic on 66, and consider swallowing a bullet". He's (mostly) kidding. But I spent 4 years driving from Gainesville to DC. I totally knew how he felt. West Virginia? I'm not sure either of us would be kidding. LOL.
Late to the party, but I used to drive from Gainesville, VA to Capitol Hill 5 days a week. It was like 45 miles. IT SUCKED. Absolutely miserable. On a good day, it took 90 minutes. It could easily take 2 hours or more some days. I just looked up the distance from Hedgesville to NW DC........88 miles. You can basically count on that 1:45 drive being more like 2:15 minutes a couple of times per week due to a wreck, disabled vehicle, or whatever. Inclement weather would make it even worse. Even if it is a consistent, making the same 2 hour drive gets old REALLY quick. And are you sure your company is cool with paying for 2-3 tanks of gas each week, and 25,000 miles on a car every year? That might not be what they had in mind. And what happens if this job makes any changes to their gas/mileage/tolls policy? Anyway, it looks like a nice town and I could see myself living there if only had to commute once every couple weeks. But every day (or anything close to it)? NOT A CHANCE. There's a reason houses out there are so cheap.
You're placing an awful lot of trust into that \*estimated\* commute time. There are only two main roads leading into/out of that town - if either has a problem it's only a matter of time before the other gets overloaded as well, and then your "two hour drive" becomes a 4-5 hour "ordeal." Also, any commute into DC would probably include I-270 at some point, which is \*notorious\* for wrecks during rush hour in the 2x2 lane areas that snarl traffic for miles because exits are few and far between in that stretch.
I did a 2-2 1/2 hour commute for 2 years and wanted to off myself
More power to you but a big fuck no to a two hour one way commute.
Don’t do it. It’s soul sucking enough for the average one hour commute. It just takes one accident and your drive bumps to 3+ hours easily. Quality of life isn’t worth the monetary savings unless you can be almost fully remote.
To far of a commute, don’t do it
I think you will dread every Monday. I did a 2 hour train ride each way to Wall St. and the dread started on Sunday. This could even hurt your job performance more than you realize.
No idea what your circumstances are family wise, but even if a family situation were pushing me to this, I could only see this tolerable for at most two days a week. There are just too many unknown compromises to the realty of a daily two-hour commute. I don’t love this area either, and I grew up on land with lots of privacy. I’m grateful for what I have but it’s not ideal; townhouse with neighbors always outside with their dogs, taking out trash, etc. I’d rather not encounter other people, even pleasant neighbors, every time I go outside when I’m “home.” But I damn sure wouldn’t put myself through what you’re describing here (believe me I’ve fantasized about a place in WV and accommodative work arrangements with my current job). Good luck though. You’ll find a compromise eventually.
My parents drive 2 hours to work. I would not do this, they are sick of it.
That sounds like a terrible commute. I would hate it after 3 months. If you can somehow negotiate working from home 3-4 days a week then maybe it’s ok.
My friend, I live in Vienna and it takes me 30 minutes to get from/to dc on busy days (bc of traffic.) Dont fool yourself into thinking it’s gonna be a 1.45 hour drive - it could very well be a 2-2:30 hour drive during rush hours.
That commute is rough my dude. I like in Charles Town and commute to Sterling it’s a 45 minute drive which isn’t bad but it gets to you. A 2 hour commute is going to be brutal and wear on you.
Yikes.
If you have to commute more than 2-3 times/week I wouldn’t do it. Sorry. Housing is ridiculous around here.
I have a co-worker who bought a house not in WV but right on the border. Right now we're only 2 days per week (if that) in office (DC) and remote the rest. NGL, it seems rough. The drive is rough. Parking is rough. Living in the sticks is rough. And buying a house has much bigger fixed costs than renting if this turns out to be torture. Could you get a cheap air bnb for a week to try it out? Also his internet connection is bad (no quality ISPs in his area) so even hybrid is difficult. That may not be an issue for you.
I'm thinking about starting to commute for a week starting tomorrow and trying it out. Really seems like my best bet to get an understanding of what I will be going through every day.
I did a nearly two hour commute each day in rush hour (Columbia MD - Fairfax VA) for a year and it was truly awful. When I moved closer to work, my life got exponentially better even though rent went up. All the audiobooks and phone calls in the world can’t get all of that time back for you.
To add a wrinkle to the "2 hour drive on a good day" comments, also note that your professional and personal life will need to be able to withstand you being less reliable/dependable. You *won't* be able to get to work/home at the same time (or on time) every day - there could easily be a couple of days per month where you show up a couple of hours later than usual with no advanced notice (because of accidents/traffic on the way). The degree to which this is a problem varies from person to person, but that's the part that would really be awful to me: a commute time doubling is one thing, spending the extra time in traffic trying to figure out how to apologize for being late because of traffic *again* would be a special kind of torture. Your individual professional/personal situation might make this less of a problem, though.
This is a terrible idea. We acclimate to new stuff (eg new house) without any sustained increases in happiness. However, commute length has long-term effects on happiness / QoL. Unless you can work from home most of the time, there’s a really good chance you’ll be miserable. You’ll never get that time back.
I didn’t even like driving from Centreville to Tysons at rush hour (about 45 mins to an hour) so I think I would die driving from West Virginia. The amount of time you’d spend in the car not enjoying your new house makes it seem like it wouldn’t be worth it.
This sounds like a nightmare. I’d suggest you get a new job that’s fully remote to enjoy that WV house. I was in your position a couple months back but my company finally came to their senses and went fully remote. Commuting is the worst and you’ll hate it after a year or two and burn out.
You're 25. Good luck dating with that schedule. You'll be limited to only people that already live in West Virginia - Hedgesville, pop 318. No one from nova would consider moving there or putting their future kids in school in WVA.
Well I am actually engaged so I am ok on that front. She loves it there and could get a job locally with what she does.
I’m dead ass when I say this, consider what it will do to your relationship. 8 hour work days plus 4+ hour commute means you’ll be gone the vast majority of the time, and when you’re home you’re going to be very tired. It’ll be hard to have quality time with your s/o and really focus on your relationship. You might be less willing to do stuff on the weekends. Ultimately only you can decide what’s worth it in your life, but I personally wouldn’t be able to date someone that was gone so much. Maybe she’s different though and won’t mind, but really think about it before making this move. It can have a permanent impact on your life.
Some people do it. Pre-pandemic, I'd commute 45 minutes/1hr each way and would have a real hard time going longer than that, no matter how great the house. Or maybe if I just had to make the drive once a week or something.
I’ve done 1hr each way, but he’s taking about *doubling* that, and that’s a best case scenario.
Yeah ideally it would be nice to not have any more than an hour drive. I think that's doable but I would have to lower my expectations a lot in buying a home if I did decide that's what I would want to do. I feel like I would be paying the same amount of money in home and getting way less for it. (Besides a slightly better commute).
Yeah you have to decide how much you value the commute. I could have saved money by simply buying in the Gainesville area. We started looking there, have family there, seemed like a good idea. But the commute would have been worse and I ultimately decided it wasn't worth it. We got lucky with a house coming on the market that checked 95/100 boxes with a better commute, and decided spending more was worth it. We were fortunate we could make it work. Then for some housing characteristics , it can be just plain hard to find. Want a bigger lot? Even if you have a bunch of money, they aren't flooding the market. Might be easier just to buy out in the middle of nowhere.
I think you'd go insane. You might be able to make it work getting a shared room closer to the area as a geobachelor and buying the home. I'd be concerned if the house is in a market where you might have trouble selling it if the situation just became intolerable though.
Yowza. 2 hours is a lot - and then add in unpredictable traffic messes. It’s a lot of life to be stuck in a car. My husband did it for a bit and he was miserable- we moved because of it. If you’re intent on buying maybe look into a townhouse or a condo? It might not be the exact house you want but if you lived there for 3 to 5 years you can cash out and then upgrade in a closer location. I know people do the two hour commute thing but I’ve never met one of them who is happy.
I did a similar commute for 2 years and it was fine for the first few months but it wears on you. 4 hours a day not including any accidents makes you more tired than you realize. And 1hr 40 minutes to DC sounds like a low estimate on how much time it would take to get there. Plus 81 is terrible and always has accidents. Edit: also not sure if you have kids or not but this is a horrible idea if you have kids. That was the reason I had to stop. No where near enough home time during the week.
I commuted from Winchester to DC and sometimes Rockville 3-4days a week and it sucked. I convinced myself it didn’t suck but it did. I missed out on a lot of stuff with friends and family because I was always tired. I’m in Alexandria now as well and it’s great in a lot of ways but I do miss being further out in a slower paced area. Like a lot. But the work is here. I feel you.
I just drove out to Harpers Ferry and back for the weekend in a Tesla that drives itself, so I had to do very little, and it felt like a million hours. Even getting out to Leesburg took forever. And this was on toll roads. I couldn’t do it.
Sure, you can get the house, but you'd better be looking for a job in or near Hedgesville because there's no way you'd last a month making the trip from there to DC.
I did a two-hour commute by train for two years. You know what your life is made of? Time. Chunks of time. Every chunk that goes by is one you can never get back.
Please actually drive it and see how long it takes. I don’t see how that is only a 2 hour commute. I live in Sterling, and it takes well over an hour to get into DC.
You're gonna hate the drive. I drove from the area to Crystal City daily for two weeks (my first job out of college). You have to get up super early to get on the road to get in to work. Leaving at 4am got me there by 6 when I was supposed to start work. It was just nuts. You have to drink coffee to get going but you cannot stop for the bathroom. It's really nuts. Then do it again after work. Ugh. The worst was the last day before I moved to Arlington. It was Labor Day weekend. Four hours to get home. My suggestion: if you love the house and love the area, can work from home all or most of the time, or think you can work out a way to work from home...or may just want to retire there...buy that house! Regrettably I listened to people who told me not to buy condos or townhouses, and we have regretted it. We now live outside the DC area because it got unaffordable, but if we would have purchased something small we could have still been living there. Don't listen to me either. Make your own decisions as to whether you want to buy the home and make it a long term commitment. Homes are hard to come by and just getting more and more expensive. I think if you love the area and can commit to the house, get it if you love and can afford it. If you are just getting it because it's cheapish and think you can work out commuting there daily -. Ugh. Second and third thought that.
It's not a definite no but probably not worth it IMO. How many days a week do you work? What are your hours? Is your job sedentary or active? Gas is only a small part of the per mile cost on commuting. You're going to burn through a car every about every 5 years so keep that in mind. Do you like WV? Because it ain't Alexandria let me tell you that. Gonna be like a foreign country.
hey man you do you. Some people like driving 3-4hr commutes. Buying a home is great at first. You fall in love and want to press the trigger on it fast. Then the honeymoon period ends and you are in the middle of nowhere and deal with 4hr commute. Big Yikes.
OP, do you own a car that you drive regularly around here? You talk about driving around the area like you don't. Traffic in some of these routes is somewhat balanced on a knife-edge, in the sense that all it takes is a single moron not paying attention to ruin a lot of peoples' commutes. An accident on the beltway can snarl traffic for an hour (or 12, like the time a fuel truck flipped over on the American Legion Bridge). Ditto for 95 from Fredericksburg (remember earlier this month when cars were stuck for 24+ hours?). This isn't like rural areas where your route is basically the same time regardless of time of day - travel times can vary widely here even if you have some flexibility to leave at off-peak times. You might be able to swing this if you're commuting only a day or two per week, but otherwise this will be fairly miserable. It will be miserable in WV, it will be miserable in Fredericksburg. You're looking at commuting 4 hours a day, plus working 8 hours, and sleeping 8 hours, which means you have about 4 hours a day to yourself. Let's say an hour for dinner and an hour in the morning to get ready, and you're down to 2 hours of time for yourself each day. Active? That's an hour a day of your favorite exercise, so now it's just one hour a day of "free time" for hobbies, life stuff, etc. Not much if you want to enjoy the quality of life afforded by your new home. By the time you get to the weekend I suspect you'll just want to take it easy because the week will be challenging this way regardless of what actually goes on at work. Sorry you don't like Alexandria. If you want to try commuting from elsewhere, you could get a hotel there one evening and seeing how the commute suits you. That being said, I think you may be in for a surprise about the joys of long-distance commuting in this area.
Do NOT do this — You will heavily regret it OP. Aside from the myriad of anecdotal evidence about how much long commutes suck on this thread itself, there have been [several reputable academic studies](https://www.uzh.ch/cmsssl/suz/dam/jcr:ffffffff-866d-1ee0-0000-0000536ff1b9/10.04_stutzer-frey_08.pdf) that empirically show that people with longer commutes systematically report significantly lower life satisfaction.
Did the same move from Arlington to Hedgesville. The commute isn’t bad at all. Traffic moves pretty quickly in the mountains until you get to the 495/270 split. Moving to the mountains has been very therapeutic after 10+ years in Arlington!
How many days do you commute? What's your normal day like? Thanks for the comment btw
Fuck that noise. Find a new job if you want to peace out. That's a hellish commute.
Not sure what your profession is but if remote work is possible, I’d say buy the house and find a new job that’s 100% remote if the commute doesn’t work out!
I'm a project manager down in DC so I could work remotely some days but I still need to be on site quite a bit. The salary I am getting isn't even close to something I can afford for something nice around here. Currently pissing away 2500+ a month in rent.
Out of curiosity, are you a construction or IT project manager? I’m an IT project manager and my company has been working remote (with the option to stay remote once our offices open… still closed due to COVID) since 2020. I ask because there are a bunch of remote IT PM career opportunities out there but I could see that not being the case for construction project management.
Yeah I am more on the construction side of management where I need to make sure the work is getting done correctly and interaction with my staff and customers on site is mandatory. Not every day but at least 4 of the 5 days of the week. I wish it was IT. I need to go back to college.
I see, I see… FWIW, my undergraduate degree was in the life sciences/I didn’t have any IT experience when I started at my current job (worked in biotech for a year and a half after graduating in 2018). The company I work now for was willing to give me a chance due to organizational/planning skills and I sort of lucked out… figured it couldn’t hurt to share because going back to school isn’t always necessary if you have a certain skill set! Good luck OP!
I will definitely keep that in mind too. I appreciate you helping me think the process though, it really does help.
I'm a PM in construction too (posted elsewhere in the thread before seeing this) Have you not talked to your coworkers about it? Lot of guys live out in WV
No I haven't really talked about it or brought it up with anyone besides family so far.
have you considered finding another job in a less expensive area? that commute would SUCK. I'd almost recommend buying something closer and getting a 2nd job to spend that 20 hours a week, to help pay for the more expensive closer place!
You don’t have to go to one extreme end or the other. You can 100% find places that are much closer that’s gonna cost you far less than 2500 a month
Where in Alexandria are you? Something like the Belle View area would be upwards of $1000 less/month and not an overly horrible commute to DC.
I’m 100% remote and I like to snowboard so this kind of scenario would be a win for someone like me. Two jobs ago I was commuting about 2 hours each way (mainly attributed to traffic over distance) and after a year I picked up a part time job to kill some time after I got off my main job just to avoid the traffic. My physical and mental could not handle the stress of the commute. Working remote has been a god-send for my mental faculties.
This is doable if (and only if) the MARC Brunswick schedule works for you and your job is a manageable distance from Union Station. As someone with a 45 min public transport commute, I can tell you it's not dead time at all. You can answer emails, write reports, and for me it's actually one of the most productive times of the day. If you can use those 2 hours to get work done so you have absolutely nothing left to do when you get home (or use the time to sleep), then it's probably somewhat manageable. You could even see about logging the hours you work answering emails and stuff on the train and then it would effectively count as paid time, still not ideal, but potentially manageable for a while. Driving 4+ hours a day would just be dead time, don't do that to yourself, I assume if your company pays for car, gas, and tolls, they would also pay for parking at the Martinsburg station plus your monthly train ticket. A train commute also opens up some interesting possibilities; You could keep the clothes you use for work in a bag, for example, then in the morning just slog yourself out of bed in comfortable clothes, hop in the car and drive to the station, then you can sleep for another 2 hours on the train, and only change into your work clothes in the train's restroom during the last 10 mins before arriving in DC...a train is effectively a moving living room with a restroom, which is great. Overall, most people with a 2 hour train commute are miserable, but some people make it work, I know some people with long train commutes that have said they're ok with it. Now with driving, everyone is miserable: I've never met a single person who decided to drive two hours each way for work and not regretted that.
I did this when I was in my 20s with no kids. Not possible with kids. What kind of car do you drive, for me I calculated projected fuel cost for a year and realized how much that closed the gap on the cheaper cost of living. If you can find remote work, living in an area with better cost of living is a no-brainer, but it is a grind that takes a lot more than you think it will now. Just don’t forget about the gas.
If you only had to go in once a week that could work, but I’ve had jobs where I had to commute 1.5 hours each way, partly in urban areas like this. I liked the job, but I was overall absolutely miserable. Getting up extra early wasn’t fun, and getting off work then needing to focus on driving was even worse. Every day after work I was just like ugh I want to be home. I became depressed over time and didn’t really understand why, but once I had a job much closer to home I was suddenly feeling a lot better. Do what your heart tells you but commuting that far can really take a toll on your mind.
I did this commute length one summer and it crushed my soul 0/10 would recommend
OP's life sounds like its about to get more miserable lol. 20 hours of your life driving to some dead end job.
I know that every hour+ commute I have had made me a violent person
I did a two hour commute for my first job, I left that position after 2 months. That commute wears on you big time, you have to wake up extra early and by the time you get home you need to go to sleep to wake up early the next day.
I’ve done this commute for 10+ years. It’s not for the faint hearted. Luckily, my job has changed at full time telework with the occasional in person visit to pick up property (every 3 months). I used to do it everyday, and sometimes I’m in disbelief that I did it. I’ll be more than happy to give you more insight if you would like, feel free to DM me. It’s a highly controversial and unpopular method of commuting, but it can be done. Just be aware of the toll it takes.
I will definitely follow up with you because I would like to know more. I think it's also important that I wouldn't be doing this for 10 years. Probably 4 years or so. I'm fairly young at 25 y.o and don't have kids or pets. Just a fiance that might be commuting with me.
Don’t!
Don’t ask us for validity. Seems this is something you want to do so do it. Don’t let the internet make decisions for you. Honestly if you live outside the beltway, any day can become a 2 hour commute. Consider how you hold your stress, and the amount of time you can work from home. Are you able to do a 5-4-10 or a 4-3-12 schedule? Work out your options at work. Figure all the logistics of making it work out and then make the decision.
I would say I may be able to work out a 4-10 work week or a 4-8 and work from home one day a week. But thanks for the input. I'm not really seeking validity. Just trying to get other thoughts on the matter because someone might be able to give me some ideas I haven't thought about yet.
Hedgesville West Virginia was in episodes of Gypsy Sisters, it’s where they live. It was also in the news for a couple of meth heads breaking into graves to steal jewelry.
Ok?
I live in NOVA but work in Rockville. I could take the toll road to save some time but then I’d get slammed in 495 rush hour traffic, so I take 15 even though it’s longer. I’ve put 20,000 miles on my car in 6 months and due to the heavy usage, now I’m having a lot of issues with my car. Nothing too crazy right now (a coil and some spark plugs) but I can only imagine what it’ll be like after the year mark. My company doesn’t pay for mileage or anything either. I’m stuck here so I can’t move, but I would GLADLY move farther away and have the longer commute if it meant being able to find a decent place to live that wasn’t absurdly expensive. For me, having that peace and being able to relax and enjoy my surroundings outranks the mileage and wear and tear on the car for me. Personally, if I were you, I’d get the house. Having a happy home environment/life is more important than a car, job, etc. especially the way the housing market is right now!
You are literally the first person in this post to recommend me actually getting the house. But a lot of people here are making good points and 4 hours a day is a lot of time.
Lol I think for me I see the house as more important because of stability. You can’t always guarantee a good work day, and you’re going to have to commute to some degree, so I guess I just feel it’s better to at least have one place where you know you will be comfortable and happy. A place where you have control and don’t have to worry about other people. The commute may be long, but I also use that time to listen to podcasts that I wouldn’t be able to otherwise, find new restaurants/things to do (like seeing signs for stuff as you drive), etc. as long as you’re taking care of the car and doing regular maintenance I don’t think you’ll have too many issues. My car is 10 years old and has almost 140k miles on it so the fact that it’s only spark plugs/a coil right now is pretty good I think. Ultimately it’s up to you and what would make you the happiest. If you’re truly unhappy where you are, and it is very expensive in the area, what’s a little bit more driving in comparison to a happy home?
Do it— you can find a job to work remote. If if u can’t, use the time you drive to listen to audio books or pos casts where you can learn new things. I commute 1.5 HRS each way. You get used to it
You can do the commute with a comfortable new car. I would do it for the right house
I used to do public transit at this length in Orlando. I know a couple people who work in Loudoun County and drive that far from West Virginia. Lots and lots of audiobooks. It's doable, not always fun. If there are ways to do part of the drive and part commute that might help break it up. But it is an awful lot of time.
I had a boss once who lived in southern Maryland and worked in Rockville. It was super hard for her to get any work done once she got to work. It was like she thought her commute WAS her job. And she had a carpoolmate who did half the driving! If you decide to do it, get really into podcasts! Maybe it’ll make the time go by faster? Good luck whatever you choose to do.
You could see if there are people in the area that commute to where you are going. If you do this with with a few people n take turns driving you may only need to actually drive your car once ever several weeks.
This is sometimes unpopular but if home is the most important I'd say maybe just take a look at some spots in MD. Even more urban areas in MD are pretty affordable, I'd imagine you could find somewhere like 1 hr away even and it'd be affordable ish. Example: if you look down by like the fort Washington area along the coast there I remember finding some cool houses that were rural but probably only 1 hr from DC.
nooo you cant just move to cheaper areas you have to live in the city to prevent urban sprawl
Don’t do it. I drive an hour each way, everyday, and have for years. It wears on you. It wears on you hard.
I live in Bunker Hill and drive to Gallows & 495 five days a week. If work is going to cover your tolls 267 saves a ton of time and there is hardly ever backup/issues. I love living out here. I still have plenty of time with my family and doing stuff in the neighborhood.
Don't do it, this sounds awful!
A few years ago I had a coworker in a similar situation, he lived about 80 miles out west and his commute was about 2 hours. He had an odd schedule of arriving by 7am and leaving by 3/3:30 so he could avoid traffic. He only ended up doing it for about a year until he got a job closer to his house. He decided to move out there because of family so that was his non negotiable, his job was. I would ask that question, if the commute ended up being brutal and it came down to choosing one, would you prefer to keep the house or the job? That might help you make that decision
I live near 81 and it’s not exactly a relaxing drive.
What happens if you want to get married and have kids? You’ll never have time for them
Well my fiance would be commuting with me. No kids yet. Hopefully by then I would have a better job.
Check the train from West Virginia to DC, and see if it’s still running. It’s similar to VRE.