Commuting Distance

[greenmonkey51]

I'm making a move and transferring out my current office in a small town. I love the work and the office dynamics, but being young and single in a small town sucks. I'm going to an office with a great supervisor and decent work. The dilemma is living where the office is, which is a town of about 10K. Not a great town, but doable. Or I can drive 30 minutes and live in a town of about 100K which would have everything you want. In addition I'd be a little over a hour away from the Twin Cities. Can anybody give their experiences on commuting. I'm making the change mainly for quality of life so I want to maximize the change.

[teachercd]

I'm making a move and transferring out my current office in a small town. I love the work and the office dynamics, but being young and single in a small town sucks. I'm going to an office with a great supervisor and decent work. The dilemma is living where the office is, which is a town of about 10K. Not a great town, but doable. Or I can drive 30 minutes and live in a town of about 100K which would have everything you want. In addition I'd be a little over a hour away from the Twin Cities. Can anybody give their experiences on commuting. I'm making the change mainly for quality of life so I want to maximize the change.

As someone that did something a bit similar...if possible...commute.

[ColoradoHusk]

Live in the city of 100K. There will be more things to do in your free time. You would probably get bored living in that small town.

[Moiraine]

Definitely live in the larger town. 30 minutes isn't bad at all.

[The Dude]

I'd personally rather live close to the place I have to go everyday and drive 30 minutes to (whatever that town of 100k has to offer) occasionally. Although 30 minutes is not a bad daily commute.

[husker B-rent]

As the dude said.

[hskerholic]

As some one who lives in Des Moines and drives 30min to work everyday to a small town. I like the commute and I like living in the bigger city. Having to drive 30 min after going out with friends is not something I would really like doing. Live in the big city and commute.

[BigRedBuster]

Rent a place in the big town and try it. If you hate the commute it's easy to move.

 

If you are single and that's a main reason for the move, you probably will appreciate the larger town.

 

If you like the job and find a wife, you can always move to the smaller town to raise your family.

 

Your single social life is going to be where you live.

 

When I was younger, I commuted an hour each way. I was glad I did.

[teachercd]

I used to like the commute I had...It was probably about 25 minutes or so...have some coffee and put in a fat chew (when I chewed) and it was not bad at all

[OH HSKR FAN]

Look at your fuel costs.

 

Is your commute freeway or light filled? Think about wear and tear on your vehicle. Do you want that commute during a winter storm? Things to think about.

 

 

Can you find a place that is halfway?

[JJ Husker]

30 minutes is not what I would consider a "commute". That's simply the small amount of time it takes to drive to work. Heck it usually takes me about 25 minutes to drive across town to my job. I would probably lean towards living in the bigger city but, either way, you're not far from the other. Don't see how you can really go wrong.

[Landlord]

30 minutes is nothing dude. Absolutely go for it.

 

I currently live about 5 minutes from work, which is nice, but I live in a relatively poor suburb of Chicago with hardly any young single people, and I loathe it all the time. Trouble is if I move into the city, my commute would be brutal during normal hours.

[Hedley Lamarr]

Sounds like a few of you need to join christianmingle.com

[The Dude]

30 minutes each way offers a fantastic opportunity to listen to listen music or audio books you might not otherwise find time for, without it cutting too much into your day.

[icedavis]

I've had Twin Cities commutes of 45 minutes and 35 minutes (all highway) and for me, it wasn't worth it...I grew up in a smaller SD town and much prefer to live closer to my daily activities. I was driving into the city from Waconia. I spent a lot of time in the city for work and various activities across the metro, which meant a TON of time on the road. This naturally means a lot of money spent on gas and wear and tear on your car. Gas isn't so much of an issue right now but I was doing that during the $4/gallon times...woof. Traffic on the first snow of the year and then the heavier snowfalls is completely mental.

I've stuggled with mental health issues for a number of years now and being in traffic that long and that much is very stressful and definitely doesn't help relieve those issues. I realized too that was a lot of wasted life hours on the road each week that i would rather spend elsewhere to improve my quality of life. So naturally this was a big influence to move closer.

Another big thing was that the southwest metro is growing south and westward like crazy and people are pushing to drive longer and longer distances. Not that it's a bad thing if they are cool with it...but this was putting a lot of strain on the network of roads I was driving and drivers were getting VERY aggressive and VERY VERY risky. I am talking, i witnessed a single car attempt to make 3 separate passing attempts of 2-4 cars per attempt, on a two lane road, in some of the most obvious, worst possible "no passing" places, in about a 5 mile span. two of the three times the car was playing chicken with on-coming traffic, running one car off the road and almost colliding head on with a garbage truck. This was the worst I saw but there is no doubt that overall traffic had gotten significantly worse in a short time and seeing that was the nail in the coffin for me.

I still spend a great deal of time in traffic driving around the metro for activities but on a far less regular basis and typically non-rush hour type traffic too. It helps that i was able to move closer to work and then shortly after, work moved me to a "work from home" status too.

For you though, you would be going the opposite direction of nearly all commuters and doing it from a Rochester to a smaller sized city makes it a lot easier relatively speaking. 30 minutes isn't much for Twin Cities standards but might start to be on the long side for those smaller areas. Being closer to more activities the bigger city can provide is always a plus but like The Dude, I prefer to be closer to the places I have to go to daily. I like the suggestion someone above said of renting a place in the bigger city and trying it out. After a year you can re-evaluate and re-locate if necessary.