Meet America’s ‘supercommuters’
Is a five-hour journey to work worth it for the money saved on housing? By Daniel Bates
Once every three weeks, Bob Schmidt gets up at 6am to begin his commute to work 260 miles away. He leaves his home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and drives for an hour-and-a-half to Providence, Rhode Island, where he boards a train bound for New York, a journey that takes 3.5 hours.
He then hops on the subway from Penn Station for 30 minutes and he is at his desk on the 77th floor of the World Trade Centre by 11.30am, 5.5 hours later.
Mr Schmidt is one of a growing number of US “supercommuters” who live far from their places of work and undertake epic commutes into big cities from their preferred towns, saving a fortune in rent and living what they say is a better quality of life.
The trend exploded during the Covid-19 pandemic, aided by the widespread availability of video calls and broadband internet, and shows no sign of slowing down. Earlier this year, an article by a Wall Street Journal reporter sparked a fresh wave of interest in the subject. Chip Cutter described saving $3,200 (£2,520) a month commuting from Columbus, Ohio, to New York despite waking up at 4.15am for the 550-mile commute. Mr Schmidt has been living his version of the remote worker dream since mid-2020 when the pandemic and some health problems caused him to re-evaluate his lifestyle.
His business – The Guarantors, which guarantees rent for people such as students who wouldn’t otherwise qualify for a lease – had been growing since 2016 and Mr Schmidt, a married father of two, decided to make a change.
A lifelong New Yorker, he and his wife sold their $1m, 3,400sq ft house and bought a 240-yearold home two-thirds the size for $800,000 in Cape Cod. Since then, he has been travelling into Manhattan for three to four nights every three weeks. The rest of the time he works from a home office. “Before the pandemic I was driving into Manhattan five days a week from the suburbs, an hour and a half each way, so I was used to the commute,” Mr Schmidt says. “But it took a while to figure out the best way to get to New York from the Cape. I tried driving but the traffic was unpredictable and the longest it took was nine hours.
“The best way I settled on was driving and taking the train.” Mr Schmidt (below) says that it costs $350 for a round-trip.
His return leg begins with the 3.56pm train from Penn Station, which gets him to Providence at 7pm and home just before 9pm, assuming all goes well.
In the summer, when JetBlue starts running flights from Cape Cod to New York, Mr Schmidt would consider taking them at a cost of $400 for a round-trip.
“I’d even consider a seaplane, which leaves from close to me and then drops you off at 23rd Street in Manhattan,” Mr Schmidt says
– although at $800 a round trip, it would be a luxury splurge.
Over the years, Mr Schmidt has stayed in different parts of New
York and he loves exploring the city for his three nights in town. The biggest challenge, he says, is finding affordable hotels. He also misses the camaraderie of the office.
But it is worth it for Mr Schmidt, who works out with a personal trainer three days a week, has lunch with his wife most days and enjoys a walk on the beach each afternoon in the summer.
His thoughts are echoed by
Ian Bearce, who spent 10 years commuting for seven hours from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to New York, to his dream job in advertising.
Mr Bearce only stopped because he received an excellent job offer in Minneapolis.
“You can’t get the quality of life in New York that you get here in Minneapolis; unless you’re in a suburb, you’re paying an arm and a leg,” he says. “The cost of housing there is extortionate. My house would be triple the cost within an hour of New York.”
Mr Bearce’s commute began at 4.30am on Mondays, when he woke up and drove to the airport in Minneapolis for a 7am flight to New York. He would take the subway from JFK airport and then arrive at his office at about 11.30am.
He would return on Friday nights. His children were three and two years old when he started commuting but the family made a point of spending quality time together when he was home. Mr Bearce said supercommuting can be “really hard” . Before he took his job in New York, he called a colleague who gave him some advice. “He told me it’s much harder on your spouse than it is on you,” Mr Bearce said. “It’s true, it is harder on the people you leave behind.”
You can’t get the quality of life in New York that you get in Minneapolis... Housing is extortionate