What's a long drive for you?

Tereza just posted about commuting over in the new careers thread and it got me thinking: https://permies.com/t/379963/Career#3841919

I mostly grew up in and around St. Louis, Missouri after spending my childhood in southern California. From that background, the idea of driving an hour each way to work was within the range of normal, but something I find quite taxing over time. But on the other hand, getting in the car on a whim and driving a thousand miles to go see something cool was perfectly reasonable behavior. And my honeymoon in 1997 was a 6700 mile road-trip over 17 days.

In the summer of 1999, I moved from Columbia, Missouri into the orbit of Princeton, New Jersey and by the new year I had a job where I was getting to know locals. It turns out, in New Jersey, commutes of an hour are short and I knew people who commuted two hours -- each way, every day, day after day, for years. Simultaneously, just about every one of my work peers wanted to go to Florida for vacation (for whatever reason) and they all thought driving was literally crazy.

This was sort of simultaneously profound and trivial as far as culture clashes go.

I've moved back to the Midwest US and have been in Minnesota for over twenty years. And I'm personally still where I was as a 'kid'. If my wife wanted to circle-tour the great lakes next week, I'd get an oil change and we'd go. It's a ten hour drive to see my dad or her mom in Missouri and we'll have done that three times by the time this year is over...no biggie. I could work in Duluth and drive half an hour each way, but when I have to drive to my current job in the Twin Cities (2-3 times a year) it's about 2.5 hours each way and a real drag.

Commutes and road trips just occupy completely different niches in my brain.

How is this for you?

(ETA: Oh, and when I was young I spent a couple of years driving cars around town -- as a courier and later delivering pizza. That was a fine way to spend my time though I might not think so now. And it's different than either commuting or road-tripping.)

...I grew up mostly in New Jersey. My father bought land on the western border with PA and drove into NYC for a time (90 minutes or more, depending on traffic)-- to drive a truck. I guess for him, since he literally drove all day, it was all the same.

I lived in Rhode Island for a bit, where you can literally reach every point in the state in an hour's drive. People would squawk about how something the next town over was too far! I had a commute of maybe 25 minutes and it was great.

More recently, I used to do client visits and while it wasn't far, traffic here is brutal and i would easily spend 3-4 hours driving each day. I got to know my city really well, but it was horrible (and it was mostly sitting in traffic getting stressed, not seeing gorgeous scenery). I was so relieved to leave that job and work at home, I feel like it affected my health.

Like you say, on the other hand I enjoy driving when I travel- I consider 5-6 hour drives normal (visiting my mother in law takes about that long, we do it every month or so) but most of my peers think I'm insane. I fly the same route for work every so often and it probably takes longer, between airport security, ubers, etc. I'd rather drive.
I've also done some much longer drives, 6+10 hours to get to a national park, another one was 12 hours, most of these trips I've driven because there were good stops on the way.
But when I was a kid we drove from NY to Florida several times, in college I drove from NY to Detroit, Detroit to Tennessee, it was normal.

Great question.  I notice that you used two different measures…. One of miles and the other of time. Both are valid .  But, a one hour trip here in southern Illinois gets me 50 miles or more.  A one hour trip in Detroit might get me less than 10 miles.

In the past 3 years, my longest trip was about 100 miles one way  (which I make around 6 times a year) .  Going back 10 years ago, I thought nothing about hopping in my car and driving 500 miles one way  (a trip I might make 3 times a month.  

So, for long  trip… I guess that now a round trip of 400 miles would be something I would have to seriously plan for.  10 years ago I drove 2400  miles round trip. I considered that long at the time.

Given that Permies.com is a site with international members and traffic, I'm looking forward to input from those raised in other cultures.

Admittedly, I take a 'selectionist' view of US travel habits even as this is not exclusive to the US.  For sure, there will be many who either are or were decended from European and other immigrants who are quite comfortable not having travelled more than 30 - 40 miles from where they were born.  But the 'founder effect'.....that of a founding population that largely saw emmigration and relocation as expedient in problem solving....has left us with the modern day 'travel bug' which we satiate with driving and flying to far-off destinations.  Just a personal pondering at any rate....

I do think this yardstick changes in each individual over time, but not for all.  My wife and a friend of hers are of roughtly equal age.  Wife traveled much more than I did the world over and now in her mid-70s can't imagine driving more than an hour for anything.  Her friend did a roughly equal amount of traveling in her youth and still does this by road or plane.  I was raised with a disdain for staying near home....wherever the 'good job' was, that's where you go.  What started out as family vacations by car of a few hundred miles each way transitioned to early adult days of driving across the US many times for college as well as for visiting friends.  Even if this was done solo, it did not really feel like a challenge or exhausting but with a car full of friends it became an adventure....and often a social experiment to boot! ;-)

So a trip that would involve camping night stops and full day driving for several days was pretty standard in my late teens and into early 30s.  Now, I chafe at having to drive into anything resembling 'rush hour'.  The last time I visited a friend a few years back in Los Angeles I could not help but think how corrosive the experience must be to the mind as well as the soul, but adaptation is what we are known for.  Finally, in the past the very thought of being a home-body on a homestead would have seemed quite imprisoning.  I'm relieved with entering the autumn years and retirement that months can go by now without the grip of wanderlust grabbing hold.

John Weiland wrote:...quite comfortable not having travelled more than 30 - 40 miles from where they were born.

Oh, that reminds me of another thing. At that job I got in New Jersey, my immediate supervisor (who became a friend and we're still in touch) was in the process of moving from the *county* in which he was born and resided for 35 years to the next county over and was finding it stressful because he was having to question who he really is now. It was dumbfounding to me. I had lived on two continents, on both coasts of the US, and in four US states at that point. (I lived in four counties just going to college.)

Hi Christopher,

In the late 80s I was speaking to a girl who commented “I’m not from around here”.        It turned out she was born and lived 12 miles away.

The thought of commuting 2 hours for work is mind numbing to me. 4 hours a day? What a lot of time out of one's life!! The longest commute I've had was about 15 miles I think. I did cycle it once or twice, but it took just a bit too long for me. My husband had a longer commute which took probably 45 minutes, including motorway driving.
If a journey for a family visit took longer than three hours I'd expect an overnight stay somewhere (although did drive that sort of distance visiting suppliers for work sometimes). We used to drive on holidays, usually in the UK, but did drive to Austria once for a skiing trip.

These days my world has shrunk and I have a lovely 20 minute commute walking about a mile to my shop. I rarely leave the glen, and consider the 30 miles to the island capital village quite enough driving thank you very much! I do drive further on occasion, but don't really feel comfortable driving for more than about 3 hours. My husband still loves to drive (although rarely) and will think little of driving South 12 hours or more.

A long drive to me is just going to buy gasoline as the nearest gas station which is a 60 mile trip.

We just got back from a doctors appointment and that was a 200 mile trip.

Going to the mail box is a 7 miles trip.

As you say in the OP, much seems to depend on the purpose for the drive, and one's attitude about it. So far, I've lived a little under 1/2 of my life in rural areas, so long drives are expected, but their purpose is what decides whether it's 'a necessary evil' or a joy - or mixed. We also both used to drive trucks - I drove a dedicated route in the Chicago area, John was over-the-road, so our thoughts on it might be different than most folks. I despise city driving. But, don't mind, and often truly love rural driving, depending on why I'm on the road.

An example we live now, is we make a monthly 2hr (each way) drive for necessary things that make our lives much healthier and comfortable, but, it's also physical & exhausting. But the pros outweigh the cons, especially since on the way home, we also usually get to stop and visit a friend we wouldn't otherwise get to see more than once a year - if that.

But, a 30 to 60 minute drive, each way, is just the product of living where we are, and we even try to limit the frequency of those trips to only 2 or 3/month, consolidating our trips in any given direction, to accomplish it.

Truly long trips - for us, that means anything over 3 or 4 hours, and we are looking for a place to spend the night, where we can take all 3 dogs. That gets pricey, but it's what we do for weddings and funerals (all our family are at minimum 5.5hrs away), and occasionally, for buying or selling livestock. Again though - how we feel about it always depends on the purpose of the drive. We're also both retired, so commuting for work isn't an issue for us.

I drive cross-country in the winter to visit family and friends, then through the southern US on a "work tour" on the way back home.

For days reserved exclusively for travel, I plot out a route between where I am and the next stop to be at least 400 miles. That way, I'm usually done driving before sundown. Also, I personally consider it far enough to make me think I did a decent amount of travel for the day, and I'm not so burned-out by the experience that I won't want to wake up the next day, just to drive some more.

In terms of time, it's highly-variable. My typical day of driving ranges somewhere between 7 to 9 hours.

I race motorcycles and a 800km to 1000km drive for a race weekend was pretty normal.
3000km was a big trip!

John, are those figures the drive to get to the race, or the length of the motorcycle race?

For me, any ordinary "utility" drive over 30 minutes is bloody annoying. This is dead time I could use accomplishing more. (This is 30 min. at 100-110 kph, a 60 minute round trip.)

3-4 hour drives to family events or camping in the mountains are an infrequent beast, but worth it. The biggest challenge is dodging crazy people at 120 kph who don't understand driving is by far the most dangerous thing any of us do.

Christopher, the 1000km is the distance to the track.

Right now is the shortest commute I have ever had—5 minutes on a good day!  Does that even count as a commute?  And even though I live so, my house seems to live far away from school, over twisting roads and up & down hills.  It’s pretty nice.

For a seven month period back in 1995 I drove 45 minutes over the flat, flat plains of Central Illinois to and from a job in retail management—a job I hated, the color of my dreams literally faded from bright technicolor to what looked like a faded color picture from the 70s to eventually black and white.  It felt like my soul was dripping away on every single one of those minutes that I drove to work.  And instead of feeling relieved on my way home, I was consumed by the fact that I just had to do it again the next day.  That 45 minutes felt like it was killing me slowly.

From there I went back to school and my commute to school/work was about 20-25 minutes.  Even though that was a chunk of the time that I was driving to retail management just months prior, I looked forward to it, the drive focused my thoughts and I generally enjoyed the drive.

I suppose that 45 minutes was too much, but that is highly contingent on my destination.  If I was looking forward to being at work, I liked the drive time.


Eric

Used to commute 30 miles/30 min one way to work.  Traffic usually wasn’t too bad, and I think the quiet time was actually good for me in some way.  Even in an economy car, it consumed a ton of fuel, tires, oil, etc.  Can’t believe the expense people incur doing long commutes in larger vehicles.

It is around 20 miles round trip to the nearest town.  I try not to go unless I have 3-4 errands to do.  My wife doesn’t mind doing it 2-3x a day. I’d be happy if it was one time a week.  

I do love a good road trip and have done them, on average, 1-2x a year my entire life. 3k miles is routine to visit some family.  Longest was over 8k miles.  I’d do even more, but my wife gets a bit burned out on them.

Gray,  the time, miles and money spent on my car were never far from my mind, especially as I was going to school, working part (almost full) time and paying for every penny.  My car was getting to what I thought was up there in miles and I was mildly terrified of a breakdown (turns out the car had plenty miles left but I didn’t know that).

But just knowing that I liked what I was going to be doing made the morning drive a sort of calming pick-me-up.


Eric

my .02 of drivel

road trips are fun.

all other trips require lobotomy-like attitude from me.  Bike it or walk it if I can, then the old electric, then the petrol...

road trips in petrol

amazing what the mind can put up with for a commute... similar to paper-work: numbing.

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99% of my drives are either 1. ~6 km and back to the local main street of the small city near me (passing the library and my allotment garden going one way or the other,)
or 2. Going to my friend's house ~10 km and back, which happens to go by that same main street, which is useful if I need to couple errands and an outing.

I drive to the "Big City" so infrequently these days, that it's actually a bit stressful. I had some appointments far into it which were actually 30 km each way.

Anyone living in a truly "big city", would think this was simply a typical day! It has been years since I've done a camping trip, which I really miss, but even many of those required more time on a ferry than actual driving!

This is the downside of having a husband who much prefers to drive than to navigate...