UKC

Encouraged by house prices and the proximity to good climbing, I'm very tempted to sack off London and move up to the Peak in the next couple of years. The catch is that I'm self-employed and my clients are almost exclusively based in London, with little opportunity for finding new clients elsewhere other than some Manchester-based work.

Does anyone have any experience of regularly commuting such a long distance? I imagine it'll get old fairly quickly - but then again, I already do the same drive in reverse nearly weekly to go climbing. Any advice, anyone?

To clarify, I'm not talking about a daily driver down the M1, but probably weekly, twice-weekly. If I do it I'd probably also get myself a small camper to avoid spending my yearly earnings on hotels (I have a good and legal parking spot that I can use in London). I'm on this fence about whether it's worth it, but equally I'd much rather buy a house in a place I like rather than a tiny studio somewhere I don't like for the same money.

In reply to tehmarks:


I don't suppose it's a decision you can't undo, in the end I guess it'll cost time and money if you decide it's not the right choice, but tiny flats in urban areas aren't always the best places to live.

In reply to tehmarks:

It will work even better if you can bunch your work into say 3 days ( leaving a 4 day weekend,, yoh! ).

In reply to tehmarks:
Not what you're planning, but Mick Fowler catches the 6am train to London each morning from his Derbyshire (iirc) home, and wrote much of a book on his commuting back and forth.

In reply to tehmarks:

I worked in Hemel for a year, living in Blackpool. The driving was pretty brutal, particularly in the winter. Had a few near misses that made me question whether it was worth it. I needed to be on site before 8am so was getting up about 3am on Monday morning. After a while, I reverted to leaving at 11pm on Sunday night and getting some kip once I got down there. I had a room in a houseshare.

The drive back on Friday isn't too good, but that's identical to a drive to climb. M6 toll tag helped with the queues.

I did a few weeks using the train, booking well in advance, sometimes 1st class for similar price. Friday night sat on the carriage floor isn't great.

Drinking with workmates on Thursday night is very tempting. Instant regret on Friday afternoon.

My only advice would be to try and engineer avoiding busy times to travel. Get creative with travel plans to avoid hours on the M1/M6. I've flown places from London airports midweek and met people at the destination, avoiding the trip home first. If the weather looks wet for the weekend, just stay down south and take time off when it's dry.

In reply to tehmarks:



I spent a few years living in Glossop and working two days a week - usually Thursday/Friday - in central London, back in the 90s, and then in 2002, I spent a year living in Edinburgh working week-on, week-off in Oxford. Both were shit, particularly in the winter, when all the drives were done in the dark. It's really not something I'd recommend - it gets very tiring, and is very disruptive to any kind of social life.

In reply to sbc23:


Dare I ask why you opted to work somewhere shit (I grew up in Hemel, unfortunately) and travel a lot, to live somewhere only marginally less shit? I could understand living in the Lakes/Peak/Bristol/South Wales and commuting to the outskirts of London, so intrigued as to why you opted for this combo. Or have I missed something about Blackpool?

In reply to ianstevens:

I actually live in a nice village outside Blackpool in a house that I bought in 2003 for not very much. It earnt more than me for quite a few years.

I got a nice break aged 25 with a contractor I was working for and was lead engineer on Chill Factor e at Trafford park in 2006/7. After that I had the choice of maybe building a Debenhams in Bury (a job we subsequently lost) or building the Snow Centre in Hemel with a 10k subsistence allowance. I chose that, got a £50 a week house share and had a lot of holidays.

In reply to tony:

I guess it would depend on the days commuted on - mid week days might be less disruptive? Driving during the winter dark must be grim.

In reply to Rick Graham:

In the busy times I can almost guarantee to be working full weeks - but unfortunately there is also quite a bit of odd days, days with gaps, and other less ideal situations. I think if I can get myself some more Manchester work it'll be a serious option.

In reply to tehmarks:

I live on the edge of Sheffield and run an IT company in Kent. I quite lucky as I can work from home but have to go back to Kent for meetings etc. I normally book all my meetings etc in for two or three days every other week.I have been doing it for nearly 5 years now.

I don't find the drive to bad as long as you pick the right times to travel, but having said that when it you get caught up in an accident/hold up it can double your journey time.

I sold my 1 bed flat and we got a 3 bed house, we spend more time outdoors and climbing loads, it's definately been the right choice for us.

In reply to tehmarks:
Coming up here, nicking our houses and trying to nick our work. You want your cake and eat it like most fromt south!

In reply to Dave the Rave:

I'm from Newcastle (the one way up by the border).

In reply to tehmarks:


Scotch then?
Coming down south, nicking our houses, work and women, with y sexy Geordie accents?

In reply to Dave the Rave:

Just a few miles short of skirt-wearing, sadly.

Move to Chesterfield, find a climbing lodger, be happy. It sounds like such a great plan, I think it more than offsets the increased travel compared to living down here, being miles away from climbing and generally unhappy.

In reply to sbc23:


Sounds very nice! I seem to recall that outside of the main city it did seem quite pleasant.


Makes sense! And must have been an interesting project to work on I'd imagine?

In reply to tehmarks:

I do something similar with a 4-4.5 hour, 200 mile, gap between where I spend weekends renovating my house and where I work and sleep in the camper during the week and climb and so on. I'm only doing it temporarily and not every weekend but even so I could see it further. Though I suppose you are doing about an hour less each way...
If I signed up for this on an open-ended and every week basis, it would drive me mad and I'd crack. But I suppose it all depends on how you personally live your life.

It terms of expense, it's also worth bearing in mind that it probably costs you £100 a week if you do that commute twice in the week and on a cumulative basis over a year that is a hell of a lot of fuel money.
What happens if you look at it a different way:
Train hard at indoor walls in London, live out of your van full time and put the fuel and rent money you saved into a climbing kitty and just spend 3 or 4 months of every year road tripping and climbing all over and only 8 or 9 months working.
You can get away with £500 a month if you budget carefully on a van trip.

In reply to henwardian:

I don't think I could live out of a van full-time; I currently live on a narrowboat on the Grand Union (got bored of paying rent, figured I may as well spend an equivalent amount of money on a loan for something I can sell in the end), and even that is slowly driving me crazy. I also can't disappear for long periods as my clients have quite short memories - if I go away for several months at a time I'd quickly find that the phone stops ringing.

I suppose I can get a flavour for how I'd cope by basing myself on the Peak Forest canal for a while and see how that pans out.

In reply to ianstevens:


Blackpool and the surrounding area (Fylde) has some of the sharpest divides between nice and not so nice. It's getting worse. I've seen a 74 bedroom hotel, with ballroom, above the cliffs on the promenade sell for less than a 4 bed semi in Lytham. Some property prices in central blackpool are lower now than in 1989.

http://vis.oobrien.com/booth/

I grew up in a 10th percentile area and now live in a 90th percentile area. In 2003, the house cost maybe 10% more than in the town. Different and sad picture now.

In reply to tehmarks:



Leg it back to somewhere near sanity and milk the southerners for their money? Sounds a good plan, but everything comes with a cost. At least on you're journey back you will be going north which is always a bonus.

In reply to sbc23:

According to that map I'm on a 'deprived' scale rather than 'Least deprived' despite owning a house which I'll admit is worth more than a million. Bizarre!

In reply to Indy:

Are you sure it didn't say depraved?