It's difficult to read "I've worked out that the travel is exactly the same as the cost of renting in London - so therefore a better option" as anything other than confused or deluded.

Living in London costs the same in terms of money but significantly less in terms of time spent per day?

I found that living in w2 was cheaper because I could travel on a zone 1 bus pass instead of a tube pass. The inner city council tax is also much cheaper than outer suburbs. The trade off was a much smaller place, but this was balanced by proximity to the parks and many places to eat out.

But the real bonus for me was when I scoreda job around the corner and had a five minute walk to work. I had tons of free time others could oly dream about. Of course I understand that people with families need rooms ad schools and the rest.

My time has always been too precious to spend commuting.

I feel that lot of Brits have trouble seeing the bigger picture and focus on one aspect. Commuting is one instance, where people disregard time and only focus on housing costs. That might be overly general, it's my experience of them, though. (I'm English)

Not just Brits. I've known people to commute into Washington, DC, from West Virginia and from Pennsylvania. Back when the housing bubble was going, the NY Times had an article about people commuting into NYC from Pennsylvania.

It depends. If the commute is your "me time" then it can work out. My commute (by train) is my quality reading time for example. Some people like audiobooks. Of course there comes a tipping point.

I can understand trains a bit more: you can do other things. But driving is a slightly active experience, and at least you can sleep in the train if you need to.

Just have some "me time" at home?

Sitting in a car, you can't feel guilty about not doing the laundry / mowing the lawn / painting that fence, so in some ways "me time" can be better in the car. I wouldn't listen to as many podcasts/audiobooks if I didn't have a 1/2 hour commute each way.

There's something enjoyable about being on the train, for some people anyway. Seeing the countryside go past, and meeting a variety of people in an environment where socially it's ok to talk to strangers but also ok if you don't want to.

> socially it's ok to talk to strangers but also ok if you don't want to

I'm guessing you don't live in London, and if you ever visit, please don't start talking to the rest of the passengers.

:)

I do, actually. Even in London it seems like it's ok to talk to strangers on trains (e.g. Thameslink), just not on the tube. Or the overground. It'll be interesting to see what becomes the standard on Crossrail.

Fair enough, I hadn't considered Thameslink: I'm more used to the tube, and would never, ever dare talk to anyone!

Even more confusing: Unless his accommodation in Lancashire is completely free, then living in Ramsbottom and travelling to London is significantly more expensive than just living in London.

I posted this as 6 hours driving (3 hours there and 3 hours back) is a pretty typical time I spend to go skiing at Nevis Range from Edinburgh and after doing that I'm pretty tired the next day and it's not the skiing as I can ski all week in the Alps and not get that same kind of stressed tiredness (even allowing for uplift in Scotland mostly being surface lifts and therefore no chance to sit down).

I'm happy driving 6 hours in a day for something like a day at Nevis Range, which is awesome on a good day, but doing that to get to work, every day - that would kill me!