I live in Boston and New York City. Supercommuting is hard, but I'm unwilling to sacrifice my personal or professional life.

04.08.2024 - 11:54 / insider.com

This as-told-to essay has been adapted from a conversation with Sophie Rae , a 27-year-old graphic designer and artist, who lives in both Boston and New York City. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I'm a graphic designer as my paid 9-to-5, and I also freelance graphic design on the side. I've been painting for around 10 years, too. I sell prints and original paintings whenever I can.

I went to school in Boston and stayed there for a couple of years. Then, last spring, I got a career-making job opportunity in New York.

I've always wanted to live in New York. If you're a designer or an artist, it's like a mecca for super creative, talented people.

I was like, "OK, this could be a really good excuse to have that New York moment in my life, in my career."

But my entire family lives in Massachusetts. My boyfriend lives in Boston, and his whole family lives in the surrounding area. All of my friends were there. Most of my personal life is in Boston.

My boyfriend's job is also based in Boston, so he said, "I need to stay here, but this is a great opportunity. We need to figure out how to make this work."

It was just never an option to say no to the job, and it wasn't feasibly an option for us both to move to New York.

I technically relocated to NYC in April 2023, but I travel back and forth between the two lives almost every week.

My company's policy is to be in the office on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, which is nice because everyone gets to be in person and collaborate. On Mondays and Fridays, pretty much everyone is remote.

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I'm typically in the office three days every single week. Right now, my boyfriend and I try to do two weekends in Boston, one weekend a month my boyfriend will come to New York, and then we do one weekend apart. My life situation is a little bit of a supercommuting lifestyle and then also balancing a long-distance relationship.

I only ever take an Amtrak train. There's the regional train, which is about four to five hours or more depending on delays, and then the Acela, a high-speed train. That's three and a half to four hours, which is a lot better, but it's more expensive.

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I try to book all my travel at least three months in advance because that's how far out I can plan my social life.

I've been able to find a ticket one way for about $30, which saves me a ton of money. I'll try to book it out as far as I can, and then if plans change, I just pay the difference later on. It adds up doing that, but it's cheaper than buying a ticket for, say, this coming weekend, which would probably be $400 one way and is just not reasonable.

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