The next time you are stuck in traffic on your way home from work, cursing your commute, and every red light, consider that, for some Americans, getting to work involves catching a flight.
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It’s called “supercommuting,” and it’s just what it sounds like, working and living in areas that are hours apart, sometimes requiring flights to clock in for a shift.
Take Memwanesha Daniels, a self-described “bicoastal nurse” who supercommutes from Jacksonville, Fla., to the San Francisco Bay Area. In a recent CNBC report, Daniels says that by supercommuting to the Bay Area, she is able to make three times what she would make in Florida (1).
“It’s very lucrative,” she told CNBC. “This is a retirement plan for me.”
Daniels has also acquired an online following and appears to be a budding influencer. On her YouTube channel she promises “nurse life & pay transparency, bicoastal living & travel hacks, lifestyle content, and event recaps and collabs” (2).
Flying to work
For Daniels, getting to work on a usual day means hopping a flight leaving Jacksonville between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., landing in the Bay Area between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. local time. She tells CNBC that she rents an apartment in Oakland, which costs about $1,300 a month. She says her flights, typically two round trips per month, come in at around $500.
The length of time she stays in California varies, sometimes she works a few days at a time, and other times she will stay for up to two weeks. Daniels prioritizes night and weekend 12-hour shifts, which pay more; she says she makes more than $100 an hour for these shifts. She said she has made $25,000 a month by working these shifts and doing overtime, which totaled about 16 shifts a month.
“Paying an extra $2,000 a month to make three times the amount I would make in Florida is very much worth it,” Daniels told CNBC.
Daniels says she misses her three kids and her boyfriend, but she says it seems like she is more affected than the kids: “I’m the one crying like, ‘Oh, I miss my family’ and they are just fine,” she told CNBC. “They don’t care because they’re used to it.”
She also said that when she is back home with her family, she is able to be “fully clocked out of work.”
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Commuting by the numbers
According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the mean time that Americans spent commuting one way to work in 2024 was 27.2 minutes.
The percentage of workers who had a one-way commute time of an hour or more was 9.3%.
Close to 70% of workers drove to work alone. People who took public transit made up only 3.7%; 2.4% of people walked; 0.5% cycled; 9.2% carpooled; and 1.7% used other means (taxi, motorcycle or other). The rest, 13.3% of workers, worked from home in 2024.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2025, subsidized commuting — an employee benefit that covers all or part of the cost of the commute to work — was available to 10% of private-industry workers.
If you are considering a job, you will likely factor in how long the commute is when you’re making your decision. Remember that not only are there costs associated with whatever mode of transportation you use, but also costs in the sense of how much time you lose to your commute.
LendingTree analyzed the cost of time lost due to commuting, using 2023 Census Bureau data, and found that the average commute to work costs the average American $9,470 in lost time a year (3).
Some employers have rolled back work-from-home provisions that became common during the pandemic, and the number of Americans working from home in 2024, 13.3%, is a drop from 2023, when 13.8% of people worked from home. If you are considering a new job, it can be well worth trying to negotiate a hybrid schedule, or prioritizing employers that offer a hybrid schedule when you are searching. Calculate how much working from home two days a week can save you.
If you aren’t sure whether your transportation costs are taking too big a bite out of your budget, review your average monthly spending, and figure out the percentage that transportation makes up. According to Bureau of Transportation Statistics data on average household spending, in 2023, U.S. households spent an average of $13,174 on transportation, which was 17% of household expenditures.
If you aren’t able to work from home, but are looking for ways to cut costs on your commute, consider whether you can opt to take transit, even one day a week, to save on fuel and wear and tear on your vehicle. Also, keeping your vehicle maintained and checking your tire pressure can mean savings in the long term; the U.S. Department of Energy says that you can improve your gas mileage by up to 3% in some cases by keeping your tires properly inflated.
Extreme commuting, like bicoastal nurse Memwanesha Daniels, is not for everyone. However, for those whose lifestyle can allow for a supercommute, the costs and time can be worth it if your income will be significantly higher working afar. For the rest of us, keeping transportation costs workable within a monthly budget might make more sense than booking a flight to get to the office.
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Article sources
We rely only on vetted sources and credible third-party reporting. For details, see our editorial ethics and guidelines.
CNBC (1); @NurseMemwa/YouTube (2); LendingTree (3)
This article provides information only and should not be construed as advice. It is provided without warranty of any kind.