Even before sunrise in Port Ludlow, it was clear why Suzanne Newhouse lives there.
"I ran across it one day and I looked at my daughter and said, this place could make me move," Newhouse said of her home in a new development.
"It's on the water, if you go a couple miles you have cows and horses and goats. It's just beautiful," Newhouse said.
Each morning, Newhouse begins a long commute to Seattle, leaving home at 5:45.
"It's definitely worth the commute. It's a long commute, but it's a very peaceful commute," Newhouse said.
It begins with a drive very different than the two hours she used to spend each way on I-5 in Southern California.
The view is spectacular crossing the Hood Canal Bridge, as Newhouse heads for a parking spot at the Kingston ferry, where she walks on the 6:25 boat to Edmonds, where she switches to the Sounder commuter train leaving at 7:11.
"It's kind of planes, trains and automobiles, right? It's a car, it's a ferry, it's a train," Newhouse said.
She reads on the train ride until arriving at King Street Station.
About two hours after leaving home, she walked in the door of her nearby office.
Newhouse was among the hundreds of people who commented when we posted about extreme commutes on KIRO 7's Facebook page.
Other commute examples people provided included Bellingham to Olympia, Ashford to Renton, Port Angeles to Snoqualmie and Federal Way to Vancouver, B.C.
We also heard about a trip from Harstine Island to Sammamish, and another from Gig Harbor to Friday Harbor, a five-hour trip via Whidbey Island involving two ferries.
Seattle is a commuting destination because jobs pay well and housing is cheaper outside the city.
The Downtown Seattle Association estimates eight percent of downtown workers come from more than 50 miles.
Super commuters are often defined as people who live in one metropolitan area and work in another.
A 2012 New York University study ranked King County as third in the country for the growth of super-commuters.
One such commute is from Cle Elum to Tacoma, which Shawn Emil makes every day.
Emil works as a delivery driver.
After he drove 80 miles for work, KIRO 7 rode along for his 90-mile commute home.
A crash on I-5 put him behind schedule, and on backroads to State Route 18.
The section near Tiger Mountain without center barriers can be downright hairy.
While rain came down on a recent day, crossing Snoqualmie Pass in winter often means snow.
If the weather's really bad, he stays the night on the west side.
"The main goal in my commute is to make it home alive so I can see my kids every day," Emil said.
Emil talked to KIRO 7 a lot about his kids recently during his hour-and-a-half commute each way.
He said he moved to Cle Elum in part so they can be near his mother. He likes the lower cost of living and the smaller schools.
Emil arrived in time to pick up his kids, Audrey and Jesse, at the school bus stop.
They headed home to the place he left 12 hours earlier, at 3:30 a.m., for his extreme commute.
"It's worth it in the end, it's worth it for the kids," Emil said.
Cox Media Group
