- Dennis Dabney, 57, makes a regular trip from Texas to Arizona almost every week.
- He said it was the best thing he could have done for his career advancement.
- However, it can be a financial burden, and it can be difficult to be away from family.
Dennis Dabney, 57, is no stranger to the world of travel.
After serving 26 years in the Air Force, Dabney started working for his current company in 2016 in Virginia. As a military family, his wife and two children were used to moving around a lot, so when his company asked him three years later to relocate to Fort Worth, Texas, that’s exactly what they did.
Then in 2022, Dabney was offered a promotion within his company to become a program director in Phoenix. Dabney was excited about the opportunity, seeing it as the perfect chance to advance his career and increase his income.
His wife and two teenage daughters However, her children have settled in Fort Worth and do not want to move again, and the same goes for her 88-year-old mother, who lives with her family.
So Dabney made the decision with his family to buy an apartment in Phoenix, live there during the week, and commute to Fort Worth on the weekends.
“I couldn’t have done this without the support of my family and my wife. And that’s been critical to the decisions I’ve made over the years about where to go and where to work,” Dabney told Business Insider.
“You have to keep an open communication with your family because things change, attitudes change, and you have to be able to understand when things are getting out of control or when things are going well,” he said.
Dabney gets a day off from work every Friday, and that’s usually when he chooses to book a 2 ½-hour flight home on a budget airline like Spirit or Frontier. His family also sometimes visits him while he’s in Phoenix. Though he says his company helps him with relocation costs, he estimates the long commute costs him about $20,000 each year.
Supercommuting has grown in popularity over the past few years, with more Americans taking advantage of hybrid work environments to commute longer to work in order to boost their income. The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey data found that, in 2021, 3.1 million Americans falls into the supercommute category, or a commute to work that takes 90 minutes or more.
Dabney loves her job, and while it was hard to be away from her family, she is grateful they allowed her to pursue this opportunity. However, she realizes that it is not possible for everyone.
“It was just my mindset, my background, and how to harness all of that and learn how to create the quality of life that I wanted,” Dabney said. “And it was just a growth and development phase for me in figuring out what I wanted and what art could allow for.”
‘The whole experience was very satisfying’
This isn’t Dabney’s first experience with long-distance travel. Before taking his new job in Phoenix, he drove five hours to Louisiana every week for a different position at his company, and he made sure to come home every weekend to see his family and cheer on his kids at their various sports tournaments.
“There was no point in forcing my kids out of high school to move to Louisiana and then to Phoenix,” Dabney said. “We moved a lot, but once we got to Texas, I got a clear signal from my family that they didn’t want to move anymore.”
Dabney says that if her children were younger, she would never have become a supercommuter. Doing so at this stage in her life has allowed her to become an executive, earn more money to support her family, and find a job that gives her a sense of purpose — helping her feel confident in her decision to work more than a thousand miles away from home.
“The whole experience has been very rewarding,” he said. “Getting to experience living in a different part of the country that I might not have lived in before has also been great.”
Of course, long-distance travel has its drawbacks. Dabney says that airfare and second homes are expensive, and he suggests that those considering long-distance travel be transparent with their employers about negotiating compensation packages that can help offset some of those costs.
He also said that, given his military background, he was used to traveling, but those who perhaps don’t do it often should consider whether they can manage to spend time each week in a car or on a plane.
As BI previously reported, data from Stanford economists Nick Bloom and Alex Finan showed commuting of at least 75 miles increased 32% after the peak of the pandemic, with hybrid work expanding living options.
It’s a signal that more people may start to consider Dabney’s lifestyle — and while he says he has “no regrets,” he warns that those who make the long journey should be fully aware of the implications.
“I think from the company’s perspective, you made a choice not to move your family to any work location, and you made a choice on your own to travel away from your family,” Dabney said. “It took me a long time to realize that they don’t really owe you anything.”
Are you, or were you, a supercommuter? Are you considering supercommuting? Share your story with this reporter at asheffey@businessinsider.com.
