Commute

[Anonymous]

Met a family in San Diego who travels over 2 hours one way so their kid can play on an ECNL team. They said there aren’t any ECNL or GA teams closer to them—just an ECNL RL option within an hour, but they chose the higher level and the long commute instead. Didn’t feel too bad about my 1 hour and 20 minute commute.

[Anonymous]

45 min to an hour each way depending on traffic. DS is now u19. He started with a similar commute at u16. It was 100% his decision. I was very hesitant but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. I ended up really appreciating the extra time together several days a week. I have older kids and at that age they usually ignore you but the car presented wonderful opportunities for conversation. Now he is driving himself and I miss it.

[Anonymous]

30 min

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:45 min to an hour each way depending on traffic. DS is now u19. He started with a similar commute at u16. It was 100% his decision. I was very hesitant but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. I ended up really appreciating the extra time together several days a week. I have older kids and at that age they usually ignore you but the car presented wonderful opportunities for conversation. Now he is driving himself and I miss it.

My days for that are coming. You are right all this trips and time with them, while a lot, they are quality with them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:45 min to an hour each way depending on traffic. DS is now u19. He started with a similar commute at u16. It was 100% his decision. I was very hesitant but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. I ended up really appreciating the extra time together several days a week. I have older kids and at that age they usually ignore you but the car presented wonderful opportunities for conversation. Now he is driving himself and I miss it.

Completely agree. This "forced" time is irreplaceable. We have to pass the time somehow, so it's listening to the radio, working on academics together, playing Wordle/Connections type games that she narrates, etc.

[Anonymous]

Once you get in the car is there really a difference between a 30 inure drive and a 50 minute drive (of course 40 minutes, but doesn’t feel much different)? Either way your night is shot since it is probably too far to come home during practice

[Anonymous]

We practice in 3-4x week different locations. 30 min to 60 min depending on the location if we take the toll road and spend $$$. I don't know how so many people manage this and still have time for work.

[Anonymous]

25 mins each way.
I’m in Burtonsville and all the travel clubs are 25 mins from us unfortunately. I wouldn’t travel an hour each way 3x a week.

[Anonymous]

I’m a PP with a long commute. One thing to consider is tolls. We find it necessary to use toll roads or our commute would be even longer. It’s well over $100 a month just this summer but when regular season starts it will be a minimum of 4 round tips a week. More if we need to take a toll road to a game. Until this year we had no tolls. The time in the car is fine but the tolls are something I wish I’d considered.

[Anonymous]

Over the years, as we've moved up and moved clubs, the commute has gotten longer and longer. Still, maxing around 55min once a week and 30min 2x a week still.

We started 5-10min, and my littlest still does that and it's amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Best advice I received from a Mom of a MLS academy player is to keep all investments low in the early years (before U15). The pressure and sacrifices parents make inevitably turns into pressure on the kids and that is the recipe for them losing the love of the game.

That's some good advice right there. My DS started at a club ~10 minutes away through U13, then moved to one ~40-45 minutes away at U14 and up. Fortunately the longer drive is pretty easy.

[Anonymous]

Bethesda to Leesburg. About 45 minutes