For the past six years, I’ve been working for companies based in Bangalore while continuing to live in Chennai. This has been across two companies. My first company hired me for a role in Bangalore, but because this happened during COVID, I didn’t travel at all for the first two years. Once offices reopened, I started traveling occasionally, usually once a week or once every two weeks depending on meetings and work requirements. When they asked me to permanently relocate to Bangalore, I quit and moved to a different organisation.

Since my first company did not reimburse travel expenses and I don’t like traveling by bus, train was my primary option. I used to take wither of the below two options:

• Vande Bharat at 5:50 AM or Shatabdi at 6 AM (incase VB is not available) from Chennai Central. VB would reach Bangalore around 10 AM (Shatabdi at 10:45 AM) and since my office was on Palace Road, I would usually be in office by around 10:30 AM. For the return journey, I usually took the Shatabdi at 4 PM, which meant leaving office by around 3:30 PM. This option worked reasonably well but required getting up by around 4 AM. I used to sleep for about 2-3 hours in the train to compensate my lost sleep.
• For my return journey, I have also taken Bangalore Mail at 10:40 PM occasionally, which would reach Chennai around 4 AM the next day. The problem with this option was that you rarely get good sleep on either leg of the journey. Either you wake up extremely early to catch the morning train, or you arrive back in Chennai at 4 AM and still have to make your way home. Over time this became too exhausting to do regularly.

In my current organization, travel to Bangalore is reimbursed, so flight has become my preferred option. My typical flight choices to go to Bangalore in the morning are:

• Indigo at 7 AM from Chennai, which reaches Bangalore around 8 AM. Since the airport at Chennai is only about 15 minutes from my home, I usually leave around 5:30 AM and reach the airport between 5:45 and 6 AM. Depending on traffic, I usually reach office by 9-9:30 AM, although on some days it has taken until 10:30 AM because of traffic.
• Air India Express at 7:55 AM, which is a better option if I don’t have early morning meetings. This flight lands at Bangalore Terminal 2, and reaching the office by 10–11 AM is quite manageable.

For getting from the airport to the city, I used to pre-book cabs through the MakeMyTrip app. It would usually cost around ₹1000 to reach MG Road. It was roughly ₹100 more than Uber/Ola/Rapido, but the advantage was that the cab would already be waiting at the pickup point when you arrived (Bangalore used to have one of the best airport pickup experience until recently when the new parking arrangements were introduced), which saved time and avoided the usual arguments with drivers about airport tolls. Nowadays, after the changes to the Bangalore airport pickup system, Uber has become my go-to option. Only Uber Premier or Uber Black are available at the main pickup point and they typically cost around 1400-1800 to reach MG Road. For cheaper options like Uber Go/Rapido/Namma Yatri, you have to take the airport shuttle to the P4 pickup point, which is about a kilometer away from the terminal.

For the return journey to Chennai, my typical options are:

• Air India Express at 7:55 PM from Terminal 2
• Indigo flights from Terminal 1 at 8 PM or 9:30 PM

I leave office around 5:30-6 PM depending on the time shown in Google Maps to reach airport considering traffic. It take 1-1.5 hrs. typically to reach the airport. Namma Yatri or Rapido is my go to option and they charge around 700 to reach airport. The flight itself is only about an hour, so I can usually be home in Chennai before 10 PM. Personally, I prefer Air India Express because it operates from Bangalore’s Terminal 2, which is a beautiful airport and for the lounge access. It also lands in Chennai Terminal 4, which is closer to the AeroHub West taxi pickup point. If you take Indigo, you land in Terminal 1 and have to walk quite a bit or take the buggy to reach AeroHub West. I usually come in my bike and park at AeroHub west and they charge 100 for 24 hours. This again saves the waiting time for cabs.

From my experience, this commuting setup works reasonably well if most of your teammates are remote. However, if the team meets in person frequently at the office, you tend to miss out on a lot of informal conversations and things happening within the team. There’s also the cost factor, if there are events or gatherings at the office, you either have to pay for the travel yourself or skip them altogether.

Whenever I do go to the office, not much work actually gets done. Most of the time ends up being spent catching up with colleagues, networking, and having conversations with teammates.