Long Range Pilots, how far away do you live from Homebase
 

I just started long range ops.
I noticed that half of the pilot corps live quiet far away. For some 3-4 hours of driving or even living aboard !
In addition, I often hear sentences like :
"A lot of LH pilots have a house in spain ..."
"with long range ops, you can live where ever you want ..."
I am wondering, should we not live where we work ? So we are well rested when starting work. Not saying anything AFTER work ...
How do they solve all the administration problemes ( tax, health, school, etc )

As my familly intend to live 4 hours from my new home base, I am wondering ...

Four hours driving is a long way to live from work when you have to drive back after a long flight, I live about 1.5hrs from home and that can be quite hard after a 10hr night flight.
Perhaps a local B&B after night flights would be safer.
I fell asleep once. I was on the freeway and crossed two lanes before I hit the gravel deviding strip, it sure woke me up! (I was very lucky to do no damage).
The longest journey to work that I've heard of is an FO who used to commute from LAX to SYD, 14hrs flying!!!

I am a short range pilot, live in one European capital city and fly from another. It doesn't matter where you live as long as you arrange to arrive for duty rested and have a local doss for the end of the long days or nights work.

I was told that we have a Cabin attendant working out of Copenhagen, lives in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand.

I am based in NYC fly to Europe and South America, also some transcons.

I live in Florida <2/12 hour flight> and wouldn't move for anything, as all flights leave late in the day, and return early enough
I can commute to and from work the same day I
am operating, it does make for some VERY long
days though 24hrs+

Its all about personal choice and quality of
life in theory you can live where you want,
is it worth it?

A very good friend of mine, ex TWA 747 Captain, used to commute from LHR to JFK and then operate that same night back to LHR. This worked for awhile until both he and the F/O (who also commuted from LHR) fell asleep on final to 28R and were awaken at by the F/E. He was ah....slightly concerned that the gear was not down at around three miles!

We have a Captain in our company who lives 1hour flying north of SYD. He works out of AMS. I think this is not very wise of him. Both for himself, but also for the rest of us, who have to be called out of standby whenever he misses a flight somewhere in his gigantic commute.
Then there`s the factor fatigue. You`re hardly fit for flight after a 24 hr commute. I think anywhere more than say 5 hours away from base is too far.