Memwanesha Daniels, bicoastal nurse worker: “Paying an extra $2,000 a month to earn three times what I would earn in Florida is well worth it”

Memwanesha Daniels, a registered nurse based in Jacksonville, Florida, regularly flies to the San Francisco Bay Area for work, a pattern known as “supercommuting.”

According to reports, Daniels travels from Florida to California roughly twice a month. She rents an apartment in Oakland at about $1,300 per month and pays approximately $500 for each round-trip flight. “I love to fly, and I love to travel,” she told CNBC. “Flying is relaxing for me.”

Once in California, Daniels works 12-hour night or weekend shifts at a rate exceeding $100 per hour. During her busiest months, when she works up to 16 shifts and adds overtime, her gross income can reach as much as $25,000.

Flying to work “very much worth it”

Daniels told reporters that despite the added expenses (housing and travel costs combined come to roughly an extra $2,000 monthly) the arrangement remains financially advantageous because of the significant pay difference compared with Florida.

“I can save a lot and it gives me a different type of life than what I would have trying to make things work in Florida,” she added. “Paying an extra $2,000 a month to make three times the amount I would make in Florida is very much worth it.”

However, the arrangement has personal costs. Daniels maintains her home in Florida with her partner and three children. She acknowledges that frequent travel means long periods away from family and that being back and forth isn’t easy emotionally, admitting to feeling “sad and worried” on occasion.

“I’m the one crying like, ‘Oh, I miss my family’ and they are just fine,” she does note. “They don’t care because they’re used to it.”

On how living in one place and working in another is shaping her future, Memwanesha is clear: “It’s very lucrative. This is a retirement plan for me.”

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And Daniels isn’t alone. Across the U.S. and even abroad, some nurses are choosing travel-heavy schedules and long-distance commutes to reap higher wages, often working intensively for short periods before returning home - another damning indictment on Trump’s America.

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