Call it the not-so-Swede life.
Married mom of one Courtney El Refai has one of the longest commutes in Sweden — 5,000 miles each way to California, where the US expat works as a part-time per diem NICU nurse.
Sound exciting? Think again, the frequent flyer revealed.
“Everyone seems to think that life between two countries is the dream, but let me tell you why it’s not,” El Refai, 32, explained to her more than 11,000 Instagram fans, in clip titled “The not so glamorous life of dual living.”
Online, however, she gave virtual viewers the down low on the lows of being bi-continental, which include constantly readjusting to a nine-hour time difference, feeling disconnected from loved ones in both locations, living out of suitcases and never quite feeling “100% home in either place.”
El Refai is among a growing number of people living the here today, gone tomorrow, super-commuter life — a common term for business folks who routinely huff it long distances, hopping planes, trains and/or automobiles to and fro work and home.
Unfortunately, the incessant travel comes at a high price, often costing long-haul jobholders exorbitant amounts of time and money.
But some of the unique 9-to-5ers claim the payoff is well worth the pinch.
Kyle Rice, an EMS software developer, shells out over $1,500 each month on super-commuting expenses between his residence in New Castle, Delaware, and his office in Manhattan. The hassle of catching multiple trains across four states aside, the married father takes home a handsome six-figure, big city income.
Kaitlin Jay, an Upper West Side hairdresser, previously told The Post she doesn’t mind regularly making the 600-mile hike between NYC and her new residence in Charlotte, North Carolina — trips that cost $1,000 a month with flights, ground transportation, food and rent.
The cosmetologist found that it’s financially beneficial to super-commute into the Big Apple, where she makes the big bucks, and plant roots down South, where the cost of living is less pricey than city dwelling.
Money was, too, a factor in El Refai’s decision to super-commute from Europe to the U.S. on a regular basis — which can come with a price tag of around $450 for each round-trip flight.
She and her husband moved to Sweden in December, owing to the country’s reputation for being a “happy” place in which to raise a family, per Business Insider.
The couple’s apartment, a rental nest they share with a toddler daughter, costs less than $1,500 a month. And rather maintaining and fueling a car, the twosome saves money by taking public transportation.
When she’s back on American soil for work, El Refai spends 10 days covering a cluster of nursing shifts at a San Fransisco Bay Area hospital. During her work-stays, she rents a room for $50 per night from a colleague.
El Refai did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
And while the jetsetting healer has to pay taxes in both America and Sweden, that’s not an issue, she said.
“It is financially worth it because the salary in the Bay Area is just so high, and the cost of living in Sweden is a lot less than…California,” she said in a viral TikTok vid. “When I work for 10 days straight, it’s basically enough money to cover a few months of bills in Sweden.”
She concedes that the commute is “absolutely outrageous,” but says the work-life balance it offers is a prime perk.
“Imagine having six weeks off after working 10 days on a repeated pattern,” said El Refai in the post. “It basically feels like I’m a stay-at-home mom…and I am basically free to do anything I want to do.”
“That is something that no 9-to-5 job will ever give me.”
