#EarlyBirdCityLife: Hey there early risers! 🌅 Is your city as quiet as a ghost town when you wake up super early? 🤫 When does the hustle and bustle of rush hour start creeping in? 🚗
I’m making the switch from being a night owl to an early bird in an attempt to avoid the morning madness. Have you made the transition yet? Tell me about your experiences, whether you live in a cozy small town or a bustling metropolis! 🌇
Where I am, in the largest city in Atlantic Canada (which is still considered small in the grand scheme of things), I’m thinking about setting my alarm for 5:30 am to beat the office rush. But I’m a little worried about encountering all the other early risers – you know, the super fit or ultra motivated types that seem a bit intimidating, haha! 💪💼
So, I’m curious to know if my assumptions are right. Share your insights and let’s chat about what the world looks like before the sun comes up! 🌎 What do you say, let’s swap stories and compare notes? Are you in? 🤔 #EarlyBirdsUnite
I live in a small city (400,000). I get up at 5am to ride my bike, usually out of the house by 5:30am. I have the roads pretty much to myself until about 7am.
I used to do paper route with my dad from midnight to like 7am. An hour before sunrise is my favorite time even to this day. It’s peaceful.
This time of year I sleep with the windows open, and I wake with the crows. The caw caw caw caw crows. The fucking crows.
yes, pretty small town, the sound starts around 6:30 am
4:30 A.M in a rural area so yes, silent as heck.
We are a very military area. Home to the world’s largest Naval base, plus a few smaller bases. Rush hour seems to start around 0500, eases off when everyone getting to the bases, then jumps again as the civilians head for their jobs.
There is a brief moment of “whew”, then the lunch rush, 1200 to maaaaybe 1400. Another gap, then EVERYONE hits the road between 1600 and 1800. THAT is driving hell.
Last night, though… I went outside after sunset to get the mail. Keep in mind, our lot backs up to a very busy street. Four lanes of stupid. But it was so quiet. Not even a leaf was moving. I wanted to stay outside so badly. It was like that quiet that happens during a snowfall.
When I worked in a grocery store, I occasionally had opening shifts start as early as 4am (usually it was 5am tho). Normally I’m a night owl, but there’s something weirdly serene about being up early and seeing the sunrise. The calm before the “storm” of rush hour traffic from about 7:30am-10am, if you will.
I get up at 5am, by choice.
Literally my favourite time of the day. The world is still, there is a quietness to the town before rush hour commences in a few hours.
Awesome time to go running!
Almost never… The only time the city is quite is early morning right after heavy snow or ice storms
It depends on the culture as well. When i was in Jakarta, Indonesia, waking up at 5.30 or even 05.00 was considered not early. Just normal. And people outside are already busy or start their journey for work. Now living in Germany, in a city, but I am not living in the center part. 07.00 is still quite early and my neighbors (mostly are lovely old people) definitely are still very quiet during this hour.
Yes very quiet
Random memory: I had to remove my rooftop antenna because a woodpecker would assault it every day at dawn.
It’s kind of addictive once you get started.
I work from home and have my alarm set to 6am, I wake up before the alarm almost every day. I set my phone to go silent at 9:15 every night. For me the key to waking up early is having good lighting in the room. Really hard to get up when it’s pitch black at night.
I get up at 330am and it is almost dead silent. About 4:45 it gets loud when my neighbors start getting ready for work. (Obnoxiously large and loud trucks)
By the time I leave for work at 5:15 the only people on the road are truck drivers and people who are running 20 minutes late to work because “traffic” for the 4th time this week.
Getting up at about 5. Everyone else seems to sleep, i only hear the birds singing. It is so peaceful.
Living in a small town (well in comparison to other towns a village ;), 5 min from the City centre.
I live in North East Florida, I wake up around 430 each day. Very quiet until 630-645 when most of the daily commute starts. I wouldn’t say that I fall into very fit or entrepreneurial categories. I work in medicine for the last 35 years. so i just got used to being an early riser. I like that time of day even on my days off I get up and going early.
People that time of day are the best.
They are awake with a purpose, will focus on themselves, and leave you alone aside from a quick wave or nod hello.
They also tend to be good drivers who know where they’re going and don’t do stupid unpredictable shit on the roads.
Sometimes I wake up too early. It’s usually pretty quiet besides hearing the occasional car off in the distance. Sometimes the train uses its horn. Sometimes a mockingbird will be out or a rooster will start crowing too early. It’s usually pretty quiet until around 6 or 7am.
I wake up at 4:30, at gym by 5. Yes it’s pretty quiet but being it’s Los Angeles, it’s never dead quiet
4am so I can hit a run before work.
The answer is yes.
There are cops, cats, and crows. When I’m almost done and the sun starts coming up the baby birds are just waking up and fussing (because it’s spring).
i live in the middle of DFW in Texas. the roads were already packed when i’d leave for work at 6:30am. now i leave at 8:30am and i still run into traffic. i think there’s just a perpetual rush hour around here
I live about an hour north of you, so it’s pretty quiet anyway, but as someone who loves to go out at 6am when I’m travelling, I can tell you Rome around the coliseum and Venice and even Paris was quiet – that’s when they’re out cleaning the streets and stuff. I love watching cities awaken.
I live in a small village in Germany, with less than 100 people. There is no rush hour, the most noise comes from birds. Haven’t seen a single car moving today on the road in front of my house.
I’m an early riser but live in LA so unless it’s between the hours of 2:30a and 2:36a, it’s rush hour.
Medium-sized city in my situation. I wake up at 5:30 just so I can spend 30 minutes to feed my dogs and then sip my coffee in the back yard while the dogs do their thing. Outside of being able to hear vehicles on the freeway off in the distance, I really enjoy the relative silence before sunrise.
I would get up at 4, leave the house for 4;45 because I had an hr drive to work (6am start). It would always be just me and maybe 2 other cars on the road. It was mostly back roads until work but man was it fun driving 150 mph on those side roads. I could technically always make it 15 minutes earlier than GPS because of how empty the roads were.
I love the quiet of the morning but I find that these peaceful hours are also when delivery trucks own the streets and they can be noisy.
I live on a highway. I leave my house around 4:30 am and I see no one on my drive to work. If I leave at 6:30 it can be an issue getting out of my driveway.
So I travel for a living and also have to work early ima say 530 is almost universally quiet. Even the people who want/have to be out do their best to not disturb the quiet wind.
I absolutely love the drive to work on the day that I get up at 5. Takes 1/4 of the time
I loved the city early in the morning specially in the winter when it had just snowed and nothing was moving. But at the cottage, around 5:30 is when the hummingbirds would appear at the feeders and birds would sing and the young male loons on the lake would be singing so loud and their voices echoed. We moved and are near a lake and on a quiet morning with no wind, we can still hear the loons and the owls.
Memories…
I live in a small town. Sometimes before 6am on weekends I won’t pass a single car on my commute
On a typical day I get up at 5:30, it’s still and quiet around. Peak happens about three hours later.
4:30 AM to go to work from the suburbs to a big city. It’s super quiet and the roads are empty. If I don’t talk to myself, I get to hear the road rushing underneath. When I get on to the highway, there’s about 2 or 3 cars there also going to work. Apart from cars, I see no people but it’s still seems bustling because of the lights.
…Houston? There’s less cars on the roads before 6, but definitely not close to quiet, and by 7:20 or so you add like 30+ minutes to your commute if you didn’t leave before traffic starts..
I don’t live in a big city, but my neighborhood starts waking up at like 5. Which is really fantastic when you have a newborn who wakes up at every single noise! /s
6am is very early?
I very very rarely see another soul on my way to work at 3.20am 🤣
I wake up around 5:30 am in a medium-sized city, and it’s pretty quiet at that time. You get to enjoy the calm before the hustle and bustle starts. Rush hour here begins around 7:30 am, so if you want to beat the traffic and enjoy some peace, early morning is perfect. It’s a great time to get things done without distractions.
yeah very quiet. there is a train that lays pretty heavy on its whistle early on, but I kinda like it. best time of day.
Obviously there are still people around and going about their business, but the kind of ambient quiet you get for the couple hours before sunrise is one of my favorite times of day.