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Do you have other business or activities around the further away one? Or after drop off would it be a completely wasted trip and you would turn around and come home?

@ShootingStar: I agree with this. I already feel like I spend most of my son's preschool time dropping him off and picking him up, and his preschool is only 5 minutes away. The problem is there is a car line, and everyone starts lining up 10-15 minutes early. If you're not there early, you're at the very end of the line and have to wait forever. And if you want to walk in and get your kid, all the parking spaces are gone! I'm not sure if it would be the same situation for you, but it's something to think about.

I personally would not mind 20 minutes away, but I live in the suburbs where it is common to drive 20 minutes to get to a destination. My kids go to preschool that is only 7-10 minutes driving distance away. I'll admit that it is very convenient. Another mother in LO's class traveled 30-35 minutes everyday with two kids who had different schedules (3 hour morning for her 3 year old and 5 hour program for her 5 year old). I don't know how she did it.

I'm in the minority. If the school was worth it, I'd drive 20 minutes. My son is going to a new (to him) school next year. It's a 15 minute drive, as opposed to the 2 minute drive we had this year.

I'm in the same boat! Who knew I had to sign up LO at birth in my new area?
I ended up choosing between 5ish min away but $$$$$$$ vs 2 min away but requiring a lot of parent participation and only 2d/wk were available vs 10-15 min away and seems ok and price more reasonable.

I ended up choosing the last even though my dream was something closer. I still don't know if I made the right decision!

LO's school is about 12-15 minutes away and she will be there for 4 hours. DH will do drop off and I will do pick up. I honestly think the days I have to do both because of work obligations for DH will feel very short!

My LO will be starting preschool (3.5 hours, twice a week) in September and it will be 30 minutes away. However, its only 10 minutes from both my parents house and my in-laws (who we visit regularly throughout the week anyway). There's only one preschool here in our town I would consider, but they were already filled for 2x/week.

I would do the 8 minute drive. Your baby will be older then and 20 mins in the car each way would throw off our schedule by letting him fall asleep before nap time, etc. We went from a preschool that was a solid 15 minutes each way to 4 minutes each way and it was a life changer.

@Foodnerd81: Even the gas costs can add up and you'll save that by not driving so much.

When we were moving to a brand-new city, I found preschools/daycare by doing a lot of online research. I didn't know anyone in the area, but asked anyone I could (e.g., if they had a friend of a friend who might know someone here!) just to get any feedback. I googled near our rental house to see what came up that was close, and then researched those through some combination of state resources, fb reviews, reviews on Nextdoor, their website, etc. I was looking after a bunch would've been filled, so I really just contacted all of them and had this big spreadsheet that had all of the various specifics (what age groups, calendar vs. full year, hours, etc) so that if any had openings, I could easily compare and rank. I wasn't able to tour any, so just picked one, mostly based on the fact that my DD2 could have attended starting at 18m. But once we started, I didn't love it, and ended up switching DD1 after Christmas to one that a neighbor raved about, it was (literally) across the street, and I got to tour before making the switch.

Right now, both DD1 and DD2 are going to different places (part-time options for <2 are rare here, so DD2 had to go to a different place). They both go for 3hrs, and I basically have a 30min drop-off and pick-up (e.g., leave the house at 845a to drop-off DD1 by 9a and DD2 by 915a). It's the best I could do, so I would say that the 20m option would be manageable for you. BUT, as others have mentioned, closer would always be better, all other things being (relatively) equal.

I've been driving 50 minutes each way, and it's miserable. We are moving because of it. 20 minutes would be fine though.