Experiences commuting to London from Deal, Faversham or Cambridge areas?

[Forevercalm]

I'm posting this in chat for traffic.

I'm hoping to buy my first home in late 2026 or early 2027 and I'm currently looking at Deal, Faversham and Cambridge.
I work in a senior role in central London. I can work from home about 20% of the time each month, but I also have some 07:00 starts and occasional overnight shifts.

I'm really keen to move out of London as I grew up in a small town and miss the tranquillity of that kind of lifestyle. Ideally I'd like to be within walking distance of a mainline station and also have easy access to countryside.

I love the feel and character of the places I'm considering, but I'm a bit concerned about the practical reality of the commute.
If anyone commutes from Deal, Faversham, Cambridge, or from villages nearby with good rail links into London, I'd really appreciate hearing your experience of how the commute affects day-to-day life.

Cambridge can be quite hard going.

ExH commuted down for twenty years and still sort of does but now mixes wfh and London pad.

Cambridge itself is not particularly cheap and getting to the station can be tricky - parking for cars is limited and extortionate. Many people cycle to the station (big multi story bike park) or drive down to Royston (next station down on King’s Cross line).

trains back out of London get crazy busy (no seat and stand for the whole journey sort of busy) at rush hour and the frequency of cancellations/leaves in the line etc is quite high.

i only had to drive down to central London twice in twenty years to get him but there were several nights he just went fuck this the trains are a nightmare and stayed over in a premier inn and bought a new shirt and pants from m and s in the morning.

Thank you for your reply, @Octavia64.
It's certainly given me something to think about

To chip in further on Cambridge the PP has covered a lot of what I was going to say, but might be worth looking at the villages south of Cambridge or even near Royston. I commuted from a few stops north of Cambridge and I wouldn’t recommend in the daily (esp not for 7 am starts) but people do do it from kings lynn so technically not impossible if you don’t mind long days (lots of the kings lynn commuters sleep til past Cambridge.