“Fly 1,500 miles home to vote,” Kayla Iutzwig said in a statement. TikTok video showing him packing a suitcase and heading to the airport. The 21-year-old lives in Los Angeles but is registered to vote in her home state of Texas. “My original voting plan was to do an absentee ballot, which I requested in September and never received,” she told Yahoo Life. In the video, she mentioned that her request for an absentee ballot was denied – probably because she I wouldn’t be allowed one in Texas..

“I think this election is the most important of my life,” she said. “I traveled by plane, which cost $350 round trip and took three and a half hours each way.”

Rebecca James also took to TikTok to share a series of videos documenting her voting process, which included a $700 plane ticket from Phoenix to Georgia. She told her TikTok audience that she requested an absentee ballot on October 4 but still had not received it two weeks later. Ultimately, she decided it was important enough to go in person. “I’m not joking about women’s rights,” she said in a video.

Some trips have even been international, like a woman named Shanna who commented on a video saying she flew from Italy to South Carolina to vote. Travel content creator Nicole Nina also posted about flights since Spain in Chicago just to vote.

Some of those who make the trip, like Samantha Balsham, tell Yahoo Life it’s worth the effort to make sure their vote counts.

At 19, this presidential election is the first in which Balsham can vote. She is originally from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, but attends the University of Rhode Island. Like many others, Balsham was counting on an absentee ballot that never happened. “Since I did not receive my ballot after days of constant checking, I decided to return home for the election,” she told Yahoo Life.

She I went home Monday via a five-and-a-half-hour Amtrak train to ensure she would arrive at her polling place on Election Day. In total, voting will cost him 11 hours and $300 round trip. “Pennsylvania is a key battleground state, so I knew not voting was not an option,” she said.

Maria Fernanda Garcia Castillo is a 22-year-old from Smithfield, North Carolina, four hours from where she now lives in Charlotte. She found herself in a similar situation when she requested an absentee ballot and was told she wouldn’t be able to get one because her name was misspelled in her county’s system. This meant taking an unscheduled time off from work to make the long journey back and forth. “Given the importance of this election and knowing that I live in a swing state, I couldn’t afford to let my vote go uncast,” she told Yahoo Life.

Even though Castillo was able to vote early, many voters are still traveling on Election Day – whether to catch a early morning flight or road trip in the middle of the night.

One woman even managed to raise the funds to return from New York to Michigan, where she is registered. She posted a TikTok video Monday evening saying she was considering making the trip after her absentee ballot was lost in the mail twice – and that she was on a flight by Tuesday.

One lesson learned from the experience, according to Iutzwig, is that “the process of receiving mail-in ballots should be much simpler,” she said. But she is happy to see so many people making the same efforts as her. “It was definitely worth it for me to participate in the vote to hopefully secure a bright future for our country.”