The long-distance family: How American relatives stay close when they live thousands of miles apart
Lifestyle
Audio By Carbonatix
2:00 PM on Thursday, June 11
By Trevor Mahoney for Spokeo, Stacker
The long-distance family: How American relatives stay close when they live thousands of miles apart
There’s a version of family life that many people idealize, one that instantly evokes a feeling of nostalgia. Sunday dinners within driving distance, cousins who see each other more than just on holidays, and parents who drop by on a whim without needing to get on a plane.
For a growing number of Americans, though, these close-knit connections just aren’t possible. The forces that allow families to move far apart from one another nowadays include remote work flexibility, cost-of-living increases, and educational or career opportunities.
Geographic distance between relatives has become a defining feature of modern family life. Distance doesn’t have to equal disconnection, though. Spokeo has analyzed key data from leading sources including the Pew Research Center, the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Library of Medicine, and the American Psychological Association to show how families are navigating this new world.
The scale of the shift: How family geography has changed since 1980
The world is a remarkably different place than even just 40 years ago. Data from 2022 from the Pew Research Center found that 55% of U.S. adults say they live within an hour’s drive of at least some extended family members, but one in five say they don’t live near any at all. That 20% figure represents tens of millions of Americans having to navigate familial relationships across state lines or even greater distances.
There’s a reason for this divide, and it’s happening more than ever before. From 2020 to 2024, an average of 12% of Americans moved annually, according to Census data, with many of those moves driven by the rise of remote work, paired with the search for housing affordability. Family connections don’t always follow people as they relocate.
A 2020 study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that, while 74.8% of adults with at least one living parent or adult child had their nearest relative within 30 miles, only about one third had all parents and adult children that close. Having some family nearby and having your whole family nearby are two very different experiences.
Education and income naturally play a significant role in these patterns. Over three in five adults with a high school education or less live near extended family, while just two in five adults with a postgraduate degree do. The higher a person’s income, the more likely they are to live farther from family. Upward mobility may create career opportunities, but it comes with a geographic cost.
The rituals that actually work
Research on long-distance family maintenance consistently points to one key finding above all else: It’s how deliberately and regularly you connect that matters, not how close you are physically. Routines, such as family rituals with predictable timing and shared expectations, are what distinguishes close families from those that lack tight bonds.
A 2021 review from the journal, New Media & Society, which examined social media, communication rituals, and long-distance family maintenance, found that families who use messaging and video calls aren’t just doing it to catch up. Rather, they are practicing something known as “assuring behavior.”
Assuring behavior is small, repeated acts of checking in that signal an ongoing commitment to the relationship. Video calls in particular play a key role in preserving shared identity among extended family members across distances, as they can enable a sense of belonging and emotional connection through seeing other people. Here are four key tips that can bolster this effect.
1. Host standing weekly video calls
The families that retain the strongest connections tend to be those who also schedule video calls in advance and hold them consistently. That means the same day and same time. The ritual aspect, as opposed to spontaneous coordination, matters as much as the content of the call.
2. Set up group chats with agreed norms
Most families already have a group chat. The difference between one that sustains connection and one that is full of ghosts, however, is a mutual understanding of what it’s for. Chats that function as a running thread including photos from daily life, quick updates, reaction to news, and more help keep families present. Chats only used for logistics or milestones can sometimes feel hollow.
3. Create annual in-person reunions
Gathering in person allows families to naturally share stories, create lasting traditions, and make new memories that can translate across generations. They also help family members remember to maintain connection throughout the year by turning events at the reunion into future talking points. Even just a single annual gathering for the holidays or a long weekend can help anchor a family’s sense of shared identity.
4. Share experiences across distance
Finally, some families have found creative ways to create parallel experiences despite being in different places around the world. Whether that’s a shared TV show, photo challenges, or cooking the same recipe, having a shared object of attention can create common ground for chats.
The tools families are relying on
The digital infrastructure of the world today can help families across distances stay together. Based on Pew Research Center data from 2025, nine out of 10 Americans use the Internet on a daily basis. The challenge, however, is to choose a combination of those tools that works for everyone, including members of different generations with differing levels of digital fluency.
Video calling via FaceTime, Zoom, or Google Meet remain the backbone of long-distance family connection. The platform matters less than the consistency of calls, and a weekly cadence tend to perform the best.
Group messaging apps like WhatsApp, iMessage, and Signal also serve slightly different use cases. Families that are multigenerational and spread internationally tend to find WhatsApp better, given its cross-platform accessibility. On the other hand, iMessage works seamlessly for families where everyone has an Apple device. Families who value privacy may prefer Signal.
In addition to communication through video and messaging, shared platforms for other content are prominent today. Dedicated family photo sharing is a popular choice through apps like Tinybeans, Google Photos, or Amazon Photos. These apps provide a low-friction way to quickly share visual updates without needing to jump on a formal call. Similarly, shared calendars, such as on Google Calendar, can make coordination for calls, visits, reunions, or just staying up to date on people’s lives far easier.
Finally, platforms designed around family storytelling can be a great way to make new memories. StoryWorth is a popular option that prompts family members with weekly questions and compiles all of the answers into a book. It serves a unique but important function. Narratives can be shared across generations, which is the kind of context and history that families who live close together get already.
The correlation between long-distance family bonds and health
The science on close relationships and health outcomes is surprisingly consistent. A meta-analysis of 148 studies on mortality risk published in PLOS Medicine found that strong social relationships increase the likelihood of survival by 50%. Conversely, social disconnection is at least as harmful to health as well-established risk factors including obesity and physical inactivity. Family relationships are among the most powerful of those social bonds.
The Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has tracked participants and their families across generations for over 80 years, came to a similar conclusion. In a 2017 summary noted in The Harvard Gazette, aggregated data showed that relationship satisfaction at age 50 is a better predictor of physical health at age 80 than cholesterol levels. The number of close relationships mattered less than their overall quality.
For long-distance families in particular, this research points to a few key predictors of bond strength over time:
1. Frequency and consistency of contact: Regular, patterned contact, as opposed to occasional long conversations, can predict long-term relationship quality across distance.
2. Intentionality of connection: Families that actively create shared experiences together, rather than waiting for connection to happen naturally, report stronger relationships. Distance removes the contact that physical proximity provides, so it needs to be replaced with something.
3. Relational trust and reciprocity: Both parties must be equally invested in maintaining a relationship for it to have the strongest predictors of long-term quality.
4. In-person anchoring: Even just a single annual gathering can significantly strengthen the bonds that digital connection maintains during the course of a year, further improving the long-term outlook of those relationships.
In a busy world, maintaining long-distance familial relationships can feel challenging, but all of the necessary tools are at your fingertips.
How to re-establish contact with a family member you've lost touch with
Plenty of people have lost contact with loved ones over the years. Whatever the reason for the drift, it’s never too late to reconnect after a long gap. However, it will require a different approach than maintaining a relationship that’s gone a little quiet recently.
Reconnecting is a process that will require time and effort, so it’s best to start small. Even an initial text or quick phone call can re-build a foundation. These modest and early gestures, on a continuous basis, show a greater interest in getting back in contact more than a single grand reconciliation that has no follow up.
The Conflict Expert blog, run by an accredited Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution mediator, offers up some helpful tips for this first interaction:
- Offer to meet in-person at a neutral location like a nearby park, cafe, or mall
- Focus conversations on the present and avoid revisiting past tensions or fallouts too quickly
- Steer clear of toxic forms of communication such as playing the blame game for disconnection
- Be positive about the meetup or reconnection and thank the other person for their time
For estrangements that are rooted in deeper conflict such as abuse, resentment, or value divergence, a family therapist can provide structure for conversations. The American Psychological Association also offers support via a topic page designed for families, which can be an excellent starting point for understanding and rekindling familial relationships.
Connection is a practice, not a place
The families that stay close across thousands of miles aren’t doing something magical, but rather they’ve accepted that geographic distance requires deliberate effort to maintain relationships. Proximity provides connection naturally, and long-distance relationships require intentionality.
Successful families have built structures across distances. Whether it’s a Sunday call that never moves, a group chat that always stays active, or an annual week together that everyone blocks off on the calendar, it’s about a focused effort to foster your familial relationships.
More than half of Americans may be living within an hour of at least some extended family, but that still leaves millions trying to navigate family life across time zones and state lines. However, the digital tools of today have never been better and the research is unusually clear on what works. All that remains is finding the will to treat connection as something you build, rather than just let happen.
This story was produced by Spokeo and reviewed and distributed by Stacker.
