How to Maintain Long-Distance Friendships (That Actually Last)

This is going to sound a little wild, but some of my closest friendships are with people I’ve never lived in the same city as.

Like, one of my best friends lives on the other side of the continent. Another is a full-time nomad bouncing between time zones. I’ve got friends scattered across the US, Europe, Asia, and everywhere in between.

And you know what? These friendships are just as real, just as deep, just as meaningful as the ones I have with people down the street.

Maybe you made a friend on vacation, and you can’t stop thinking about how much you clicked. Perhaps you’ve become a digital nomad, and you’re trying to stay connected to people back home.

Or, you moved to a new city or country, and you’re determined not to lose touch with your people. Maybe, like me, you’ve made tons of friends online, and you want those connections to actually last.

Here’s the thing about maintaining long-distance friendships in this busy, disconnected world: it actually takes effort.

But distance shouldn’t stop a friendship. And honestly? IRL friendships are usually hard to schedule anyway. (I haven’t seen my bestie, who lives 15 minutes away, in 2 months!)

Let me tell you something I’ve learned. It’s actually easier to build an emotional connection with your distance friends because you’re not spending all your time trying to coordinate schedules to meet up in person. Instead, you can just keep each other updated on your day-to-day lives.

I’ve made many friends online over the years, whether through being an entrepreneur, meeting people from other parts of the world while traveling, or just vibing with someone in an online community.

Some of my online friends? I’ve had them for over 10 years. And I count them among some of my closest friends.

So here are my tips for not only maintaining those long-distance friendships, but really building lifelong connections and relationships.

The Real Truth About Long Distance Friendships

Before we dive into the how, let’s be honest about something.

Maintaining a long-distance friendship is work. It requires intentionality. It requires showing up even when you’re tired, even when life gets busy, even when it would be easier to just let it fade.

But here’s what I also know: the effort is worth it.

Research shows that long-distance friendships can be just as satisfying and intimate as geographically close friendships when both people are committed to maintaining them.

The keyword there? Both people.

You can’t be the only one putting in effort. You can’t be the only one reaching out. You can’t be the only one who cares.

If you want to know how to build strong relationships that last across distance, reciprocity is everything.

So if you’re reading this and thinking about a specific person, ask yourself: are they showing up too? Are they putting in effort? Are they meeting you halfway?

Because if they’re not, this might not be a long-distance friendship problem. This might be a one-sided friendship problem.

Tips for Maintaining a Long-Distance Friendship

#1. Put In the Effort (And Make Sure They Do Too)

This is the foundation of every successful long-distance friendship I’ve ever had.

You need to put in effort. And equally, they have to put in effort.

I’ve found that my long-distance friendships that haven’t lasted, that have fallen apart or gone cold, it’s typically because one of us stopped putting in the same energy.

So reach out. Stay in contact.

And no, it doesn’t always have to be hopping on FaceTime or scheduling elaborate video calls.

Sometimes it’s just small messages over time. It’s sending a “hey, thinking of you” text. It’s sharing a photo of the two of you from when you met in person. It’s that steady flow of memes that only you two will find hilarious.

These little touches? They do a lot.

They keep the friendship alive. They remind your friend that you see them, you think about them, and you value them.

One of my distance friends and I have this ongoing thing where we send each other the most ridiculous headlines we come across. It’s stupid. It’s random. But it keeps us connected in the mundane, everyday moments of life.

And that’s what friendship is, right? Sharing the little things, not just the big milestones.

#2. Send Voice Memos (Because Friendships Are Private Podcasts)

Okay, if you’re of a certain age, you know that friendships are basically private podcasts.

And voice memos are how you keep that conversation going.

When I was traveling, voice notes were one of the ways I stayed in contact with my best friend back home. And with her son. I’ve been trading voice notes with this now four-year-old since before he could talk.

This is such a great way to stay in contact not only with your friends, but with their families too.

And here’s the beauty of voice memos: they don’t have to be long episodes. They can just be quick check-ins.

“Hey, you won’t believe what just happened at work.”

“I’m walking to the coffee shop, and I just saw the funniest thing.”

“Remember that guy I told you about? Update.”

It’s intimate. It’s personal. It’s you, in your own voice, sharing your life with someone who cares.

According to communication experts, asynchronous communication like voice memos can actually strengthen bonds because they allow for more thoughtful, authentic expression than quick texts.

And honestly? Hearing your friend’s voice, their laughter, their tone, that makes the distance feel a little less far.

#3. Use Marco Polo for Asynchronous Video Conversations

Speaking of asynchronous communication, let me tell you about Marco Polo.

This app is a game-changer for long-distance friendships, especially when you’re dealing with different time zones.

Marco Polo allows you to record video messages, and your friend gets a notification that you’re speaking to them. They can watch your message live or watch it afterwards, react, and send you back a message.

It’s like FaceTime, but without the pressure of being “on” at the same time.

When you’re dealing with friends across the world, when someone’s in New York, and you’re in Tokyo, when your lives are running on completely different schedules, this is huge.

You can have that real-time connection, even if it’s not actually in real time.

I use this with a friend who lives in a completely different time zone. I’ll record a message while I’m making breakfast, she’ll watch it during her lunch break, and we can have these ongoing conversations without the stress of trying to find a time that works for both of us.

It has that face-to-face feeling without the coordination headache.

#4. Send Postcards or Packages

I’m a huge fan of receiving something fun in the mail.

Like, mail has become so unfun. Just bills and junk and nothing you ever actually want to receive.

But if you send your distance friend a postcard or package? Whether it’s just a cute sticker you found, or something that reminded you of them, or a book you think they’d love?

That’s magic.

It shows you were thinking about them. It shows you took the time to do something tangible, something physical, to maintain that connection.

One of my friends sends me a postcard from every city she visits. I have them all pinned up in my office. It’s this growing collection of our friendship, proof that even though we’re not in the same place, we’re still very much in each other’s lives.

And when you’re the one traveling, sending postcards is such an easy way to stay connected. You’re already buying them as souvenirs anyway, right? Send one to your people back home.

#5. Share Activities and Hobbies Together

Yes, you don’t need to sign up for a local class to build a friendship.

You and your long-distance friend can have the same hobbies and interests. Because honestly, that’s what friendship is built on anyway. Shared experiences. Shared interests.

So whether that’s the two of you watching the same shows and texting about them in real time, or reading the same book and discussing it, or working on the same knitting pattern, find something you can do together even when you’re apart.

Recently, a friend of mine who lives on the other side of the continent and I went to watch the same movie at the same time. We were in different cities, different theaters, but we were experiencing it together. And then we got on the phone after and discussed it.

You can go watch a movie alone. But then you get together after and talk about it with your friend. And suddenly, it’s not a solo activity anymore.

Maybe you both love a certain sports team. Maybe you’re both into the same podcast. Maybe you’re both learning a new language, or trying to get healthier, or working on similar creative projects.

Find that common ground and lean into it.

If you’re both entrepreneurs working from home, maybe you do virtual coworking sessions. If you’re both into fitness, maybe you do the same workout program and check in with each other.

The point is to create shared experiences even when you’re not physically together.

#6. Have Regular Phone Calls (Not FaceTime, Just Calls)

Okay, this might be because I’m of a certain age, where I grew up with landlines and long conversations with my friends.

But I’m a big fan of regular phone calls.

This is a bit anti-FaceTime, anti-Zoom. You don’t need to always be showing your face. That takes so much effort.

Having a regular call time on your schedule with your long-distance friends just maintains and builds that relationship.

One of my friends is a full-time nomad. I met her while I was traveling for two years. We’re both entrepreneurs, we’re the same age, and honestly, we bonded over curry in Japan.

And we’ve kept that friendship going by having a monthly call.

Sometimes we talk for an hour. Sometimes two hours. We’re just talking about life, about things that happened, about business, about relationships, about everything and nothing.

Just staying connected and building this real friendship, like you would when you were younger and couldn’t stop talking to your friends on the phone. At least when I was a kid, that was a thing.

Having these regular check-ins is a way to not only maintain the friendship but to really know what’s going on in each other’s lives.

Not just the highlight reel. The real stuff.

#7. Play Online Games Together

There are so many apps now that allow you to play online games with distance friends.

Whether that’s playing games on Switch together, Mario Kart across different living rooms, Settlers of Catan, Words With Friends, or any of the million other online games available on your phone, computer, or gaming system.

During the pandemic, something I did regularly was play Settlers of Catan with my friends who were, once again, on the other side of the continent.

This is just a fun way to spend time with friends and do something other than just checking in on each other.

You can tap into that competitive nature of friendship. You can laugh. You can trash-talk. You can just be silly together.

It’s low pressure. It’s fun. And it keeps you connected in a way that doesn’t feel like work.

#8. Visit Each Other When You Can

If you have the budget, hop on a plane and visit your long-distance friends.

I’ve hopped on flights many times to visit friends in the US (I’m in Canada, by the way), or friends traveling through Europe, or friends living in some other part of the world.

I’m constantly going to visit my favorite cities where my traveling friends live, so I can have a vacation but also spend quality time with my people.

You can do this together, too.

Sign up for a yoga retreat together. Go to a conference in a city neither of you lives in. Plan a girls’ weekend. Do a road trip. Go to Vegas. Whatever.

Having these in-person experiences every couple of years can really strengthen your bond and give you shared memories.

Funny little story: I went to visit that same friend I have monthly check-ins with. We were in Malaysia, and there’s this restaurant called Yarl. To me, it just sounded like a pirate’s way of saying “y’all,” and it became this ongoing joke between us.

That would have never happened if we hadn’t hung out in real life.

Research on long-distance relationships shows that periodic face-to-face contact significantly strengthens bonds and creates shared experiences that sustain the friendship between visits.

So if you can swing it, make the trip. It’s worth it.

If you’re trying to figure out how to make new friends in a new city, visiting your distant friends in their cities is actually a great way to expand your social circle while deepening existing friendships.

#9. Remember Important Dates

It’s so important to remember when your friend’s birthday is, their wedding anniversary, and any big milestones.

Whether it’s their child’s birthday, a work promotion they’ve been stressing about, the anniversary of something that matters to them, keeping in touch about this and celebrating them is key to maintaining your friendships.

Don’t be like me and completely lose track of dates while you’re traveling and forget your best friend’s birthday until weeks later.

Time is weird when you travel. You lose touch with all reality, especially when you’re traveling for months at a time in completely different time zones.

So forgive your friends if they forget. But also, don’t be that friend who forgets.

And please, don’t do a generic post on their Facebook wall if you’re on Facebook.

Make it personal.

Send them an embarrassing voice note of you singing Happy Birthday. Make a special post on Instagram with a photo of the two of you. Drop a birthday card if you’re traveling from somewhere around the world.

Or here’s a fun one: if they’re in a country that has Uber Eats or a similar app, and you know they’re home (maybe you have their location), send them a surprise gift.

Who doesn’t love something from their favorite bakery, restaurant, or coffee shop showing up at their door?

You can do this as a birthday surprise, or just because they’re having a rough day and you want to cheer them up.

It’s a little thing that feels so personal. It says, “I’m thinking of you, I know what you like, and I wanted to do something to make you smile.”

When you’re thinking about how to show appreciation for your distance friends, sometimes these thank you quotes can help you express what words alone can’t capture.

#10. Send Them Food or Gifts Through Apps

Building on that last point, this deserves its own section because it’s honestly one of my favorite ways to show love across distance.

If your friend lives in a city with delivery apps, you have so many options for sending them something thoughtful.

Coffee on a Monday morning when you know they have a tough week ahead. Their favorite takeout when they mention they’re too tired to cook. Flowers just because.

It’s intimate. It shows you’re paying attention to their life. It shows you care enough to do something tangible even when you can’t be there physically.

I did this for one of my friends when she was having a rough day. She was too tired to make coffee, so I sent her Starbucks.

It meant a lot to her. That someone took action to make her day a little better.

That’s what maintaining long distance friendships is all about. Finding creative ways to show up for each other even when you can’t physically show up.

When Long Distance Friendships Don’t Work Out

I’d love to say that every single person you meet on vacation, every friend you make online, is going to be a lifelong friend.

That you’ll always be passionate about each other, keep in contact, and it’s all gonna work out perfectly.

But the reality is, that’s not reality.

Even if you have incredible experiences together. Even if you spend months traveling together or live together. Even if you think it’s gonna work out forever.

It just might not.

And sometimes, honestly, relationships go through cooling-off periods where you don’t talk for weeks, months, sometimes years.

Never be afraid to reach out and reconnect.

Know that relationships come in seasons. Sometimes that person is open to connecting, and sometimes they’re not.

Personally, right now, I’m going through that period with a few people I thought I’d be friends with forever.

I will always love them. But I’ve reached the point where I realize I’m just gonna let go. I’m not going to push. I’m not going to reach out asking to connect or begging them to tell me all about their lives if they’re just not interested.

Some people just want that surface-level friendship that’s just sending memes with no real depth, no real “friendshipping” happening.

And you just gotta make peace with that.

But know that you can still have real connections with other people. Sometimes, the people you meet online or on vacation become your closest friends.

And even if they don’t, you have the memories. And that’s beautiful in and of itself.

If you’re struggling with whether to maintain a friendship or let it go, understanding how to stop feeling jealous can help you navigate those complicated feelings when distance friends seem to be thriving without you.

Balance Long Distance Friendships with Local Ones

This is why I highly recommend you put effort into building and maintaining local friendships where you are, too.

No matter where you live in the world, you need a friend you can grab coffee with. Someone you can do things with in person.

We’re so consumed by the online aspect of our lives that we can miss out on IRL connections.

And there are so many ways to meet friends where you are.

Sign up for a sport. Go to an event. Go to a conference. Join a meetup. Use an app like Time Left or other friendship apps.

Humans nowadays are so starved for in-person connection.

So put yourself out there and have that balance between long-distance friendships and local friendships. Then you’re winning.

You’ll always have someplace to go and visit. Your friends will always have somewhere, or someone, to visit.

Think of this as a win-win situation.

And if you’re feeling like you have no friends at all right now, whether locally or long-distance, start with one connection. Just one person. Build from there.

The Unique Challenges of Different Time Zones

Let’s talk about something that makes long-distance friendships extra complicated: time zones.

When your friend is in New York, and you’re in Tokyo, when someone’s day is just startin,g and yours is ending, coordinating becomes a whole thing.

But here’s what I’ve learned: you work around it.

You find the pockets of overlap. Maybe it’s your morning and their evening. Maybe it’s your lunch break and their before-bed wind-down time.

You get creative with asynchronous communication. Voice memos. Marco Polo. Long emails or messages that the other person can read and respond to when it works for them.

You accept that sometimes, you’re going to miss each other. That sometimes, by the time they respond to your message, you’ll be asleep. And that’s okay.

The friendship isn’t measured by how quickly you respond. It’s measured by the fact that you do respond. That you keep showing up. That you keep the conversation going even when it takes a little longer.

One of my closest friends lives in a time zone that’s literally 12 hours different from mine. When I’m waking up, she’s going to bed. When she’s having lunch, I’m having dinner.

We make it work by being flexible. By understanding that real-time conversations are rare and precious. By valuing the asynchronous ones just as much.

And when we do manage to catch each other at the same time? It feels special. Like we both carved out this moment in our completely different days to connect.

That’s worth protecting.

What Makes Long-Distance Friendships Last

After maintaining friendships across continents, time zones, and busy lives for years, here’s what I’ve learned:

The friendships that last are the ones where both people are committed.

Where both people see the value in the relationship and are willing to put in the work to maintain it.

Where both people understand that distance is just geography. It doesn’t diminish the love, the care, the connection.

The friendships that last are the ones where you can go weeks without talking and pick up right where you left off. But also where you don’t go weeks without talking too often, because you both make the effort to stay connected.

The friendships that last are the ones where you celebrate each other’s wins from across the world. Where you support each other through hard times, even when you can’t physically be there. Where you make the effort to really know what’s going on in each other’s lives, not just the Instagram highlight reel.

Communication research shows that successful long-distance friendships require intentional communication, emotional support, and creative ways of staying connected.

It’s not always easy. There will be times when the distance feels heavy. When you wish, you could just grab coffee together or show up at their door when they’re having a bad day.

But if the friendship matters, you find ways to bridge that gap.

You send the voice memo. You mail the postcard. You schedule the call. You show up, even from far away.

Because at the end of the day, friendship isn’t about physical proximity.

It’s about showing up for each other. It’s about caring. It’s about making space in your life for someone else.

And you can do that from anywhere in the world.

Reach Out To Your Long-Distance Friend, Now!

Maintaining long-distance friendships takes work. It takes creativity. It takes commitment.

But if you’ve got people in your life who are worth it, people who light you up, people who see you and get you and celebrate you, then that work is worth doing.

Distance doesn’t have to mean the end of a friendship. It just means the friendship looks a little different.

So send the voice memo. Mail the postcard. Schedule the call. Book the flight when you can.

Keep showing up for your people, and let them show up for you.

The right friends will meet you in the middle, no matter how many miles are between you.

You don’t need a perfect system. You don’t need to do all of these things. You just need to do something. Consistently. With love.

So what’s your next step? Who are you going to reach out to today?

You’ve got this. It’s all you, boo.

Last Updated on February 3, 2026

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