Having long-distance friendships can be just as hard at times as maintaining a long-distance relationship. It sucks not being able to see your bestie in person all the time and there’s always the fear of losing touch with each other due to the distance. While it may be hard and challenging to be so far apart from your friends, there are a few tricks and fun ways to stay close and stay connected! These 10 tips for rocking your friendship across the miles will help you stay engaged with one another even when you can’t meet face-to-face.
I know, how original, right? Sending letters to your faraway friends may seem super old school, but it’s always exciting to get mail, and receiving a hand-written note from a friend makes the message even more special. Writing letters is always a go-to for long-distance friendships because it’s a really personal way to say hello.
Letters let your friend know you’re thinking about them and that you care enough to take the time to write out a letter and mail it. There’s just something a bit more personal and more special about receiving a handwritten letter from a friend over a text message, and you can keep the card forever!
Video chatting is a great way to stay in touch with your long-distance friends and lets you get close and see them without actually being with them in person. It can be a little sad to only see them through the screen, but it’s better than nothing! Being able to see your friend and hear their voice is more engaging than just a phone call or text message and it’s more fun that way! Make a fun date out of it or schedule fun weekly video chats to keep up with your long-distance buddy.
Get crafty with your faraway bestie and start up a scrapbook or adventure journal! This is a really cool way to keep in touch with each other and is more personal than just stalking each other’s social media. You can fill it with whatever you want like pictures, art, or writing, and use it to give your friends updates on your life and to learn about what’s going on in theirs.
Simply get a journal and add something to it to kick it off, then mail it to your long-distance buddies and see what they’ve added when it gets mailed back to you! It gives you something to look forward to and is a way to hold each other accountable for staying in touch.
Friends who shop together, stay together, right? Grab your phone and call up your friend who lives far away to go online shopping together! Visit the same website and browse together while on the phone or video chatting, or even just messaging each other! It seriously makes online shopping much more fun and is a good way to spend some time with your bestie when you don’t get to see them very often because of the distance.
Sending gifts isn’t reserved just for the holidays or birthdays. It can be really sweet to receive a surprise gift from a long-distance pal and just as exciting to mail one. Little gifts here and there let your friend know they’re on your mind and it’s a personal way to express how much they mean to you, even from such a distance.
I personally like to go all-out on Holidays and send my long-distance BFF some crazy elaborate gift boxes (she always does the same for me too, I look forward to it all year!), but sometimes smaller is better. You don’t need to go all-out every time, but a small gift every now and then helps to keep that connection strong.
You don’t have to start your own book club (but by all means go ahead if you want!), but planning to read the same book at the same time as your long-distance friend can be a really fun way to stay connected. It gives you something to talk about and keeps you motivated to stay in touch while reading a good book, a win-win.
To take it up a notch, if it’s a fictional book, check to see if there’s a movie based off of it and watch that together via Facetime or Skype! Then have fun talking about how much better the book was.
If you’ve both got Netflix or access to the same television series, go ahead and binge that together! It’s more fun than watching alone and you’re both going to watch it anyway, so why not watch it together? It’s certainly different than watching together in person, but video chatting your BFF while you’ve both got the show running can be fun too! Reacting to the show together can make it feel like you’re watching together in person, just make sure to time the streaming right!
If you can afford to, plan a trip to see each other! Even if it’s just once or twice a year, getting to see your long-distance friend after being apart for a while is the best way to keep that friendship strong. If you’ve both got that trip to look forward to, it can be a great motivator for staying in touch!
Not to mention knowing you’ll get to see them eventually helps ease the pain of being so far apart (if only slightly). It doesn’t have to be anything fancy or elaborate, just getting to see each other even for a day would be beneficial to your friendship!
There are a few different ways you can do this, but playing games or doing activities together while being far apart can strengthen a friendship and keep your connection strong. If you’ve both got gaming consoles playing video games online is a great way to have some fun and interact with your long-distance bestie.
If that’s not your thing, there are tons of apps for playing more classic games like UNO or game-specific apps like Psych! that are made to play long-distance. Playing games together is a fun way to keep up with one another and who doesn’t like a little friendly competition?
This one is pretty self-explanatory and I think common sense among anyone dealing with a long-distance friendship. It’s super important to take time to just check-in on your faraway friends. Whether it’s a simple text, phone call, or video chat, checking in to see how your friends are doing and what’s been going on in their lives is crucial to maintaining a strong friendship across the miles. It means a lot to know that your friend cares about you and wants to know how you’re doing, especially if you don’t get to see that person very often.
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