Simple Things Long-Distance Friends Can Do To Feel Close, No Matter How Far Apart You Are

We’re all adults here, which means we’ve likely all known the pain of having your best friend move to another city — or being the friend who had to relocate yourself. It sucks having your best friend in another time zone, on the opposite coast, or on the other side of the world. Yes, there’s calling, texting, and social media to keep in touch, but sometimes, it just doesn’t feel like enough. And with busy schedules and families involved, it can be hard to remember to reply to every message or make time for the long chats you really want to have.

These long-distance friendship ideas will help make it easier to keep in touch with your bestie, feel truly connected about what’s going on in each other’s lives, and make new memories without having to book airfare each time. (Of course, the first thing you should do is try to convince them to move to your city. But, you know, if all else fails...)

Do something boring together via FaceTime.

If you both need to meal prep, fold laundry, or do a lengthy skincare routine, why not hang out on FaceTime while you’re at it? You don’t have to wait until you’re both sitting down, drink in hand, with everything else done before you can catch up and spend time together.

Remember the magic of living with your best friends and running errands together? This also feels like doing a little bit of life together versus just catching up, no matter how many miles apart you are. Plus, if you can stack friend time over something else in your routine that’s consistent — like a Sunday meal prep session — you’ll both know you have some time set up to chat without going through the rigamarole of scheduling it.

Send a care package.

Holidays, birthdays, promotions, hard times — a care package is always the answer. You don’t have to spend a ton of money on a gift for your bestie. Just pick up some small things they love over time to send when they need a pick-me-up. Honestly, even just decorating the inside of the box makes it ten times cuter and more special.

My friend in Portland sends gifts on my birthday and at Christmas, but they usually contain some postcards or trinkets from her travels throughout the year, and I treasure each one. Once, she included a chain of paper cranes she made that I hung in my office. You don’t have to spend a bunch of money to make your gifts meaningful.

Try some cute connection-based apps.

Look, texting and social media are fine, but liking each other's posts, sharing memes, and forgetting to reply are not the same as really knowing what’s going on in our friends’ lives. Try out a few friendship apps together.

• Cappuccino allows you to record snippets of your days and then compiles them into a little podcast episode with background music at the end of the day.
• Letterloop is similar, but for the girlies who love their inbox when it’s full of newsletters. Submit questions for your friends to answer, and Letterloop will curate them into legit newsletters and send them to you to get all caught up on your friends’ lives.
• Locket adds a cute little widget to your home screen where you and your friends can upload photos throughout the day. It’s a good way to keep people close and have your friends be top of mind when you pick up your phone.
• BeReal sends you and all your friends a prompt at a different time each day. You’re supposed to pick up your phone and snap a pic — it takes a selfie and a photo out of your back camera — to give your besties some insight into your day. Yes, a lot of times you get pics of each other at work, but hey... what’s that little trinket on your desk? Is that from our girls’ trip?!
• Teleparty, Kast, and other watch party apps allow you to create a watch party and share the link with a friend, not unlike a Zoom or Teams meeting. Then, you know you and your friend are watching the show or movie you’ve chosen completely in sync — and there are chat boxes off to the side so you can discuss.

Collab on some playlists.

If you and your friend share a love for the same genres of music, curate some playlists together. Spotify, for example, allows you to invite other users to edit playlists together. You’ll get to hear each other’s recommendations and chat about them later. “Hey, that new song you put on the workout playlist helped me reach a new PR today” is a way better text to send or receive than “So, how was your day?”

Establish a weekly or monthly virtual event.

Maybe you watch the new episode of your favorite series together each week or meet over Zoom once a month for a book club. Take an annual girls’ trip. Psychologist Dr. Miriam Kirmayer says having traditions like these bolsters the comfort and familiarity you want to feel in a friendship. I love the idea of a monthly game night between long-distance friends, and I find this Redditor’s idea of playing “Guess The Breast” hilarious — she cropped photos of her friends’ cleavage, and everyone had to guess whose it was. I’m dead.

Try new things together.

Part of what makes friendship exciting is trying out the new restaurant in town or being nervous about attempting reformer pilates for the first time, but taking your bestie with you because you know it’ll at least be fun. Maybe you attempt a virtual escape room, try baking a complex cake from scratch or order the same beginners’ knitting kits. You don’t have to go all out every time you talk, but adding in some novelty helps your friendship continue to grow instead of relying on memories alone.