With some of my friends I regularly schedule video calls to catch up. With a 12hr time difference this is usually at night for me and morning for them, or the other way around and happens mostly on weekends. Which is sometimes difficult if you’re trying to make new friends and hang out on the weekends with them as well, but so far it has always worked out.

As videocalling doesn’t always work for everyone, I also make short vlogs for my friends where I just chat to my recording phone as though they were right there. I show them my garden during the day, or something that we’ve changed around the house, or a new hobby that I started. Then I send these short videos and they can have a look whenever they have time for it. I also get fun videos back and to see them when I wake up in the morning makes my day start off with a smile.

For Birthdays and other special occasions I add extra reminders in my calendar. Being used to the seasons in the Northern hemisphere my memory doesn’t get jogged as easily about upcoming birthdays now that they are in a different season here in New Zealand. I know most of my friends have Birthdays in July-September and that used to be summer, now it is winter and I just forget more easily. So reminders in my phones calendar have really helped! I put them a bit earlier than a reminder for someone nearby as I probably need a bit more time to think, browse and ship a present to them as well.

It can be devastating to hear sad news from a close friend and not be able to go over and give them a hug or be there for them in person. This is one of the hardest things about long distance friendships in my opinion and I’m still learning how to be better at this as well. What I do in these situations is check in on them more often by either texting or calling. Sometimes I will send a card or flowers/chocolate to them to cheer them up a little and to simply let them know that I wish I was there and am thinking of them.

Being in a different part of the world makes it really difficult to keep building friendships because you don’t have any adventures or shared events together anymore. Luckily we live in an age of advanced technological possibilities and those can really help to still do things together! One of my best friends for example gave me an online escape room for my birthday last year. It was great! We got a group of friends to plan it in a while ahead to make sure everyone had time and we were in an escape room working together and puzzling it out while also chatting over the voice chat capability of the escape room. Another way to have fun with this is to play online games together, we recently joined Nintendo online and can now play different multiplayer games with friends back in the Netherlands!

Something I haven’t done yet, but am working on right now is making a box with snacks and little pieces of our life here that we are allowed to ship for my friends/family and send it to them. I am including some new found favorites from New Zealand that are not available in the Netherlands, and possible some small gifts I got them here. Shipping is super expensive though so this is not going to be a regular thing. If you have tons of money to spend on this and want to, you can go nuts with this haha. We will be shipping one box with inside it a bunch of smaller packages that my sweet family will hopefully mail inside the Netherlands for us.

This is happening to other way around as well, occasionally get a package from the Netherlands with snacks and things that I miss from the Netherlands! These are some of the best things to receive in the mail and every time it feels like Christmas.

Our life here is quite different than it was in the Netherlands. We go on hikes and take tons of pictures and videos of the scenery here (check out my instagram for a glimpse into all of that) and I often send a load of pictures and videos to friends and family with some stories of what happened. And sometimes it’s just a random pictures of something funny I saw that I wanted to share with them, or a random thing that made me think of them. Better to send a few pics too many than not enough and fall out of touch in my opinion.

We have an extra bedroom in our house, specifically choose our house because of that so family and friends could come over and visit any time they want to. They all know they are so welcome here and we will have a bedroom and bathroom available for them. Covid-19 messed that up for quite some time but hopefully in the future they will be able to visit us and I get to share more of my life with them and show them how beautiful it is here.

This goes the other way around as well, when we are able to visit the Netherlands again, I’m planning on spending lots of time to catch up with my friends and see them in person and hug them and have fun together.

Lastly I wanted to say that long distance friendships require effort from both sides, you can do all of the above and still feel like you are drifting apart and sometimes that’s how it goes, sadly. Some friendships only work when you’re in close proximity, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a real friend, but it does mean that you might lose some friends when you move abroad. For me that’s painful but also ok. It gives me space in my limited-space-social-calendar to make friends here too. If I was staying in touch with everyone back in the Netherlands and not making new friends here, I think it would be very hard to build up a life here.

If you have a friendship that spans a great distance and have more tips on how to have a great friendship, please reach out to me on Instagram or email me, I’d love to hear it! I’m still learning how to navigate this as well and can always use more ideas and perspectives.