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What this site is for
LongDistance.net is a reference for the practical questions long-distance couples actually run into. How often should we talk? Is it weird that I'm jealous of their friends? Whose country do we end up in? What do I send for our anniversary if we still haven't met in person?
We don't try to be a therapist, and we don't romanticize distance. Long distance is hard, it can be done well, and most of the difficulty comes from a small number of patterns that show up again and again: mismatched expectations about communication, slow drift, putting off the big decisions, and one person carrying more of the emotional load. Most of our guides are built around those patterns, with scripts, checklists and decision rules you can use the same day.
What we cover
- Surviving and thriving: the day-to-day of communication, trust, conflict, mental health, milestones, and family.
- Gift guides: gifts that ship well and mean something, organized by recipient, occasion and type, plus care packages.
- Activities and travel: virtual date ideas, the first meeting, planning visits, and what to do when you're finally together.
- Closing the distance: the move itself, from deciding who relocates to visas, jobs, housing, money and the first months under one roof.
If you're new, start here, or try the readiness check to see where your relationship stands.
Who we write for
Mostly couples between about 18 and 35: students, early-career professionals, military couples, and people who met online or while traveling and now live in different cities or countries. Many of our readers are in international relationships, so we try not to assume everyone is American or that a visa is a footnote. Long-distance friends, siblings, parents and grandparents use the site too, and some guides are written specifically for them.
We don't assume gender or orientation. "Partner" is our default unless a page is explicitly about, say, gifts for a boyfriend.
Who writes it
LongDistance.net is a small independent site. Articles are written and edited by the LongDistance.net editorial team, which is why bylines say "LongDistance.net Editorial" rather than naming an individual expert. We'd rather be upfront about that than invent credentials. We are not licensed therapists, immigration attorneys or financial advisers, and our guides say so where it matters and point you to people who are.
How we research and fact-check
Each guide starts from the questions people actually search for, then draws on:
- Published research on long-distance and cross-residential relationships, such as Laura Stafford's work on maintaining long-distance relationships and Jiang and Hancock's 2013 study on intimacy in long-distance dating. We describe findings accurately and note their limits; much of this research uses small samples of college students.
- Official sources for anything legal or time-sensitive: government immigration sites like uscis.gov, official fee schedules, and the terms published by app and product makers.
- Practical experience of long-distance relationships, written up as general patterns or clearly labeled hypothetical examples.
Our rules: we don't invent statistics, quotes, experts or reader stories. If a number can't be traced to a named source and year, we don't use it. When something is our opinion rather than established research, we say so. Fees, prices and app features are stated as approximate with the date, because they change, and we tell you to confirm with the official source. You can read more about how we treat popular but shaky numbers on our long-distance relationship statistics page.
How we make money
LongDistance.net participates in the Amazon Associates program. Some gift guides and product pages include affiliate links, and as an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. You pay the same price either way. Pages with affiliate links carry a disclosure at the top.
Nobody pays us to be included in a guide, and an affiliate link never decides whether something is recommended. We include free and non-Amazon options whenever they're the better choice, and many of our most useful guides contain no affiliate links at all. The full details, including how we choose products, are in our disclaimer and affiliate disclosure.
The site does not currently show display advertising. We may add ads in the future to cover running costs. If we do, ads will be clearly separated from editorial content, and we will update our privacy policy and cookie policy before or when they go live.
Corrections policy
We get things wrong sometimes, and rules change underneath us: visa fees go up, apps shut down features, products get discontinued. When that happens:
- Tell us. Email the address on our contact page with the page URL, the line that's wrong and, if you have it, the source we should be using.
- We check it. We verify against the original or official source, not just the report.
- We fix it. Factual errors are corrected on the page and the "updated" date changes. If a correction changes the meaning of advice in a significant way, we say what changed.
We review guides regularly, with time-sensitive topics such as visas, apps and gift prices checked more often.
What you won't find here
- Endless reassurance that "if it's meant to be, it'll work out." Sometimes it won't, and pretending otherwise can cost people years.
- One-size-fits-all rules. The right amount of contact for one couple is suffocating for another.
- Made-up success rates, fake expert quotes, or "we tested 37 products" claims we can't back up.
- Advice that replaces a professional. For mental health, legal or money decisions, we point you to people qualified to help.
Get in touch
Questions, topic suggestions, corrections, or a long-distance story you want to share: drop us a note. We read everything, and reader questions are where many of our best guides come from.