How far do you live from your loved ones, and how often do you visit?

[Tasse]

This is a purely hypothetical question for me for now, but it's on my mind. Who here has decided where to live based on the distance from your loved ones? What did you decide was an appropriate distance, and how often do you see them?

My partner and I work from home, so can theoretically live anywhere. I currently live a 5-minute walk from my in-laws, and we see them multiple times per week. My family is ~8 hours of travel away, including a plane ride, and we see them several times per year. I daydream of living closer to my family, but the 5-minute walk has skewed my perspective of what distance is reasonable. My parents do not live in a walkable/bikeable area, and my independent siblings live within a 1-hour-drive radius of them.

I'm not making plans right now, just wondering: how close is close enough to be worth prioritizing? Tell me your stories.

ETA: I said "loved ones" and not "family" for a reason. For me it is family, but for you it is whoever you want to include in your life.

[roomtempmayo]

Don't discount having family a walkable distance away. 

My experience has been that going from walking distance to needing to get in the car reduces contact by 50-75%, even if it's just a 10 minute drive.  If it involves a big freeway drive, we may as well not even be in the same city anymore.

Siblings an hour away from your parents?  If your family is anything like mine, you'll end up seeing them on holidays and that's about it.

[Sibley]

I'm a mile from my parents. I don't see them particularly frequently, but I don't want to see them particularly frequently. There are consequences to being stereotypical clueless Boomers. It's important that they be close to one of their kids because they need help however, and I am that kid.

I'm seeing them a lot more now, and will for a while, because they just adopted a kitten and said kitten will likely end up as my cat some years in the future. I'm trying to make sure the kitten is properly raised and socialized to make my life easier down the line. It doesn't help that mom managed to adopt a kitten which has serious deficits in socialization, nor does it help that she seems incapable of realizing the extent of the problem.

There is no one correct answer to your question Tass. The only thing that matters is what is right for you, and the personalities and dynamics of the relationships matter a great deal.

[Laura33]

I am 6 houses and one street crossing (stop sign) from my mom.  It's a little too close for me, particularly since my stepdad died and my mom has started to rely on me more.  But when the kids were little, it was the best. thing. ever.

Backstory:  when I grew up, my family was all over the place.  I saw my cousins once a year for a week at my Granny's, saw my grandparents at a couple of holidays, saw my dad for about 6 weeks in the summer and some holidays, saw my stepsiblings when I was home in the summer before they went back across the country to their mom's.  I always sort of theoretically wanted to be closer to family and in fact chose law school and first job based in part on that, and even convinced DH to move out to me when we married (he grew up a couple of towns over, even though we never met until he was literally more than halfway across the country, so his sisters lived fairly near me and we had both sides of the family here).  But when his job got caught up in the first tech crash and we moved to the Rockies, I decided to make the best of it and create a new life out there.  Ironically, my stepsister had settled in a town about an hour away, so I at least had that.  ;-) 

When we had our first kid, though, all that changed.  I very strongly wanted my kids to grow up surrounded by extended family, so that seeing them was a normal part of life, not something that happened on holidays and vacation.  Honestly, I was surprised by how hard it hit me.  I was thrilled when we had the opportunity to move back.  DH was less thrilled with quite how close were were to my mom, but it was the mid-2000s property boom and options were very severely limited (well, at least options we were willing to pay for).  A couple of years later, though, he acknowledged that it was the best choice we could have made; I think we'd both have preferred to be maybe a mile away, but being walkable not just to my mom but to the shops and stuff freed us up from being a chauffeur for 20+ years, which was completely awesome, and having my mom and stepdad able to do daycare pickups once or twice a week was a huge help.  I wouldn't trade that decision for anything.

I am now getting the sense that the location may be even more important now that my mom is aging.  I am her only biological child, so whatever burdens come will fall on me, and being close will help with that.  Perhaps if I had siblings to share the load it would be more strategic to live farther away, so I could just send checks and let someone else manage the day-to-day.  ;-)  But since I will be managing, being this close will be a real plus.

[FINate]

For a very long time the entire extended family was within about 30 minutes: my parents, the in-laws, my siblings, DW's siblings... the whole gang. Overall it was  wonderful, especially once we and the siblings started having kids. Lots of cousin time, and having the grandparents around to help with childcare and date nights was amazing. Of course, there were a few downsides as well, like expectations that we'd be around for every family event/holiday, so we had to put up some reasonable boundaries, including things like not just dropping by unannounced. A minor inconvenience, really.

Now the family is spread out all over the Western US: WA, OR, ID, CA, AZ. We moved to Boise and my parents followed us here. Most of the siblings have scattered about, with a small few sticking it out in the old location of Coastal CA. What happened? Housing just got too dang expensive. Even for us, FIRE and owning our home outright, it didn't make sense to continue living in Coastal CA, and our main motivation was moving for the sake of our kids as they grow into adulthood. That's the crazy thing with places that go full NIMBY -- sure, if you're a homeowner things look great on paper, but if you have kids/family it makes it very likely that they'll get priced out and scatter.

I'm not complaining about moving. It was absolutely the right thing for our immediate family, especially our kids. This becomes more and more apparent the longer we live here. And in many ways Boise is a much better fit for us and I love the natural beauty, the four seasons, abundant wilderness, and our amazing walkable/bikeable city. But leaving family (and friends) was the most difficult part. We've made a ton of great new friends and have formed a solid community here through our church, so it has all worked out. Part of me, though, still longs for the days when all the family was local.

Part of the reason we picked Boise was it's relative proximity to the CA and the PNW. It's a day's drive to the Bay Area and Seattle. AZ is tough, and honestly we don't visit family there much -- it's also just too hot there during the summer months when the kids are on break. Family members generally come to Boise to visit 1-2x/year, usually Thanksgiving and/or summer.

All that to say, I don't think there's a "right" answer to your question about how close is close enough? It really depends on your family and specific situation. If you're close with your parents then moving any distance is going to be tough. IMO, there's something about moving more than 1 hr away that really changes things, as this makes informal gatherings a lot less attractive. At around 3 hrs away and visits become full day commitments. More than 3 hrs and visits become multi day affairs and are a lot more complicated and expensive.

[wenchsenior]

If you mean family, I've never lived anywhere near any of them as an adult, except for a short couple of years where we ended up back in the region I grew up in for my husband's postdoc.

It's a full day's plane travel (+ up to 4 hours' driving with some of them) to see anyone. Most of our lives we simply haven't had the extra cash to frequently fly (our income is high, but we started saving very late so the vast majority of our free cash goes to retirement savings or other nondiscretionary spending such as supporting my mother, the only relative that I see regularly b/c she had to move to the city we live in so we could support her).

There was a brief, lovely period in the mid 2000s where we had cash flow and before we started supporting relatives, and when one of my sisters had a spare bedroom that I could stay in, when I went 'home' for a couple weeks most summers. That was maybe 4 years total?

Thus, I have generally seen my family very rarely over the past 30 years. Maybe once every 3-5 years, less than that for some of them that are logistically challenging to get to, such as my father (maybe every 5-8 years, I'd guess).

It really sucks, but we didn't have an option to choose to live close to any of them. My husband's desired jobs were limited, and we had to go where the job was. We ended up in a place we dislike and have lived here for decades now, but he does really love his job.

Looking back, was it the right choice? Possibly if we knew then what we know now, we would have made different choices about jobs/location, but honestly that is more about the fact that we dislike where we live, not proximity to family. Instead, we might have chosen a different city (if we had the option) just as far from family but that we actually liked to live in.

:shrug:

Most of the people in our social circle didn't get very much option to choose where they ended up. They went where the jobs were, and those jobs often didn't exist in proximity to their families.  I do think that people with kids tend to prioritize 'family' vacations with the grandparents and extended family over other types of vacations, and so they might allocate their limited funds and free time more in that direction than we have.

[simonsez]

I grew up in the Midwest as did my wife (same town though different middle school and then she moved 10 min away to neighboring suburb for high school), though I never met her until college years.  Both sets of parents are still happily married and in the same metropolitan area.  We moved to DC to join the rat race for a few years.  We moved back for many reasons but the two main ones were the social magnet was very strong (parents, extended family, friends) and we wanted to own a reasonable house.  Owning a reasonable house was not happening anytime soon in DC - it felt like we were treading water.  I kept my DC job and transitioned it to remote work.  My parents live 20 minutes away, my in-laws live 30 minutes away, and my brother and his family live 25 minutes away.  They're all clustered in the same approximate area.  I'd say we see all the different units at least twice a month, usually more during the summer months (married to an educator) and winter holidays.  Visits range from a couple hours for a meal or a game night to entire weekends if we're headed to a family property.  If it were up to me, we'd visit a little more but I'm extroverted and desire the extra human interaction since I work remotely.  Still, the balance of visiting close family is pretty good. 

Thinking about where we'll live in the years to come, there is a cognizance to stay around ~half hour drive away while balancing many of the other traditional housing factors. 

We don't have children but if we do someday, we have retired sets of parents who have made it clearly known that they wish to be a part of childcare arrangements.  My brother uses my parents for childcare and as a result, sees them 2-3x a week but it's not as many social calls - usually just child pick-up and drop-off (and he lives 5 min away from my parents).  My hypothetical future that involves a child would be 1 day at my parents per week, 1 day at in-laws per week, and plenty of social calls on nights and weekends as I don't like the burden of childcare somehow replacing our social time.  I don't think that's fair to anyone involved but it does figure into the overall calculus of never wanting to live too far away.  I also want to help with geriatric care in the years to come and selfishly don't want to have to travel too far to do that.

[LifeHappens]

I'm middle-aged with no children and knew from an early age I didn't want to live in the tiny town I grew up in. As an adult I had one stretch of 8 years of living within a 15 minute drive of my parents. For 7 years I was a 90 minute drive. Now I live 1500 miles away.

I have 2 sisters who live within a 60-90 minute drive of my parents (and each other). They all see each other frequently, especially in the summer when my parents help with child care.

I try to get back 2 or 3 times per year. Covid interrupted that for 18 months, which was hard for all of us. I do get along well with my family, but I don't feel any need to live within driving distance.

I will say, as the person who moved away the burden of travel falls almost exclusively on me. My family has all traveled here at various times, but it's 2 times each in 10 years.

[Freedomin5]

We just bought a house within a two hour drive from DH’s parents because his family is probably going to need our help as they age. Close enough that we can get there if they need help. Far enough that they’re not constantly on our doorstep.

[Tasse]

If you mean family...

I intentionally said "loved ones" and not "family," even though family is who I'm thinking of. I also want stories of people who decided where to live based on close friends.

Edited OP to emphasize this.

[Catbert]

I think it was in Annie Hall where Diane Keaton said to a friend, "We have sex all the time - 3 times a week."  Then the movie cuts to Woody Allen who complained, "We hardly ever have sex - only 3 times a week."

One person will love being 5 minutes away from family that they see almost every day.  Another person who lives 5 minutes from family will pretend not to be home when they knock on the door unannounced.  Neither of these situations will tell you what you'll like.

[Dreamer40]

I decided to move to the same neighborhood as my inlaws during the pandemic. A bunch of them live on the same street and I’m 2 blocks away. And then I moved my aging parents to the same area. I see some of them a lot and some of them not so often. We don’t actually have many interests in common. But the proximity helps us connect, which is important to me.

It’s also an area and a house I would absolutely love even if nobody else lived here. I wouldn’t move somewhere I didn’t like just because family was there.

[Michael in ABQ]

My parents and siblings are 1,000 miles away. But when we go visit my parents (still in the same house they bought in the 1970s) two of my aunts bought the house across the street and my sister and her kids live another minute or two walk away. My brother lives a few minutes drive away (no direct walking path). So that's really nice that my kids and their cousins can just run back and forth between three houses and various pools, trampolines, backyards, etc. to play in. It's practically like having a little family compound. Plus the whole neighborhood is surrounded by a large greenbelt so there's a bunch of areas for them to go play outside. 8 plane tickets are pretty expensive so we only make the trip once a year. My parents come and visit a couple of times a year.


We live about a 3-minute drive from my in-laws. We could walk it in 10 minutes but it involves crossing some rough areas and a busy street with no crosswalk for a half-mile in either direction so not practical most of the time. My wife's family almost all lives in the same city anywhere from 5-45 minutes away and we used to see everyone pretty often but now that her sibling's kids are all grown up and off at college it's usually just at holidays or birthdays. That support system of having grandparents a few minutes away has been so valuable - especially with 6 kids. Multiple times a week they come over to pick up 1-3 kids to take them over to their house or just go run errands. The noise and chaos of kids does not increase linearly, it's logarithmic or exponential so removing 1 or 2 for even a few hours makes a big difference during the summer when the kids start to get on each other's nerves because they see each other all day everyday.

[Metalcat]

I'm currently living 31 hours (including a 7 hour ferry ride) away from everyone I've ever known for more than a year. It's fine, I'm quite comfortable maintaining relationships via text and phone calls.

I also have some really good friends out here now, and my back home loved ones like to come visit me. My sister will be here in a few days, my BFF will be here in a few weeks. It's a bucket-list vacation destination for most people, so they're thrilled to have someone with a house out here. I'm building an extension and will be able to host even more guests.

I've moved a lot, I've changed careers a few times, I'm used to my relationships and interactions with people I care about changing. It's all good.

That reminds me, I need to call my dad.

[Tasse]

One person will love being 5 minutes away from family that they see almost every day.  Another person who lives 5 minutes from family will pretend not to be home when they knock on the door unannounced.  Neither of these situations will tell you what you'll like.

My question is not about what I like. It's about what distances facilitate what levels of interaction.

I don't expect to rent this apartment forever, so eventually I'm going to be weighing factors of living various places - walkability, climate, local resources and attractions, suitability of the home. One of those factors is distance from my loved ones. But while I already know how to assess walkability, I don't feel like I have a strong grasp of what it means to live various distances from my family in day-to-day terms. (5 min walk vs 5 min drive vs 30 min drive vs 3 hour drive = how often is it practical/desirable to visit?) That's why I'm asking for others' experiences.

[Metalcat]

One person will love being 5 minutes away from family that they see almost every day.  Another person who lives 5 minutes from family will pretend not to be home when they knock on the door unannounced.  Neither of these situations will tell you what you'll like.

My question is not about what I like. It's about what distances facilitate what levels of interaction.

I don't expect to rent this apartment forever, so eventually I'm going to be weighing factors of living various places - walkability, climate, local resources and attractions, suitability of the home. One of those factors is distance from my loved ones. But while I already know how to assess walkability, I don't feel like I have a strong grasp of what it means to live various distances from my family in day-to-day terms. (5 min walk vs 5 min drive vs 30 min drive vs 3 hour drive = how often is it practical/desirable to visit?) That's why I'm asking for others' experiences.

That's going to be very, very personal to each person.

When I'm not living in the middle of nowhere, I live a 20-25 minute drive from practically all of my family members. I have gone through phases of seeing some of them every week while not seeing others for months at a time. It all depends on how determined I am to see them and what my schedule has been like.

There are some loved ones that I saw more when I lived 2+hrs away from them because we put in more effort to coordinate our schedules when we had a chance to see each other. Living close made us lazy because we could always get together "next week" and then 20 "next weeks" would fly by.

[Sibley]

One person will love being 5 minutes away from family that they see almost every day.  Another person who lives 5 minutes from family will pretend not to be home when they knock on the door unannounced.  Neither of these situations will tell you what you'll like.

My question is not about what I like. It's about what distances facilitate what levels of interaction.

I don't expect to rent this apartment forever, so eventually I'm going to be weighing factors of living various places - walkability, climate, local resources and attractions, suitability of the home. One of those factors is distance from my loved ones. But while I already know how to assess walkability, I don't feel like I have a strong grasp of what it means to live various distances from my family in day-to-day terms. (5 min walk vs 5 min drive vs 30 min drive vs 3 hour drive = how often is it practical/desirable to visit?) That's why I'm asking for others' experiences.

And that's what we're trying to tell you: it's personal. You could live in the same house and not interact with someone. You could live 1000 miles away and be very close.

[Villanelle]

I've lived anywhere from about 90 minutes to 20+ hours (door to door) from my parents, sibling, and in-laws. 

I'm currently about a 5 hour flight (so ~8 hours door-to-door).

When I was living in Japan and Germany (parents in the US) most years we flew back for 5-10 days around the holidays and then mid-summer I'd fly to see them and stay 2-3 weeks.  That ended up feeling like better quality time than when we lived 90 minutes away and saw them every 4-8 weeks for a few days.  Being entrenched with them, rather than being in guest/host mode just makes it feel more real somehow.  Running to the grocery store with mom, helping dad clean that garage--these are things we never did on shorter visits.

I Zoom weekly with my parents, and every other week my sister joins us.  We are intentional about that.  It's a set time and date and we all work to hold that time fairly sacred so it's rarely canceled.  This too almost feels more connecting than visits, perhaps because we have to talk and interact for that hour-ish. No one is checking phones or running out for an errand or reading in the other room or walking the dog or hanging out in their room.

As for friends, at the moment I don't have a single close friend living within 2 hours, and only 2 close friend living in the same state.  (Several don't even live on the same continent.)  I actually find that more challenging than being away from family. 

DH is about to retire from the military and start a second career and while being closer to my parents would be nice, it's not really a major factor in our decision making.  They will not be around forever (both turn 80 this year) and that is both a draw to them, but also a stark reminder that it may not make sense to choose a long term location based solely on them.  (We don't dislike where they live, but don't especially love it and there are some major climate change implications for the dessert Southwest that make me question whether it's a good longer term home.  If DH got a solid job offer there, family proximity would be a point in favor of that job, but only as a kind of tie-breaker, not a strong deciding factor. 

[Raenia]

I have a few family members who live about an hour from me, and I see them almost every week - but I didn't see them nearly that much before I was pregnant, even when we lived closer. So it's very circumstantial. In fact, the family member who lives the closest to us we see less often than many others, just due to scheduling and personalities. DH and FIL don't think to make plans, while my mom and sister will come by at the drop of a hat even though it's twice the distance.

On the other hand, the folks who live more than 3 hours away, we see maybe every month or two, and the one person on the opposite coast we see at major holidays only.

[startingsmall]

We used to live within a 10-minute drive of both my MIL/FIL and my SIL/BIL. Sometimes that felt a bit too close, because we saw them several times a week and my husband would sometimes end up at one of their houses instead of coming home after work. In reality, though, it was super-convenient because we never had to give a second thought to who would babysit our kiddo if we wanted to do something on an evening or weekend.

We currently live about a 45-minute drive from my parents (along the interstate). We see them every 1-3 weeks on Sunday afternoon, but it's a far enough drive that we never do anything spontaneous with them, ask them to babysit, ask them to handle a school pickup, etc. I guess that has pros and cons, and some of the difference between the two families is likely due to inherent family differences vs. just driving distances. My brothers live 3 & 4 hours away, so we only see them when they come home to my parents' house on major holidays. I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of miss having my in-laws around and my daughter really misses having cousins to hang out with. 

Our families are roughly an 11-hour drive from each other. In the 12ish years of marriage that we lived near my in-laws, my parents visited 3 times. In the 3 years we've been near my family, my in-laws have visited once. Since we're the ones who "moved away" both times, the onus is on us to visit whichever family is far away. We typically do one week in the summer and one week after Christmas. (I can't see moving somewhere far away from both families, though... because that would be a lot of travel time/money/etc. to visit both families regularly!!)

[Tasse]

And that's what we're trying to tell you: it's personal. You could live in the same house and not interact with someone. You could live 1000 miles away and be very close.

True, but that's like pointing out that you can live next to the grocery store and still drive there. I can still learn something useful from asking the forum "How close do you need to live to the grocery store to be willing to walk?" even if my making that commitment ultimately depends on my own situation and choices.

There is a genuine accessibility difference between 0 and 1000 miles apart. I'm not trying to find a linear correlation, I'm interested in stories of others' situations - particularly others who are willing to make carefully considered tradeoffs to prioritize the most important things.

[MaybeBabyMustache]

We are about a 2.5 hour flight from my parents/sister & most of my family (aunts, uncles, etc). We made a conscious choice when we moved from Seattle to the bay area to prioritize travel to my family. We're all very close, and as my parents age, this was a priority for us. We typically visit 4x/year, my parents come & visit us maybe another 2x/year (once where we go somewhere & they hang out with our teens, once when we're all around). My two teens are very close to my parents, and ask to go on their own to visit, if we have work conflicts.

My sister & I also travel together, and meet up for vacations.

My husband's family lives in Iran, and we can't go there, and they can't come to the US without an inordinate amount of work & cost, that's now prohibitive at their age. So, they came out once for the birth of each child, stayed for the max of 12 weeks. Then we went 12 years without seeing them, and saw them last summer in Dubai. My MIL is getting older, so we will likely go to Turkey next summer to meet up again.

[PoutineLover]

I live at least a ten hour drive from both of my parents (in opposite directions) and a 5 hour flight from my sister. We manage to see each other at least once a year, and more since I had a baby. It's been this way for half my life, and I don't think it will ever change. We live much closer to my in laws, and we see them most weeks (30 min drive).

Most of my friends are long distance too, because we moved away from our hometown, but we aim to visit each other as much as we can and still talk regularly. I also have extended family overseas, and scattered around the country, so it gives us a reason to travel and maybe pushes those locations in priority over new places, which is good and bad.

We have good relationships with everyone and rely on texting and calling frequently to stay in touch. Overall, distance is less important than the will to see each other, but visits are more expensive and complicated when people are spread out.

[mspym]

We live a 3.5hour flight away from my people and a 25 hour flight away from Ofpym’s. We are moving in two weeks to a place that’s a 20m drive from one sister and my mum, 10m drive/30m bike ride from another sister’s beach house, and 40 min drive from one brother’s place. It’s 90 min on a highway to my remaining family and my friends. We would have loved to be in that city but all prices skyrocketed during the time we would looking and we got priced out. This is a compromise location but still close enough to my people and an airport to go to the States.

I would have loved to live in an area where three of my best people all live but costs went up $300k for what still is a pretty gritty area whose main advantage is my friends and I also could not convince Ofpym to buy there.

[Villanelle]

And that's what we're trying to tell you: it's personal. You could live in the same house and not interact with someone. You could live 1000 miles away and be very close.

True, but that's like pointing out that you can live next to the grocery store and still drive there. I can still learn something useful from asking the forum "How close do you need to live to the grocery store to be willing to walk?" even if my making that commitment ultimately depends on my own situation and choices.

There is a genuine accessibility difference between 0 and 1000 miles apart. I'm not trying to find a linear correlation, I'm interested in stories of others' situations - particularly others who are willing to make carefully considered tradeoffs to prioritize the most important things.

I think it's vital to take into account the family culture and tendencies.  My parents, for example, are extremely busy even in their senior years (both are 80), while my MIL and her husband rarely seem to have plans beyond puttering in the garden or watching a movie.  So their schedules are much more full.  OTOH, my  family is much closer (emotionally, not geographically) than DH's.  When we lived roughly equidistant from each of them (about 90 minutes) and they were only about 25 minutes apart, we saw my family much more often simply because they were always up to something and inviting us to come by.  The only times we saw DH's family were when we were going to be up that way and called and asked to see them.  And while my parents came maybe 1/yr to visit us, DH's family came 3 times in 10 years.

Also, my parents' home feels like Home, even though I've never actually lived there.  And that's true for DH as well. They are very much his family, even if it is by marriage. We are entirely comfortable being there without my parents, opening the fridge and making a sandwich, even answering the house phone if it rings or the door if there's a knock. Or even just going to our room and reading and ignoring everyone for a while if we need to.  Or have everyone in the same room but not forcing conversation.  No need to mind our Ps and Qs, get dressed up, make polite small talk, etc.  DH's mom's house feels very much like we are visitors, on our best behavior, so it's not relaxed or easy. Some of that may be because we haven't spent enough time there or with them to develop that ease, and some of it is just different relationships.  (Lest anyone get the impression, my MIL is a lovely person and don't dislike her at all.  She just doesn't feel easy, and especially for someone like me with social anxiety, that isn't great.  But I still never avoided seeing her.  She just rarely invited us, and I wasn't going to always be the one requesting visits, especially when they feel like work.)

Now that we are on opposite sides of the country, my family has been to visit 3x (and would have been more, except Covid) and DH's family has never visited, and I'm not sure they ever will.  And I talk at least weekly with my parents (see earlier comment about family Zoom), it more more, while DH exchanges a few texts with his mom every week or two.  These things have nothing to do with proximity and everything to do with what I'd call family culture. 

When we lived in Japan, I had friends who saw their stateside family probably 5+ times a year.  Friends were always traveling back to the States or their family coming out to visit.  (And when I say that, I mean they saw the same family members that often, not sister one month, parents the next, etc.)  For them, that was a priority and a budget item and something to schedule around. 

All of that has nothing to do with distance, so keep that in mind as you factor in how distance might or might not affect the frequency of visits.   

[jeninco]

Our parents are on the coasts: mine are east, DH's remaining family is west. We're kinda centered in the country -- we came here for graduate school, and liked it enough to stay. Since my parents are horrible grandparents, it wasn't a burden when the kids were small -- we were sorry not to see more of my awesome aunt, but she's actually convenient, as she lives 15 miles from an airport that gets direct flights from here.

The place where it's becoming an issue, is that all the remaining older generation are in their 80s, 83-87 or so, and they're all needing additional support. My brother lives fairly close to my family, but it shouldn't be entirely his burden, especially caring for my aunt. DH's mom lives in a retirement community pretty close to his sister, but -- again -- that's not fair, for all the support needs to be borne on her shoulders.

So it's becoming the case that most of our air travel is becoming taken up by visiting/caring for the older generation.  It's just a thing to think about -- if your folks become old and fragile enough that they need help, can you share in providing that? (And also, do you want to? We have gone no-contact with one older relative after he demonstrated, over and over and over, that he's a raging narcissist, and if he turns up dead, I'm OK with that.)

In fact we just got back from a trip where we sprung DH's mom out of her retirement (metaphorically: we didn't have to crash through any gates or anything), took her out for a two-day trip, and then went back home and cooked for her and got her an Apple Watch. (They come with automated fall-detection, and if your older family member is concerned about falling and not having help, it's a big relief.)

Side note: cooking for someone else in their kitchen (with permission, obviously) is a great way to see just how usable their cooking facilities are. And also stuff like "are they able to keep their knives clean and sharp?"

[GilesMM]

Spouse and I live in the same house, which is pretty close.  We visit many times per day.  I know others who live continents apart and visit when they can.   It all depends on you and your loved ones and family and how you like to live.

[Cassie]

I was lucky enough to live next door to my parents until my kids were almost grown up. When I finished graduate school we had to move for my career. Once moved we saw them once or twice a year for a few weeks each time. I lived locally to help my mom with my dad and when my mom needed help I used all my vacation and sick leave to fly back to help. Luckily my 2 older siblings were retired and could help more. Since they never helped with my dad because I was local it was fair.

My oldest son lives in the same town and I see them every Thursday and it’s fun. My youngest son lives and works in Vietnam but would come help me in a heartbeat if I needed it. As a family we are always there for each other. During the pandemic he came home and stayed with us because he was afraid to stay in Vietnam. Then he left and when I got divorced he came home for a year to help me move, remodeled the condo I bought and was great company.  I am grateful for both my parents and my kids.

[jrhampt]

We are just under an hour's drive away from my in-laws, who are in their 80s and need more attention.  My spouse is up there about once a week on weekdays, and we see them together once or twice a month on weekends.  It's honestly a bit closer than I'd like to be, but it's important to my spouse to be here for them.  My family is spread out over the US and in Europe; my closest immediate family members are at least a 12 hour drive away, and the closest any of us is to any of the others is a 7 hour drive - no one is clustered together.  I still see most of my siblings and parents at least twice a year, but it does get a bit more expensive and logistically challenging.  One thing that makes it easier and more frequent to visit each other is that a few of us work remotely, so we can have work-cations where we can travel to see each other but not have to take the entire time off work (otherwise no one would have enough vacation time to see everyone that often). 

[cupcakery]

We live 15 minutes from my parents and 20 minutes from his.  We have many siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc., within a 45 minute drive.  There are a few outliers who moved away.  We rarely go more than a couple of weeks without seeing someone.  It was nice when the kids were little and they could see their cousins, grandparents, etc.  Sometimes it is annoying if we are expected to be at something and we don't really want to go.  Fortunately those events are rare.  Usually I consider it all to be a positive.

[Verdure]

My parents and brother live about 2.5 hours away and I see them about once a month. The vast majority of the time I drive there to visit them, especially as my brother has a toddler who I am very motivated to see, and who makes traveling to see me much more of a hassle.  My MIL and SIL live an 18 hour drive or a full day of air travel (no direct flights) away. We see them 1-2 times a year. The no direct flights is a huge sticking point, bc it doesn’t feel worthwhile to go for a short trip when you are going to spend a day traveling to ge there and a day traveling to get back. For five years my parents lived what would be a 16 hour drive away, and we still saw them about every other month bc it was a direct flight so we would go there 2-3 times a year and my parents would come here 3-4 times a year. It was easy to go for a weekend, especially a long weekend, since the travel only took a few hours. I also have a BIL who lives about a 3 hour drive away, and before the pandemic we saw them probably about once a quarter. We are trying to get back in that habit now and have seven them 3 times this year, which has been great. We did find it was easy to fall out of the habit of getting together and we had to make an effort to get back to it. I really wish there were direct flights between here and my MIL, though!

[sonofsven]

I moved three hours down the coast from my parents house, where my dad also grew up. My mom just turned 83 and my sister, who built a house on gifted land from our parents, just passed away, so I've been thinking about when, or if, I will need to move closer to her in the near future. I visit "home" 4-5 times per year.
My DD is at our big state U about 3.5 hours south. I go down there about twoce a year.
I live 1.5 hours away from my long time (13 year) partner, we see each other most weekends, actually Friday thru Monday as we're both self employed and set our own schedules.
For a long time we both wondered how our relationship could work long term, now we just consider that we have the best of both worlds: she lives in the city, I live in the country. We're each responsible for our own places, our own messes, our own shopping. We don't get sick of each other, we rarely argue, we both like being independent. At some point we will live together, I'm sure. Maybe sooner than later as I'm experiencing some "empty nest syndrome" loneliness as DD has been away at college for three years now.
My partner and I talk and text daily, my mother I call every Sunday, like a good Mama's boy, DD and I talk occasionally, by design on my part. I don't want to overwhelm her with advice and guidance because I really appreciated the independence I got from my folks when I left the nest. I feel it's important to make our own mistakes when we're young, and learn and grow from them.

[Louise]

Both sides of our family live in the same area. I see my side about once every two weeks or so. Same with my spouse when his parents were living. We get together with his extended family about once every couple of months. I love living near family and wouldn't move too far away. I'm curious where my child will end up in a few years. She has pretty deep roots.

[Mountainbug]

My husband and I moved 13-15 hours (driving) away from our families of origin. Having young kids this means we spend copious time and money going to visit them, as we are the only ones to have moved out of that state. It is a huge burden and we often contemplate moving back/moving closer, but we have tried before and don’t want to uproot our kids for something that just might not work.
While we maintain good relationships with our families our kids don’t really know them and that is heartbreaking. It might get better as they get older but even if it doesn’t I think they are getting a better place to grow up and we are just working hard to make real friendships to replace those family bonds.

[Tasse]

Both sides of our family live in the same area. I see my side about once every two weeks or so. Same with my spouse when his parents were living. We get together with his extended family about once every couple of months. I love living near family and wouldn't move too far away. I'm curious where my child will end up in a few years. She has pretty deep roots.

How close is "the same area"?

[Louise]

Both sides of our family live in the same area. I see my side about once every two weeks or so. Same with my spouse when his parents were living. We get together with his extended family about once every couple of months. I love living near family and wouldn't move too far away. I'm curious where my child will end up in a few years. She has pretty deep roots.

How close is "the same area"?

Most everyone lives in a 5 mile radius and the others are within 20. We live in a big metro area.

[GuitarStv]

My parents are a few hours away by car, and my sister is about an hour.  That's a good distance - close enough that you can go down and visit pretty easily, but far enough away that you don't see 'em often enough that you're getting on each others nerves.

[wenchsenior]

If you mean family...

I intentionally said "loved ones" and not "family," even though family is who I'm thinking of. I also want stories of people who decided where to live based on close friends.

Edited OP to emphasize this.

Ok, so I would slightly change the framing of my answer.    When we were first 'getting established' as adults post college, where loved ones (either friends or family) lived had zero bearing on where we would have moved. We needed income and my husband was trained for a very specialized field, so we simply would have gone anywhere the offer was (the proof of this is we ended up in the one city that we used to joke about never wanting to live in back when we were in college).   If we'd had the option to be near my family (not his) or some of our friends and still been able to find work, we likely would have taken it into consideration but it by no means was a deal breaker.

However, it's >20 years on and we are looking at retirement soon. We for sure want to move away from here. For THIS move, being in proximity to at least someone we know fairly well, and ideally people we love, is certainly a high priority, not quite a deal breaker, but close. This is for quality of life/enjoyment of certain peoples' company, but mostly it's practical. We will need some kind of emergency support network as we age, so they can serve as that (and vice versa).

[AMandM]

I can give you our answers from both sides of the generations. FOr us the people we care about are family, because the friends, even the close friends, have all moved for reasons of their own.

Until we moved to this area 25 years ago, we  bought a house in the same bedroom community where DH grew up and his parents still live. We saw them about every week. His siblings mostly live within an hour's drive, so we saw them pretty frequently and for the first time, our kids could get to know their cousins. It was wonderful. Ten years ago, we moved about 7 miles closer to the city. We still see the ILs often, but not as often; it's a half-hour drive, so there's no casual dropping in for just a few minutes. I will admit that that move was made easier by the fact the my SIL lives in the same town as their parents so there is someone nearby to help with practical needs as they age. OTOH, the new location has been fantastic for forming friendships, especially for the kids, and for giving the kids more independence as they grew older.

We have four adult children. Three are married and bought houses within two blocks of us. We all love being able to run back and forth, including the older grandchildren; we borrow eggs or tools, have impromptu dinners together, babysit at short notice, etc. The oldest lived a 10- to 15-minute walk away before she bought her house, and that felt too far. It was not a distance a young child could walk alone, and the round trip took too long to do without some reason. When the second bought her house, she kept telling the real estate agent, "Stop showing me houses so far from my mother and sister. When I say close, I mean less than a five minute walk." But she also said that if we still lived in the bedroom community, the location would have deterred her from living so near to us.

For us being VERY close geographically is really important, because it makes possible the kind of interactions we want to have, and the walkable, urban-adjacent location is attractive to all of us. But for other families, it would facilitate undesirable behaviours.

[Just Joe]

When we were newly married our respective families were messy. Circumstance (school and jobs) led to us living across the state from everyone else. We stayed here in fact b/c we settled into our local situation pretty well and became very independent. We've been here 25+ years now. The distance was a good thing initially. Probably protected my marriage from my family and my wife's marriage from her family. ;) Still an easy day trip or overnighter trip.

Eventually my grandparents decided to relocate here to our town b/c their metro address was no longer safe and the traffic was overwhelming. For several years early in our marriage - we really enjoyed their company and saw them often. Easy people to spend time with.

We'd like to see my parents move closer to us so it would be easier to spend more time with them but while my mother is not as sharp as she once was and possibly no longer drives, my father is on top of things so there they will stay I think. Would also like to see my in-laws move closer for the same reasons but I don't see that as even a possibility until my FIL passes. Fortunately DW's sibling is local. So are a few of the nieces and nephews. I think ultimately MIL eventually will need to move closer to us b/c we are the most settled of that side of the family.

How often do we visit? Often. At least once a month, sometimes twice. Sometimes more than that b/c we need to help our parents with something.

One thing that has been constant is nobody came to see us nearly as much as we went to see them. Chalk that up to the family messy dynamics I mentioned before. Everyone is/was/probably always will be forever too busy to hang out much. We used to vacation together at the beach. Then the kids turned into teens and everyone was going different directions/friends/jobs/etc.

My sibling is the busiest person on earth - apparently. Haven't seen them in years. Maybe for the better. DW's sibling has a messy family of their own all under one roof and very much occupied by them. Another sibling also decided to move away and is having a good time being independent. We see that one occasionally at the holidays.

Our relationship with my parents has HUGELY improved since the early days. Lots of changes from their side. And DW's parents like to be at home most of the time these days. TV figures heavily into their daily routine for better or worse. We don't see the nieces and nephews alot, or in some cases not at all. We frequently extended invitations over the years but few ever took us up on it. Easier for everyone to watch their TV or whatever it is they do day to day.

Some of this we blame on the 'culture wars' of the recent decade or more. It polarized a few in part of the family whose opinions then dwarfed those of the group at large. Facebook revealed alot to DW and I that we really didn't want to know about some of them. That took alot energy out of the family.

[Zikoris]

My mom lives halfway across the country and I see her usually about once a year when she comes to my city (I don't visit her because I am not willing to interact with her husband). My dad lives about 500km away and I usually see him twice a year when I visit him or we go camping together, though we also talk a lot. I would definitely like to see my dad more, but I don't really see moving to the town he lives in - it's not very nice.

[Cranky]

So. Long story!

When dh decided to retire mid-pandemic, we decided to move a couple of states over to be near our oldest daughter and what is probably going to be our only grandchild. Our middle daughter (who has a mild disability) moved with us.

We had a long family discussion and let son-in-law have the final say in what this would look like, and then we bought a (large) house together. Son-in-law was immediately not very happy (and certainly made us not very happy) and two years in threatened to kill us. So, we moved about 2 miles away.

We continue to see dd and the grandboy several times/week, but I won’t be eating Thanksgiving dinner with the son-in-law, that’s for sure.

I actually like the area better than the one we left and I like the regular grandchild time. I remain irritated about the way it worked out, though.

[Log]

My parents still live where I grew up, and my brothers live in the same metro, about a 2 hour flight from where I live now (+train on one end and car on the other). At this point in my career I take semi-frequent freelance work back home, so I might occasionally go a couple months without going back, but I see them multiple times per year. I see my parents and one brother every time I go back, I see the other brother less frequently.

If I didn’t have work opportunities incentivizing me to go back, I think I would find myself visiting less often.

[MayDay]

We loved a 13 hour drive or 2 hour flight from in laws and saw them a couple times a year with all travel being on us. Then we moved two hours away and saw them the same with all travel being on us. Ultimately they are homebodies and we are the ones who "moved away" so it doesn't really matter.... Unless we live in town, we travel to them. So we moved back to 12 hours away. No sense living closer and not loving it.

We live 3 hours from my parents now and see them probably monthly with 80% of trips being them coming to us. My siblings are scattered. It sucks because I'd love to see them all more but it is what it is. We prioritize getting together once or twice a year.  A key there is that we all want to see each other and are willing to spend the time and money to do it.

[alsoknownasDean]

I'm about a 90 minute drive from my parents' place, and visit there every few weeks (just got back actually). They visit my place rather less often, maybe three times a year.

I've considered moving closer, but the challenge there is that then I'd have a long commute to work. At least while there's no kids on the scene a 90 minute drive isn't too bad.

[firemane]

About 6 hours. I feel some guilt for relocating, but I like my new city so much better than the high crime, high traffic, highly corrupt workaholic city that I came from. Nearly everything went uphill when I moved, and I have become a better person because of it.

I do, however, visit 6-8 times per year

[midweststache]

DH and I are from the same hometown. Both sets of parents still live in that town, as does my sister and her family. We also have friends in that hometown. However, DH and I made the very conscious decision to leave that town, as it wasn't somewhere we particularly wanted to put down roots. (Very small, very homogenous, very insular, very... red.) Specifically, it's not a place we could see raising our children.

So very early in our relationship we relocated to a major urban area about 7 hours away, driving distance. We visit grandparents twice a year for about a week - once over the summer and during the holiday season. (Our parents are still spry enough to come visit us a few long weekends out of the year as well.) I'm not sure what it would take for us to move back there, but it would have to be significant, as neither of our jobs could be replicated in that area.

We do not regret the choices that we've made for our family - our children are thriving where they are and are being exposed to a much broader world than they would be in our hometown - but the distance is notable. For instance, my sister gets a lot of "free childcare" that give her and her partner more leeway in their travel, date nights, daycare options, etc. but, more than that, her kids also have a bit of a different, somewhat closer relationship with my parents (think weekly family dinners, fun outings on the fly, etc.) that can't be replicated at this distance. It's not ideal, but it is what it is.

I do expect as our families get older circumstances will change. My parents will never leave our hometown, and my sister's proximity means that some family will be nearby to care for them, although should their health/circumstances change I imagine I'd be back to visit more often; DH's parents will, I imagine, eventually relocate closer to us, and we've already started scouting some graduated retirement complexes in our area for when that time comes (e.g. independent senior homes --> assisted living --> nursing care/memory care).

[mizzourah2006]

I am about 25 minutes from my brother, he just recently moved to my area about 3 months ago. Other than that we are far away from the rest of our family. My dad is 3 hours away, my mom and sister are about 4.5 hours away. My wife's family is about 16 hours away via car. So almost always a flight. We moved here for work, the rest of our family just kind of stayed put where they went to HS.