How to keep in touch with family when you move abroad

I’m Simo. I’m from a small city in the north of Italy, and I moved to Barcelona. Then life got busy with work, and it got hard to stay up to date with my friends and family. I’ve always been very attached to them, so the distance started to feel heavy, and I felt like a bad friend.

Moving takes away all the contact nobody had to plan, like Sunday lunch or hearing the family news at the table. What’s left only happens when someone makes room for it, and a bit of routine makes that much easier.

One fixed call a week with your parents

Pick a day and a time and keep it, for example Sunday at six their time. With a fixed slot nobody has to organise anything, and your parents know when they’ll hear from you. If one week doesn’t work, say so and move it. The next one is already there.

Ten minutes at the usual time does more than a long call you keep putting off. Our guide on how often to call your parents has what most people actually do, and there’s a page for people whose parents are getting older.

Grandparents, brothers and sisters

Some grandparents would rather have an ordinary phone call than a video, so ask what they like. A short call every week or two is plenty, and if they’re at your parents’ house on Sunday, ask for the phone for a few minutes. There is a fuller guide on how to keep in touch with grandparents when you live far away.

With a brother or sister, small messages through the week usually keep things going, with a proper call every month or so. Write to them directly, not only in the family group chat, where most messages end up being about who’s bringing what.

Aunts, uncles and cousins can mostly run on birthdays and the big holidays, and that’s normal.

Call windows for common time zones

With a time difference, the hard part is finding an hour when you’re both awake and free. These slots work all year for some common pairs. Times are local on each side.

The difference moves because countries change their clocks on different days. The UK and the EU go forward on the last Sunday of March and back on the last Sunday of October. The US changes on the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November. Sydney and Melbourne do it the other way round, forward in early October and back in early April. Argentina, Brazil, India and the Philippines don’t change their clocks at all. So in the weeks around a change, check the time before you call.

It also helps to add their city to your phone’s clock: on iPhone, open the Clock app, tap World Clock, tap the plus and choose the city. When no hour works, voice notes fill the gap, because nobody has to be awake at the same time.

Small things between the calls

The weekly call carries the big news. Feeling close comes more from the little things: a photo of what you cooked, or a voice note on the way to work. Ordinary days are worth sending, not only the good bits.

Ask about their small things too, like the dog or the doctor’s appointment on Thursday. If you tend to lose track, write one line down after each call, so next time you know what to ask.

Birthdays and holidays from far away

Save every birthday in your phone once and turn on an alert. Our guide to birthday reminders on iPhone shows how. On the day, call at an hour when they’re likely to be home, which may be a strange hour for you. If you want to send a card or a present, post it well before the day, because post between countries can be slow.

For a holiday you can’t fly home for, agree on a moment ahead of time, like just before lunch on the day, and join by video for part of it. Ask someone to point the phone at the table. It feels a bit strange the first time, but you get to be there for a while instead of hearing about it the next day.

The first year, and the years after

In the first year the calls usually come easily, because everyone wants to know about the new place. Later things settle. The news gets smaller on both sides, calls get shorter, and weeks can pass before anyone notices. That’s when a fixed rhythm matters most, because it keeps going once the new place is just home.

Trips home change too. At first you try to see everyone on every visit. Later it helps to plan time with each person, even a coffee alone with your sister, instead of one big lunch where you don’t really talk to anyone. For friends back home, we wrote a guide on keeping a long distance friendship. There’s also a page for people who moved abroad.

Something for the weeks that slip

A fixed call covers a lot. It doesn’t cover the slow drift with everyone else in the family: the brother you last wrote to in spring, the grandmother you keep meaning to call.

Ciao! is the app I make for this. You choose how often for each person, for example your mum every week and your brother every month, and it counts from the last time you talked. When it’s been a while with someone, you get a short note in the evening, and on Sunday a short stack of cards shows who you haven’t talked to. It can’t read your chats, so you tell it yourself with one swipe. Save their number with the country code, like +39, and you can open WhatsApp, Messages or a call from their page. On a birthday you get a note that morning. You can also write down what they told you, and if you set a reminder on a note, your own words come back on that day. It never sends a message for you, and your mum never knows she’s in it.

Questions

How often should you call your family when you live abroad?

Once a week with your parents is a good place to start. Grandparents might be every week or two, and siblings a call every month or so with small messages in between. If a rhythm feels wrong after a few weeks, change it.

What’s the best time to call home from abroad?

Usually a weekend slot that falls in the morning or early afternoon for whoever is behind. Between Spain or Italy and New York, that’s mid-afternoon in Europe and morning in New York. Check again in March, October and early November, when the clocks change on different days.

Is there an app to remind you to call your family?

Yes. Ciao! is one, for iPhone, and it counts from the last time you talked instead of from a fixed date. We compare it with many others in our list of apps to keep in touch with friends and family.