how do you keep in touch with your family when they live on the other side of the world?

[beansmum]

I am moving to NZ in January and my mum is, understandably, very upset about it. I want to reassure her that we will still keep in touch and be able to chat on the phone but I can't actually work out if that is true or not. How easy is it to keep in contact, do you have to plan ahead and phone at set times or do you just stick to email? Or is it not really a problem.

They will visit loads, my sister is already looking for flights out at easter, and my parents will come at least once a year but I want to make sure we keep in touch between visits.

no, that would be my family too! Me and my mum drive each other mad after about 2 days minutes! But it will mostly be them visiting me I think, which might be easier as they will want to travel about and visit other people. I will be poor for the foreseeable future, especially if I decide to take my dog with me!

Something we do when my parents come to stay, usually for about a month at Christmas, is to see if any friends who live locally are going on holiday for a bit and want housesitters. That way they are close but get their own place at no expense to either party, and it stops us talking through clenched teeth after about 24 hours.

I phone my family in Canada loads,have free international calls through talktalk.
We have skype but my parents don't get on with it too well.I do use it to speak to my brothers though.

Agree though that the hardest thing is the enforced long living together when they visit.It's jsut not natural to stay with you parents for weeks.
My parents are now getting older and visit once a yr .I wish I could aford to visit them more often,

As everyone else has mentioned, Skype is fantastic. TBH, phone calls are no longer extortionate anyway.

I left my parents behind in Ireland in 1989 and never lived in the same country as them again. Until my mum died 5 years ago, I can honestly say that we were very close, and that was well before computers and webcams. We usually spoke once a week. Yes, I usually saw her 2/3 times a year but that would be one 2 week visit and maybe a couple of weekends. If you have nice long family visits you can probably cram in lots of "quality time"

Skype - DS (2.7) talks to my family at least 3x a week and when my mum visited, was very confused about how she came out of the computer but knew exactly who she was. She has gone home now and DS is content that she is back to living in our computer lol

Instant messenger

Phone

Email

Postcards

Parcels/ Letters

letters, photos - everytime we take photos we get a set for mil too. Email other friends and relies - MIL does not have internet.

We do videos for her as well.

lots of good ideas, thanks. I'm feeling a bit happier about the whole thing, there are so many ways we can keep in touch, although I'm still hoping my parents will miss me so much they will decide to move back too!

My sister is in New Zealand with her three kids and I'm in the US. My mum is still in the UK. We have no problems keeping in touch I talk to both daily! Both my sister and I have been away for 5 years. New Zealand offer a calling plan where you pay one monthly bill and all your calls are free. My sister can call me and my mum anytime.

Also in the UK tell your mum to go on TalkTalk which is what my mum is on and she has unlimited free calls to my sister and I. Its been a lifesaver. She only pays 30 pounds a month for it.

Even though I've been over here for over 5 years and not been back home yet. It isn't too bad, I see my mum normally once a year. My sister I haven't seen in almost 4 years. But tis doesn't feel that long because we talk everyday. We know everything which is going on in each others lives. Its funny thinking we are a world apart when we are gossiping on the phone its like we are still living on the same street.

Email and internet is also a life saver, we must email tons of photo's every week to each other.

My Best Friend emigrated to NZ last week and I have managed to speak to her every day. I call her from my landline ( virgin media) and I pay £1.50 extra a month and the call works out at 3p a min. I plan to get skype once she has settled down.

SKYPE is the answer (as procrastinatingparent said). Even if setting up a webcam is too complicated, you can just use it as a phone system and you can even use it to phone family and friends on their home numbers (costs about 4p per min into the UK). If they install it on their PCs, then calls are free.
You can even buy a UK number with it, so that friends and family can call you without it costign the earth (costs about £25 per year).

For me it was a godsend.

My MIL lives in the UK - we call once/twice a week. MIL is not online.

She gets letters and pictures the dds have drawn and photos etc.

Other friends - email probably more than phone calls.

The truth for us though is where before we were part of other people's lives, we now get the edited summary of what they've been doing. and for my part it does seem a bit mundane to describe the trip to the supermarket, so contact gets less and less as there is less and less to say.
I'd love to describe my sons to my family and friends but would they be interested in getting to know them via my descriptions? well no (understandably)

Another vote for Skype. It's brilliant.

DD gets to see & talk to grandparents in Turkey pretty much every day

There is only 1 hr time zone difference between us, though. If you are moving to Australia, you will be 12 hrs ahead - you will be sleeping when they are awake and vice versa. To keep in contact, you will need to agree on a specific time for calls.

We generally use phone cards to call (my parents aren't very computer-y, and you need a reasonably fast computer/internet connection in order to be able to chat without problems). With phone cards I get about 65 minutes to the UK for about £1.70 and from the UK I have found that the international phone cards that the post office sell are usually very good and don't have a big connection fee.

When I was a student in the UK without a landline I got a cheap local/national calls mobile phone contract and bought phone cards that had local area code access numbers

We use Vonage which is an internet phone service. We have a US number and a virtual UK one (both using our phone in the norrmal way, just run though our router). This has the advantage of free calls for us, but more importantly local calls for friends and family (it's a London number as that's where we used to live). My biggest problem is the time difference - I like to ring in the evening, and with a 5 hr time difference it really doesn't work.

email, skype and msn during the week. I also have a facebook page and we have a family website which we keep updated with piccies and video clips. Oh, youtube too!

I call home every Sunday. We have a plan with talktalk where we don't pay any extra for the international calls.