5 Ways to Stay Connected with Family and Friends from Out of Town

Living apart from family and friends can be difficult. Staying in touch however can be easy. Here are five different ways you can stay in touch with family and friends living out of town.

Web cams are great for staying in touch with family and friends who live out of town. Web cams can be fairly inexpensive and allow for you to talk "face to face" with the people you care about without being in the same room. These can make great gifts for grandparents allowing them to see and talk to their grandchildren in between visits.

Gift certificates to online photo printing sites can be a great way for you to share pictures with your out of town family and friends. You can send the gift certificate along with a link to your online photo album through email. This way out of town relatives can browse the photos you have uploaded of your family and pick the ones they'd like to print. They can pay for the prints using the gift certificate that you've sent them. They can also select photos to be printed as calendars, mouse pads, or even on t-shirts if they like.

Journaling can be fun and can also be a way for children to keep out of town family and friends up to date on all that is going on in their lives. Children can write daily happenings into a journal to be sent off to family and friends. You can also include other information about your child such as how tall they are, what their favorite foods are at the moment, after school activities they participate in, and anything else of importance in your child's life. Children can also draw art work for family to include in the package with the journal.

Scrapbooks are a great way of preserving memories. You can create a scrapbook for out of town relatives to show them what your family has been up to for the past year. Younger children can place their hand prints on some of the pages or create a masterpiece to share with family. Older children can write notes about the things they've done and/or places they've been. Include pictures of your family doing various activities. Pictures of your child scoring a goal in soccer, a family trip to a festival, kids swimming on a hot summer day, and other activities would fit well. For the last page you can include a portrait of your family standing in front of the Christmas tree, celebrating Hanukkah, or whichever holiday your family celebrates and give it as a gift to out of town family.

Family Web sites can be created to share your life with out of town family and friends. You can find a Web site host for under $20 through some researching on the internet. Web sites are a great way of displaying your family pictures as well as sharing special events in your family's life with family and friends living out of town. You could even start your own blog, some sites may be free, that can include details of your daily family life as well as pictures to go along with your stories.

Don't lose touch with family and friends just because they live out of town. With these ideas you can remain close with family and friends who live far apart from you and your family.