Long-Distance Date Ideas That Don't Feel Like a Video Call

Long-distance relationships have a persistent problem with dates: the default format is a video call, and while video calls are better than nothing, they have an unavoidable limitation. You’re looking at a screen. You can’t share food, touch, or really do anything together. The conversation tends to be catch-up rather than experience.

The best long-distance dates solve this by creating actual shared experiences — things you’re doing at the same time, even if you’re in different places, that give you something to be in together rather than just talking about what you’ve each been doing separately.

Here are ideas that actually work at distance.

Watch things together, properly

Start with the setup: use a browser extension or a service that syncs video playback so you’re genuinely watching the same frame at the same moment. Then treat it like you’d treat going to the cinema together. Pick something neither of you has seen. React out loud via phone call or earpiece. Pause if you need to talk about something. Create a rating system for movies you watch together and build a running list.

The difference between this and “we watched the same show this week” is timing — you’re in the same moment, reacting at the same time, and that makes it a shared experience rather than parallel consumption.

Start a private podcast together

A private podcast that you record together over a call and keep just for yourselves is one of the best long-distance date formats available. Set a theme for each episode: favourite memories, things you’re looking forward to, questions you’ve never asked each other. Record the call (with permission, obviously). Edit out the dead ends if you want, or don’t. Save every episode somewhere permanent. In five years, it’ll be a complete audio archive of a specific period of your relationship — who you both were, what you were thinking about, how you spoke to each other.

Co-write something together

Co-writing a short story works perfectly over a shared document. One person writes a paragraph, leaves it, the other continues. No planning, no vetoing, just continuation. You can work on it synchronously (typing at the same time on a call) or asynchronously (one person adds a paragraph, the other adds the next whenever they get to it). The story doesn’t have to be good. It’s the process that’s the date.

A collaborative comic strip follows the same logic: alternating panels, no erasing. Share images of each panel as you go. Seeing each other’s drawing style — however bad — is its own kind of intimacy.

Making something together closes the distance.

Build playlists for each other

Curating a playlist for each other sounds simple but is more revealing than it seems. Twenty songs that say something about who you think the other person is, or how you feel about them, or just what you’ve been listening to lately. Share them on the same day. Listen through independently, then call and talk about what surprised you, what made you laugh, what you didn’t know the other person knew.

The playlist exchange can become a ritual — monthly, or whenever it feels like one of you has something to say that music expresses better than words do.

Build something together online

Building a mini website about your relationship — where you met, your favourite things about each other, places you’ve been, places you want to go — is a long-distance date that produces something permanent. Free website builders make the technical side easy. What takes the time is agreeing on what to include, and that conversation is the date. You’re both working on the same thing, seeing each other’s choices in real time, building something that belongs to both of you.

Cook the same recipe at the same time

Pick a recipe neither of you has made before, video call each other while you cook it, and eat the same meal in different locations. You’ll need to synchronise your prep — “I’m cutting onions now, where are you?” — and the slight chaos of cooking while on a call is part of the fun. You end up at roughly the same point, with roughly the same plate in front of you, eating together even though you’re not in the same room.

The same recipe, two kitchens — still a date.

Write each other proper letters

Not texts. Not emails. Actual physical letters, mailed to each other’s addresses. The commitment of writing a proper letter — finding paper, writing something real, putting it in an envelope — produces a different quality of message than anything typed does. And receiving a physical letter has a weight that a notification doesn’t. Make this a regular thing, even if you’re also texting constantly. A letter once a month, or whenever something happens that deserves it.

Read the same book simultaneously

Buy two copies of the same book — or both borrow it from libraries, or share an ebook if that’s not possible — and read at the same pace. Talk about it as you go. Not formally, just messages when something strikes you: a quote, a question, a moment that reminded you of something. Being inside the same story at the same time creates a strange kind of closeness that’s hard to replicate otherwise.

Take photos of your ordinary days for each other

Not curated, not filtered. Real ones. The view from your desk, what you had for lunch, the weird thing you saw on the way home, the exact state of your room right now. Build a shared album you both add to. Over time, it becomes a window into each other’s actual daily life — the texture of it, not just the highlights — which is the thing long-distance relationships most often miss.

On the real challenge of long-distance dates

The reason most long-distance dates feel hollow isn’t the distance. It’s that they’re conversations disguised as dates. Two people talking is not a date — it’s a conversation, and you can have that any time. A date is doing something together, even something small. Every idea on this list gives you something to be in, not just to talk about.

Browse our creative date ideas for more ideas that adapt well to any situation, including long distance.