The best long distance date ideas are the ones that give you something to do together, not just something to talk about. A two-hour call where you both stare at the screen and ask “so, how was your day?” gets old fast. A call where you cook the same dinner, race each other through a puzzle or open a box they mailed you three weeks ago feels like an actual date.
Below are 41 long distance date ideas, grouped by type: video dates, watching and playing together, surprises you can send, creative projects, learning something side by side, and a short set of romantic nights for adult couples who want to turn up the heat. After the list you’ll find how to plan around time zones, and quick answers to the relationship “rules” people ask about most.
What makes a long-distance date feel like a real date
Most virtual dates fail for the same reason: they are just a longer version of the nightly check-in call. A few small changes fix that.
- Put it on the calendar. A date has a time, a name and a plan. “Friday, 8pm your time, pasta night” beats “let’s call later.”
- Do one shared thing. A game, a recipe, a movie, a question list. The activity carries the conversation so you don’t have to.
- Get ready for it. Change out of the hoodie you worked in. Light a candle. It sounds small, but it tells both of you this is different from a regular call.
- Close the other tabs. Phone face down, laptop notifications off. Divided attention is louder on video than it is in person.
- Take turns planning. Alternate who picks the date so it never becomes one person’s job.
Video date ideas
These need nothing more than a video call and a little prep. They work best on a laptop or a propped-up phone so your hands are free.
- Cook the same recipe. Pick a dish, send each other the shopping list, and cook it at the same time. Eat together on camera and rate each other’s plating.
- Swap-the-menu dinner. Each of you orders the other person’s favorite takeout from a local place. You find out what they love, and they find out what your city does with it.
- Dress-code night. Agree on a theme (black tie, 1970s, “what we’d wear in Paris”) and reveal the outfits at the same time.
- Tour your week. Once a week, walk your partner through the three places that shaped your week: where something good happened, where something annoying happened, and one place they’ve only heard about. It fills in the parts of their life you can’t see.
- Sunrise or sunset call. When time zones line up badly, use it. One of you watches the sun come up while the other watches it go down, on the same call.
- Silent co-working date. Keep the call open while you both work, read or clean, and agree on one shared break to make tea at the same time. It’s not exciting, and that’s the point: it feels like sharing a room.
- Fall asleep on call. An old long-distance classic for a reason. Keep the volume low and agree on a hang-up rule so nobody’s battery dies.
- Deep-question night. Pour a drink and take turns with a list of deep questions to ask your partner. You already talk every day, so give that talk somewhere new to go.
Watch and play together
Shared entertainment gives you something to react to in real time, which is most of what makes watching a movie with someone fun.
- Movie night with a sync. Browser extensions and some video-call features can keep playback in sync across the big streaming services, and a few services still have a watch-party mode built in. Each of you usually needs your own subscription. If nothing syncs, count down “3, 2, 1, play” on a call and pause together.
- Series marathon, strict rules. Pick a show neither of you has seen. Nobody watches ahead. Breaking the rule costs the cheater a snack delivery.
- Bad-movie commentary. Find the worst-reviewed film you can stream and do your own commentary track. Low stakes, lots of laughing.
- Online co-op game. Pick a game that needs both players to cooperate, not compete. Solving problems as a team is a surprisingly good read on how you work together.
- Board games online. Chess, word games and card games all have versions you can play with a friend in a browser. Keep a running scoreboard across months.
- Build something in a sandbox game. Start a shared world and build the house you’d live in together. Add a room every date.
- Quiz night for two. Take turns writing ten trivia questions about yourselves, your relationship or a topic you both like. Winner picks the next date.
- Would-you-rather lightning round. Fast, silly and weirdly revealing. Grab a list of would you rather questions for couples and answer without thinking.
Send-a-surprise date ideas
Physical things matter more when you can’t touch each other. A package they can hold does something a text can’t.
- Date in a box. Mail a box with everything for one date: snacks, a candle, a game, a letter saying when to open it. Open it together on call.
- Open-when letters. A bundle of sealed letters labeled “open when you miss me,” “open when you had a bad day,” “open when you can’t sleep.” They keep working long after you send them.
- Surprise meal delivery. The big food delivery apps generally let you send an order to someone else’s address. Time it for the end of a hard day.
- Swap a worn item. A shirt or hoodie that smells like you does more than a card. Sleep in it for a night before you mail it.
- Handwritten letter, no occasion. Not a card, a letter. Tell them about a normal Tuesday. The ordinariness is the point.
- A book with notes in the margins. Read a book you love, underline the lines that made you think of them, and mail it.
- Local-to-you care package. Snacks, a postcard and something small from your city, so they get a taste of where you live.
Creative long distance date ideas
For couples who have done movie night fifty times and want something new.
- Virtual walk. Pick a city neither of you has been to and “walk” it together using the street-level view in a maps app. Plan the real trip as you go.
- Draw each other. Ten minutes, no erasing, reveal at the same time. The worse the drawing, the better the date.
- Write a story together. One of you writes a paragraph, the other writes the next. By the end of the night you have a very strange short story.
- Make a shared playlist. Many music apps support collaborative playlists. Add songs in turn and explain each one.
- Plan the dream trip. Budget, route, the restaurant you’d book on the first night. Even if it takes two years, planning it together is a date.
- Stargaze from two places. Pick a night when it’s dark for both of you, go outside with a star map app, and find the moon or a constellation you can both see. If your skies don’t overlap, trade photos of your own sky instead.
- Photo-a-day challenge. Pick a theme for the week (“something blue,” “what I’m eating”) and send one photo a day. End the week with a call about your favorites.
Learn something together
Learning side by side builds the kind of shared history couples who live together get for free.
- Take a class together. Plenty of free online courses are self-paced, so pick one, do the lessons on the same nights and quiz each other.
- Learn each other’s language. If one of you speaks a language the other doesn’t, turn one date a week into a lesson. If neither does, learn a new one together with a language app.
- Virtual museum tour. Many major museums publish online tours and collections. Pick one, explore on a shared screen, and each choose a favorite piece.
- Cook through a cuisine. Pick one country’s food and work through five dishes over five dates.
- Two-person book club. One book, a chapter deadline, a call to talk about it. Alternate who picks.
- Teach each other a skill. Whatever one of you is good at (guitar chords, a card trick, your grandmother’s dumpling fold), teach it in a 30-minute lesson.
Romantic nights (18+)
For adult couples who already have that kind of trust. Everything here is optional, and the best rule is simple: plan it together, agree on what you’re both comfortable sharing, and either of you can stop or slow down at any point.
- Getting-ready date. Get dressed up for each other on camera, slowly, the way you would before going out. It builds more tension than skipping to the end.
- Mirror night. Same bath, same candles, same music, at the same time, in two places. Talk through it or stay quiet.
- A texting game with rules. Spend the evening apart, trading messages that get warmer by the hour, with a call at the end. If you need a starting point, borrow from these sexy text messages, or try one of these sex games for couples built for video calls.
- Read to each other. Pick a romance or erotic short story and take turns reading it aloud. Voice does a lot of work over distance.
- App-connected toys. Some adult toys can be controlled by a partner through an app from anywhere. Agree on limits beforehand and check the app’s privacy settings before you use it.
A quick note on privacy: only send photos or video you’d be comfortable living on someone else’s phone, and leave your face and identifying details out of anything explicit if you’re unsure, and never share what they send you. A good partner will never pressure you to share more than you want.
Planning dates across time zones
The hardest part of long-distance dating is often the clock, not the miles. A few habits make it easier.
- Find your overlap. Put both time zones side by side and mark the hours you’re both awake and free. That window is where regular dates live.
- Name dates in both times. “Saturday, 9am for you, 5pm for me.” It prevents the classic missed-by-an-hour date, especially around daylight-saving changes, which don’t happen on the same weekend everywhere.
- Share the inconvenience. If one of you always stays up late or wakes up early, switch it on alternate weeks.
- Use the gap. When you’re asleep and they’re awake, a message waiting for them in the morning keeps the thread going. Our good morning texts for her include a long-distance set.
- Plan the next visit on a date. Having the next in-person date booked, even months out, changes how the whole stretch feels.
- Keep a shared calendar. Add each other’s big days (presentations, deadlines, doctor visits) so you know when to check in.
For the in-between hours: an AI companion
Even the best-planned long-distance relationship has dead hours: they’re asleep, you’re wide awake, and you want someone to talk to. Some people fill that gap with an AI companion. It isn’t a replacement for your partner, and it shouldn’t be. It’s a place to talk through a bad day at 3am, practice saying the things you find hard to say out loud, or try out flirty messages before sending your own.
On Cherrypop.ai you can chat with ready-made characters or create your own with a personality and scenario you choose. It runs in a mobile browser with no app install, it’s free to start, with limits, and it’s 18+, with age checks where the law requires them.
FAQ
What is the 777 rule for long distance relationships?
The original 777 rule is couples advice: a date every 7 days, a night away together every 7 weeks, and a longer trip every 7 months. It’s advice, not a research finding. A long-distance version turns it into a contact rhythm: a small check-in every 7 hours or so, a real focused conversation every 7 days, and something bigger, ideally a visit, every 7 weeks.
What is the 2-2-2 rule in dating?
The 2-2-2 rule says: a date night every two weeks, a weekend away every two months, and a longer vacation together every two years. For long-distance couples, the date night can be a video date and the weekend away can be a visit.
What is the 3-3-3 rule for dating?
The 3-3-3 rule is a set of checkpoints early on: after three dates, decide whether you want to keep getting to know each other; after three weeks, look at how things feel after seeing each other in different moods and settings, and name any doubts; after three months, ask the bigger questions about compatibility and shared values. It’s a rough framework, not a deadline.
What is the 3 6 9 rule in dating?
The 3-6-9 rule describes common relationship stages: roughly the first three months are the honeymoon stage, months four to six bring the first real conflicts, and months seven to nine are when many couples decide whether to commit long term. It’s a rough guide, not a deadline.
How often should long-distance couples have a date?
There’s no right number, but a planned date once a week, on top of everyday texting, is a rhythm a lot of couples can keep up, and it matches the weekly date in the 777 rule. What matters more is that both of you know when the next one is.
What do you do on a virtual date?
Pick one shared activity: cook the same meal, watch a movie in sync, play an online game, or work through a list of questions. The activity gives the call a shape so it feels like a date rather than a catch-up.