[daveslash]

I'm similar -- 3k miles, but still within the US. My siblings/cousins/family that I grew up less than 10 miles from are now spread between NY, CA, PA, TX, RI, NH, NC, ME, MI.

I was travelling through PA once as well and was at a local dive bar chatting up some folks - and they'd never even left their county either - not even for casual travel.

[jcims]

I’m from northwestern PA and most of my family on my dads side (9 kids, Irish Catholic) is like that. A divorce separated my brother and I from the pack and we live a few hundred miles away.

My moms side (7 kids, German Methodist) is scattered about, CA,OH,NC,NY,CO,GA and one uncle that stayed near my grandma in PA.

Hands down, far and away I’d take the first situation over the second. The family bonds and stories are incredible. They get together all the time, work together, some go to church together. It’s an incredibly tight knit family and at last look three of the women that divorced out of the family still come to gatherings and still carry that family name for decades.

[bombcar]

Those large families are impressive; I'm tangentially related by marriage to one and know of a few others in the area, and you quickly realize how something like the Mafia could easily start.

You let it be known you need some help with X and suddenly a cousin appears who specializes in X.

[wronglebowski]

Maybe it's just the area. I'm in the Philly suburbs and while I love it here I cannot express how little people travel. Even going downtown is a "big deal" if you've grown up to believe either,

1. Cities are awful dangerous places with no value 2. Strip malls and chain restaurants are the pinnacle of civilization

When I moved from Bucks County to Chester County I was "moving away" and many people just wrote me off. Despite being an hour or two drive away.

[lotsofpulp]

I notice I do not hang out with people that live further than 30min (reliably). I might be willing to make the trek if I was single, but with kids and spouse, it becomes too time consuming for my taste.

[bombcar]

30min away is about the limit for "eh, let's go over" - anything more and you're talking planning, etc.

This is the reason people are willing to commute so damn far; you're forced to commute but if you're not near your friends, you'll never see them again.

[bombcar]

A lot of this depends on where in the country you are.

You can't hardly move at all in Texas without ending up in another county, but you can go 1000+ miles and still be in the same state.

Whereas there are counties in California that are larger than the nine smallest states.

There are many Californians that have been to another country (Mexico) but have never been to another state; they're far away.