I am moving for a promotion. Just a couple hours away, not a huge move. I am remaining in the same state, same relative distance from family. I am leaving the area but I will probably be back down the road. Might be back in six months to a year when my contract ends. Up to God not me. People are acting like it is the end, like I will never see them again. It's really not that far away... At least I don't think so.
For context, I live in WA. For our foreign posters WA State is about half the size of Germany and a third the size of France. Bigger than England but smaller than the sum total of the United Kingdom.
I drive a couple hours every other week to visit my family. Once upon a time a lot of my friends and family made similar drives to visit each other but this seems to have died post covid. Am I a modern outlier, or do people just not travel anymore? Even to visit friends or family? Is this just a byproduct of the Covid lockdown, increased expensiveness of America and anti social nature of this country (the Bowling Alone phenomenon)?
Depends on several things. The first big one is military service. If you or your parents were in the military you're likely to have moved around a lot. I've been to almost every state in the nation and four continents.
The second is highly skilled labor. There aren't a lot of places where someone in my profession can actually get work. For most of my adult life I've lived near somewhere that does offer work.
For people who don't fall into those categories, a large chunk will die in or adjacent the zip code they were born in.