Relocating can be costly– and not just because you have to rent a moving van or purchase yards and yards of bubble wrap. It also takes a heavy emotional toll on pretty much all of us. I came across an interesting article by Shasta Nelson that looks at what we lose when we move away from our friends. Shasta admits that there are great people in every community, but moving away from those who you are already close to can be shocking and traumatic.

Shasta says an estimated 40 million Americans will move this summer. And that means many people will leave behind their closest friends. Shasta quotes a statement from the book “Who’s Your City” that might startle a few: “If you relocate from a city where you regularly see your family and friends to one where you would not, you would need to earn $133,000 just to make up for the lack of happiness you feel from being far from those people.” Wow. We all know that our friends are valuable, but maybe we don’t realize just how valuable until we lose them.

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Welcome to The Traveling Journal!! Did you happen to catch Tonya and Alison (those hot girls to the left) live on Heartbeat Radio for Women?  We hope you feel inspired to connect with your long distance friends in this powerful way! We invite you to check out our site and have a look in our online store. Use coupon code HEARTBEATRADIO at checkout to take 25% off your entire purchase! Thank you again for visiting!

Just wanted to let you know that Tony and I (Alison) will be on Heartbeat Radio for Women tomorrow, May 3rd talking about our traveling journal. To tune in to this live interview head to HeartbeatRadioUSA.com and click on live stream. The interview is scheduled for 11:30am EST. We first made contact with Heartbeat Radio back in January so it was very special to us that they picked May 3rd for the interview– that is our friend Jessica’s birthday. She would have been 32 this year. We’re excited to celebrate her birthday by talking about friendship with the listeners of Heartbeat Radio.