At some point, everybody fantasizes about moving far away from home, whether to another city in the same state, a whole different state, or even to another country. It's normal to sometimes wonder what life would be like if you packed everything up and tried something totally new. The reality, though, is we tend to stay fairly close to home when we make a move.
In fact, an analysis of recent buyers found the median distance between the home they purchased and the one they moved from was 20 miles. That's a decent distance – probably somewhere around a half-hour drive – but not so far that your life would be completely altered. It's also a distance closer to the long-term norm than it's been in recent years, as the trend begins to return to normal after the pandemic had Americans moving farther away than normal. The previous norm was about 15 miles but, as recently as 2022, the median moving distance was closer to 50 miles.