More than one million South Africans, about 1.6% of the country’s population of 63 million, currently live overseas. Emigration is never a solitary event or a purely economic decision. When one person leaves, an entire network of relationships is reshaped. This means that parents, grandparents, siblings and friends are left behind, making it challenging to maintain close bonds across continents.
Despite vast geographical distances and the challenges of differing time zones, the enduring parent-child bond motivates families to seek meaningful ways to stay connected. Among the most powerful of these are transnational visits. For those who can travel, these visits serve as an emotional and relational lifeline: they allow parents to step into their adult children’s newly formed worlds, observe their daily routines, and build or maintain bonds with grandchildren born or raised abroad.
Although families stay connected through technology, parents emphasise that virtual contact cannot replace the desire for in-person connection. Yet this longing is often unmet. For many families, visiting is a deeply felt desire rather than a realistic possibility.
In a recent research paper I examined barriers to transnational visits from South African parents to their emigrant children. It intentionally centres on the experiences of parents travelling abroad, rather than on return visits to South Africa.
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In total, 37 participants took part. They were South African citizens from a range of racial, cultural and religious backgrounds. They were between 50 and 85 years old. They were fluent in English and were parents of adult child(ren) who had emigrated and lived abroad for at least one year.
Most participants were women. Their children had emigrated to a range of countries, including Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the US. This aligns with global trends of South African emigration to English-speaking, economically developed countries.
The research uncovered the intertwined financial, emotional, physical, relational, and bureaucratic complexities that shape whether, how, and how often these visits take place.
Why visits matter
For transnational families, visits allow parents and children to revive and nurture attachments. They complement virtual interactions, video calls, instant messages and social media.
For parents, visiting their children’s homes bridges the gap between imagined spaces created through video calls and the lived realities of those environments. These experiences foster deeper emotional connections, enabling families to share closeness, engage in mutual care, and observe unspoken cues such as body language and tone, elements foundational to sustaining relationships.
Despite their importance, the rarity of transnational visits emerged clearly from participants’ narratives. While a small number of parents in the study were able to visit annually or every couple of years, this was the exception rather than the norm. For most, visits were rare events.
Although nearly all parents longed to visit more frequently, the majority had visited only once and several had never visited at all. Those who had visited spoke about long gaps between visits and the uncertainty of when or whether a next visit would ever be possible. This absence amplifies the loneliness experienced and leaves parents feeling increasingly “out of sync” with their children’s lives, at times even “irrelevant”.
Three main challenges
Parents consistently expressed a desire to visit more often. Yet this longing was constrained by the realities of their circumstances. Three major challenges emerged across the qualitative interviews.
Financial constraints: This was the most significant barrier, often preventing parents from realising their desire to visit their emigrant children. Air travel from South Africa to destinations such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the US is expensive. The South African rand’s weak exchange rate against strong currencies turns even modest flights into luxury purchases.
Retirees living on fixed incomes often find themselves caught between safeguarding their financial stability and meeting the deep emotional need to reconnect with their children and grandchildren.
It is terribly expensive. If I now had to, I would scratch the money out from somewhere and I can afford it, but I need to look after myself as well. Even if you have money, you don’t spend your money on something that is really absurd, like the price of air tickets at this stage is completely absurd.
Hidden expenses can also make visits even more challenging. Visa application fees, compulsory health insurance and medical examinations quickly add up.
Logistical strain: The geographical distance between South Africa and the popular emigration destinations such as Australia, the United States and New Zealand presents significant obstacles. For many elderly parents, long-haul travel is physically and mentally demanding.
As one participant shared:
The trip to America … there’s a lot of jet lag, and it’s not an easy trip to make. You know, if your kids are in Europe or England, there’s no time delay, no jet lag or anything like that.
Chronic illnesses, mobility limitations and fatigue make these journeys even more challenging. For some parents, the physical toll makes travel unmanageable or medically inadvisible.
Practical considerations, especially how long to stay, long enough to make the trip worthwhile but not too long to disrupt routines, add another layer of complexity. These decisions make planning a visit both logistically and emotionally taxing.
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The emotional weight of saying goodbye: Every visit carries an inevitable ending. With no certainty about when, or if, the next visit will happen, each departure feels like a potential final farewell, especially for older parents. The joy of togetherness becomes tinged with the dread of parting, a heaviness that grows as the end of the visit approaches. For many, the farewell at the end of a visit is one of the most emotionally difficult moments.
As a grandmother describes:
And then a big factor is the sadness with the goodbye and for weeks after that you still struggle and can’t get back on track properly. For me, it gets more intense every time.
Some parents avoid visiting altogether because the emotional cost of departure outweighs the joy of being together.
Longing for presence
Many transnational parents must face the reality that limited financial, physical, or emotional resources will restrict the number of visits they can undertake in their lifetime. While digital communication helps families stay connected across borders, parents emphasised that virtual contact cannot recreate the intimacy that grows from in-person visits: the shared routines, playful moments and physical closeness.
Visits matter because they offer what digital technologies cannot fully provide: presence.
Sulette Ferreira, Transnational Family Specialist and Researcher, University of Johannesburg