Thousands of international students come to the US every year and must rely on computer-mediated communication (CMC) tools to stay in touch with their family and close friends back home. In this dissertation, I examined international students’ use of CMC tools for communication with their left-behind family and close friends by conducting 38 in-depth interviews with Cornell University international students from 15 different countries. Through multiple iterations of qualitative coding, I identified themes and insights on how international students choose and use CMC tools to foster a sense of connection and togetherness with their long-distance strong ties. I found that international students use CMC tools to engage in online experience sharing with their left-behind family and friends and identified challenges they face in planning, coordinating, and setting up these online activities. Additionally, I found that students rely on both their families and their close friends for emotional support, however, they tend to share their hardships mostly with their friends as they try not to make their parents worry. This research also shows that the COVID-19 global pandemic impacted international students’ communication patterns and sometimes caused previously resolved emotions such as homesickness to resurface. Based on these findings, I discuss how the current research contributes to our understanding of long-distance relationship maintenance facilitated by technology. A detailed discussion of findings, design implications, and future directions are outlined at the end of this dissertation.