A culture of migration and return is now part of everyday life in the Kingdom of Tonga, and transnational exchange relationships are crucial to the country's economy. Despite research on the impacts of remittances and other transnational exchange activities on livelihoods in Tonga and in migrant host countries, there has been little research on the interwoven dependencies and relationships amongst home, host, local, and diasporan nodes or the impact of short‐term visits in both directions. This paper explores dynamic processes within the agency of family‐linked economic and social practices of migrants and their descendants in host countries as well as their homelands. These activities are theorised within transnational contexts ‘from below’ (micro), ‘above’ (macro), ‘middling’ (meso), and ‘from above’ (macro) levels. The methodology, grounded in Pacific and Western ontologies, co‐creatively analyses the exchange and enterprise activities of families on a remote island of Tonga with high out‐migration, compared with their relatives in Auckland, New Zealand. Key findings are that short‐term visiting ensures the survival of a range of economic, social, and cultural activities that are critically important for ‘being Tongan’ in the different diasporan contexts. The originality of the research lies in retheorising enterprise alternatives for transnational Tongans, development of a Pacific‐framed view of transnational enterprise, and method that captures exchange complexities. The analysis fills a gap in knowledge regarding the impact of short visits on diasporan livelihoods, with implications for labour policy in home and diasporan locations to encourage youth to stay longer and older people to return sooner. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.