Love Island’s JaNa Craig Likes Getting to ‘Miss’ Kenny Rodriguez amid Long Distance: ‘Helps the Heart Grow Fonder’ (Exclusive)

JaNa Craig is enjoying her newfound privacy with boyfriend Kenny Rodriguez.

The Love Island USA season 6 alum, 27, found love with 24-year-old Kenny during her time in the villa in Fiji, and she tells PEOPLE that “nothing’s really changed” in how the pair communicate, but she’s liking having some time to miss her man.

A Hawai’i native, she’s living in Las Vegas while Kenny lives in Dallas, and JaNa says they “do a lot of work together but we also have just [the right] amount of time so we can miss each other.”

“That distance also helps the heart grow fonder,” she says. “But it also doesn’t put a lot of pressure on us to need to be with each other all the time. I kind of like it that we don’t live in the same city right now.”

“Now that we’re outside, we can take our time. It’s not as fast,” she continues of how their relationship has evolved.

“We always forgot that there was cameras anyway, so nothing’s really changed. We still talk about anything,” JaNa says, though she does admit it “does kind of feel good” not to worry about the microphones around their necks anymore.

“Sometimes we’d say something and cover the mic [in the villa], and so now we’ll say something randomly and go [to cover the mic] and we’ll laugh about it. Like, there’s no mic, we can say whatever we want 1727996368.”

She adds, “It feels good to have that little bit of privacy sometimes.”

Life overall has been “so fun” since leaving the villa, JaNa says, though she’s admitedly been “living out of my suitcase for the past two months.”

“I don’t even know what my apartment looks like anymore,” she jokes.

The train is not done moving yet either as she’s flying to New York City this weekend to reunite with her BFF from the villa, Serena Page, to host a Bottomless Brunch pop-up event with Truly Hard Seltzer to celebrate the launch of their Brunch Pack. “We’re so excited,” she says, though she admits she’s been “flying back and forth to New York like it’s just across the street, when it’s really across the country” since leaving the villa.

“Usually when I fly to New York, I’m stressed about it… This [trip], we can just chill,” she says. “We’re just going to be vibing, being ourselves.”

Love Island USA season 6 can be streamed in full on Peacock.