This research explores and compares the learning ecologies of international students studying through internationalisation at a distance (IaD) and internationalisation abroad (IA) by investigating their experiences of first year of master's study with a UK university. We do so by using our previously proposed Revised Ecological Systems Theory as a conceptual framework, which integrates the physical/virtual and home/host dimensions into Bronfenbrenner's traditional Ecological Systems Theory. Our findings identified the co-existence and fluid nature of the physical/virtual and home/host ecologies for both IaD and IA students. We argue that learning ecologies and their changes throughout the academic year were not fully distinct for IaD and IA students, but their experiences within them vary between these two groups. Compared with IA students, IaD students stayed in relatively stable physical environments, but they experienced challenges with developing interpersonal connections with peers and had more limited intercultural encounters with the institution's host culture. Our findings suggest the importance of considering the physical/virtual and home/host dimensions of students' learning ecologies, and we provide suggestions for both practice and future research.