How far away are stars we can see at night?

The stars visible to the naked eye at night vary enormously in distance. The closest star system, Alpha Centauri, is about 4.37 light-years away. Most stars you can see without a telescope are within a few hundred to a few thousand light-years from Earth. Some bright stars like Sirius are relatively close at 8.6 light-years, while others like Rigel in Orion are around 860 light-years away. The most distant stars visible to the naked eye can be several thousand light-years out. A few exceptional objects, like the Andromeda Galaxy, are visible without a telescope at about 2.5 million light-years away, though that's a galaxy rather than an individual star.