Typical stellar distances of visible stars in the Milky Way

[Holocene]

How far away is the average star in the night sky?

I mean, can we see stars that are on the other side of the galaxy?

Perhaps most of the visible stars are maybe just a few dozen light years away?

 

[mgb_phys]

Most are within about 100light years ( the milky way is 100,000 light years across)
The sample of visible stars is obviously biased by very bright stars. Betelgeuse is a particulalrly bright red giant, it is one of the brightest stars in the sky but is at a distance of 550 lyr, Polaris is also a very bright star at around 300lyr,
The nearest star is Alpha Centauri is only 4lyr and is only about the same brightness as the sun but appears as a bright star.

 

[Chronos]

Virtually all individual stars visible to the naked eye are within 1000 light years of earth. We can, however, see collections of stars [like the Andromeda galaxy] at much greater distances.

 

[neutrino]

Here are some visual aids
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/250lys.html
http://www.anumajor.com/astrofly/

 

[cadnr]

Assuming we can see stars down to a limiting brightness of 6th magnitude, in the absence of interstellar dust which blocks out the light, an F-type supergiant would be visible out to about 4000 parsecs - over 10,000 light years. An "average" sun-like star is only visible to about 20 light years away though!