Is it permissible to visit one's maternal aunt in the village without communicating with her by phone, without that being considered a severance of ties, or is it obligatory to search for her phone number?

The maternal aunt is a kin, whose ties must be maintained and whose severance is forbidden. Maintaining ties is not limited to visits; rather, it has multiple means. Anything that people customarily consider as maintaining ties is indeed so. Maintaining ties can be through financial support, service, visits, greetings, and other ways of bringing good and warding off evil, to the best of one's ability. Phone calls are a form of maintaining ties, and it is not necessary to obtain the aunt's phone number to achieve this connection.