How to Make Friends While Traveling Solo
Are you wondering how to make friends while traveling solo?
Solo travel doesn’t have to be lonely! Just because you don’t have someone to travel with (friends, family, a partner) doesn’t mean that you always have to be alone on your travels.
As someone who’s traveled to more than 60 countries around the world mostly solo, and made plenty of friends along the way, these are my tips for meeting people while you travel.
The nature of travel friendships is often short but sweet. You get to know people faster when you’re traveling, and you might spend a few days or weeks together but then never see each other again.
It’s easier than ever to stay in touch with travel friends, though. I still keep up with some of my friends from traveling, and I’ve even met up with a couple of them elsewhere in the world. Even when we don’t speak often, it’s fun following along with everyone’s adventures on social media too.
And it’s great having people to share experiences with when you travel. As much as I’m an introvert and enjoy spending time on my own when I travel, there are some situations that are just more fun with others.
These are my top tips for how to make friends while traveling solo:
Stay in social hostels.
One of the best ways to make friends while traveling is by staying in social hostels. Not only are hostels great for your budget, but they are also an excellent place to meet other travelers.
If you’re like me and the idea of sleeping in a bunk bed in a room full of strangers and using communal bathrooms makes your skin crawl, you can always book a private room. This is what I do any time I stay at a hostel and it’s still a lot cheaper than staying at a hotel and a great way to meet people.
Most social hostels have common areas where guests can hang out and they will often have events and activities too. Think trivia nights, bar crawls, walking tours, and so on. Joining an activity at your hostel or booking a tour through your hostel is a good way to make friends with other travelers.
Sign up for tours.
Another one of the main ways I meet people while traveling is by taking tours. For example, a walking tour in Buenos Aires, a boat tour from Split to some of the Croatian islands, and an overnight volcano hike tour in Guatemala all led to me making friends for the rest of my trip in those places.
While this doesn’t always work (I’ve also been on plenty of tours where no one really speaks and I’ve just been on my own), it does often have a good outcome. Especially if you book tours through a hostel or choose a tour that lends itself to more of a social atmosphere (like a food tour or a bar crawl.)
Join an activity.
Similar to the above tip, I’ve met people while traveling by participating in various activities. The biggest one for me has been taking language classes abroad. I love learning languages so I have taken Spanish classes for several months in both Guatemala and Spain and I took French classes for a month in Paris.
In all of these places, I made friends at my language school. Language schools also usually organize additional activities for students. This is obviously a better option if you have several weeks or longer to spend in a destination, but there are other activities where you can meet people too.
For instance, you could sign up for a cooking class or take dance classes. You can go to a language exchange or a meet-up for a specific hobby, like board games. The options are endless!
Book a group trip.
If you’re really worried about being lonely as a solo traveler, booking a group trip is the easiest way to ensure that won’t happen. I typically travel independently, but I have taken some group trips I enjoyed.
Specifically, I’ve taken group trips to Costa Rica, Iceland, Egypt, and Morocco. On all of these trips, I showed up solo and left with plenty of new friends at the end. This is also a great way to ease yourself into solo travel if you’ve never done it before and are worried about being on your own the whole time.
A great company to look into for group trips is G Adventures. They have an option specifically for budget-friendly tours in their twenties and thirties which I would recommend if you want to meet people.
Follow the backpacker trail.
Another one of the best ways to make friends while traveling is to follow the “backpacker trail” if there is one. This is super easy to do in Central America and South America. I’ve also heard it’s a big thing in Southeast Asia, although I haven’t traveled to that region of the world myself yet.
Basically, there is a “route” of popular destinations many backpackers follow. If you travel to these places too, you can meet people in hostels, on transportation between destinations, on tours, and so on.
I made some great travel friends while stuck on what ended up being a ten-hour bus ride from Antigua to Semuc Champey in Guatemala. Our bus had to stop because of roadwork at one point and a big group of us ended up talking and hung out with each other for the next couple of days in Semuc Champey.
A similar thing happened to me in Copacabana, Bolivia. I ended up meeting some Irish girls who I then saw again in La Paz, and we ended up booking the same three-day tour of the Uyuni Salt Flats together.
Strike up conversations.
Finally, you just need to be willing to strike up conversations with strangers when you travel alone. I’m a big introvert but I never regret forcing myself to speak up. This is also a good tip if you want to meet locals. I realize most of the tips I’ve given so far are more about making friends with other travelers.
To be honest, this is just easier to do — how often do you befriend tourists when you’re at home? Probably not often, right? So that’s why it can be more difficult to form connections with locals when you’re traveling. But don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation with someone and see what happens!
How to Make Friends While Traveling Solo
This guide showed you how to make friends while traveling solo.
Traveling by yourself does not have to be lonely. While I really enjoy traveling with friends and family, I also love solo travel. This is because I often meet cool people from all over the world when I travel.
Hopefully these tips will help you meet people on your next solo trip too!
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