MAKING FRIENDS WHILE TRAVELING SOLO
HOW TO MEET NEW PEOPLE AND MAKE FRIENDS ON THE ROAD
In the last year, I’ve had the chance to travel solo to Miami, Puerto Escondido, Mexico City, Paris, Oslo and Lillehammer, Norway. Often, hanging with yourself in a new city is a beautiful experience. You have the freedom to choose how you want to spend every minute of every day, and you get more and more in tune with your own intuition, a muscle that will continue to serve you well throughout life. But sometimes traveling alone to a place where you don’t know anyone can feel…lonely. And that is totally normal. Sometimes the expectation that solo travel will be this magical and transformative experience can cause us to put unnecessary pressure on ourselves. And when it suddenly feels more scary, lonely or intimidating than life-affirming, we can feel like failures. When I find myself feeling these feels I do one of two things - 1) I Shift my frame of mind by reminding myself that the ability to travel solo is a privilege and one I likely won’t have as much time or opportunity to do later in life or 2) I set about making new friends. Here are a few ways I’ve been successful doing the latter:
Join a Tour or Class - Participating in a locally-guided tour of your new city can be a grounding experience. It helps orient you as to where things are, it exposes you to the fascinating history and unique culture of a place and - best of all - it brings together groups of travelers, sometimes for multiple hours at a time. There’s nothing like a shared learning experience to create new bonds. Tours have been one of the easiest ways for me to meet and befriend other people while traveling. When traveling to Paris, I started the trip with a running tour of the city, which was not only great exercise but helped me orient myself so it was easier to navigate streets over the rest of the trip. In Mexico City, I booked an Airbnb Experience hot air balloon tour over Teotihuacan and met a lovely Puerto Rican couple, with whom I enjoyed great conversation both in the balloon and after, when we grabbed brunch together nearby!
Stunning views from my Teotihuacan hot air balloon tour outside Mexico City
Stopping for a snap outside the Louvre on a running tour of Paris
Attend a Dinner Party - If you haven’t heard of Eat With, it’s basically the Airbnb of dinner parties and locally-led cooking classes in cities around the world. I wrote about a dinner party I attended in Paris, booked via Eat With, which took place in the basement of an award-winning chef’s apartment. What I didn’t write about was how I joined a few of my fellow dinner party guests to check out a nearby speakeasy after dinner, which turned into a long evening of hopping around to various cocktail bars, trading travel stories and getting to know each other. It was probably one of my favorite nights in Paris.
Sit at The Bar - This one’s an oldie but a goodie, and is especially helpful if the establishment you’re patronizing caters to solo travelers or young professionals. When I stayed at the Selina hostel in Puerto Escondido, I spent my first afternoon sipping coronas while writing at the beach-side bar and struck up a conversation with another solo travel lady from Germany. She ended up sharing some great tips for things to do and places to eat that made the trip even better.
