How to make friends as a solo traveler

How to make friends as a solo traveler?

You’re never lonely when you’re traveling alone. You will meet so many awesome people! But where and how to make friends as a solo traveler? I’ll tell you all about it in this article.

Making friends as a solo traveler

When you travel solo it’s actually way easier to meet people than when you travel with a companion. For me personally, this is actually one of the main solo travel benefits. Meeting people from all over the world is so much fun and you learn about a lot of different cultures. But how to meet new friends? There are four ways that make it easy to meet and connect with other travelers:

In your hostel

The easiest place to meet people during a solo trip is in the hostel you’re staying at. When you’re sleeping in a dorm with multiple beds, you’ll easily get in contact with the other people staying in the same dorm. The first thing you do (unless it’s in the middle of the night) is to introduce yourself when you enter the room. Before you know it, you made four new friends.

When you don’t want to share a dorm, it’s still easy to meet people in a hostel. Just make sure you stay in one that has a common room. Whether it’s a (large) kitchen, a dining room, or a living room. Pretty much everybody in those rooms is traveling or loves to travel, so there’s your topic to start a conservation with.

During a tour

Hoe maak je vrienden als soloreiziger - groep Inca Trail

At almost every destination, you’ll be able to do a tour. In cities, there’s always a (free) city tour you can join. And there are probably also day tours or multi-day tours available. The great thing about a tour is that you experience the same thing as the other people on your tour, so you’ve got plenty to talk about.

Use public transport

In most buses or trains you’ll have two seats next to each other, from which you’ll use one when you’re traveling solo. The other chair is usually occupied by another solo traveler. 9 out of 10 times, the person next to you is a great person to start a conversation with. When I was on a bus in Costa Rica, I spoke to a local who wanted to improve his English (and I learned some Spanish) and I had a great laugh during a bus ride in Peru with a girl from Italy.

In a restaurant

According to most people, going out for lunch or dinner is mostly the scariest (and most boring) part of traveling alone. I have to be honest, I’m also a bit hesitant to go out for dinner by myself, that’s why I always bring my e-reader. But did you know that a restaurant or a terrace is a great place to meet other solo travelers? You’re never the only one traveling alone, so you’ll probably see other people dining by themselves. You can always ask if you can join them, the worst thing they can say is ‘no’, but in my experience, that never happens. I’ve met some great people this way and rarely had to eat by myself.

These are my tips on how to make friends as a solo traveler. How do you meet new friends as a solo traveler?

Would you like to read more about solo travel?

These are some amazing reads:

The Solo Travel Handbook

There She Goes: A Guide to Solo Female Travel: How to Stay Safe, Sane and Solvent on the Road

Or you could check out one of these articles:
Tips & tricks: traveling solo for the first time
5 reasons why you should travel solo
How to survive a hostel? Hostel tips for thirty-somethings

Co

As a girl from a small town in the Netherlands, I always dreamed of traveling. I thought it would always be a dream, but nowadays, I travel 6 to 8 months a year and I hike thousands of miles on the most beautiful hiking trails. On this website you can read all about my favorite destinations.

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