How to Meet People While Traveling Alone

On my first solo trip to Colombia, I spent three days without speaking to anyone except waiters and hotel staff. On the fourth day, desperate for conversation, I signed up for a free walking tour in Medellin and ended up spending the entire evening with seven people from five different countries, drinking aguardiente and dancing salsa until 3 a.m. That night changed how I travel. I realized that meeting people while traveling alone is not difficult; it just requires knowing where to look and being willing to take the first step.

"A Trip is best measured in friends, rather than miles." — Tim Cahill

The Free Walking Tour: Your Social Secret Weapon

If there is one single activity that consistently leads to meeting other travelers, it is the free walking tour. These tours operate in virtually every major city on earth, and they are almost always the best place to connect with fellow solo travelers. The format is simple: a local guide leads a two to three-hour walking tour of the city, and at the end, you pay what you think the tour was worth. But the real value is not the tour itself. It is the group of 10 to 20 strangers who are all, by definition, travelers interested in exploring the city. After the tour ends, the guide almost always recommends a cafe or bar where the group can continue hanging out, and this is where the magic happens.

In my experience, roughly 60 to 70 percent of the people on free walking tours are traveling alone, and most of them are just as eager to make friends as you are. The shared experience of the tour gives you an immediate conversation starter. "Where are you from? How long are you staying? What did you think of that church we just saw?" These simple questions lead to deeper conversations, and by the end of the tour, you have a group of people to get dinner with. I have made lasting friendships on free walking tours in Medellin, Budapest, Prague, Tokyo, and Lisbon. Two of the people I met on a walking tour in Buenos Aires in 2023 are now close friends who I visit regularly.

The two biggest operators are Sandemans New Europe, which operates in over 20 European cities plus Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and several Latin American cities, and GuruWalk, which has tours in hundreds of cities worldwide. Both are free to join, though you should budget 10 to 20 dollars for the tip. Book online in advance during peak season, as popular tours fill up quickly. I always try to do a free walking tour on my first or second day in a new city, because the people I meet often become my companions for the rest of my stay.

Hostels: More Than Just Cheap Beds

The social infrastructure of a good hostel is something that hotels, Airbnbs, and guesthouses simply cannot replicate. Common rooms, shared kitchens, organized events, and the general culture of openness that hostels Support make them the single most effective tool for meeting people while traveling alone. But not all hostels are created equal, and choosing the right one makes an enormous difference. I always look for hostels that describe themselves as "social" or "party" rather than "quiet" or "relaxing." I check the reviews on Hostelworld for mentions of the atmosphere, communal areas, and organized activities. And I always book a dormitory bed rather than a private room, because dorms are where the spontaneous conversations happen.

Among the best hostels organize daily events that create natural social opportunities. These might include family dinners, where the hostel cooks a communal meal for 5 to 10 dollars, pub crawls that visit three or four bars in a single evening, cooking classes, language exchanges, movie nights, and group day trips to nearby attractions. Selina, a hostel chain with locations across Latin America and Europe, is particularly good at this. Their properties typically include a co-working space, a restaurant and bar, yoga classes, and a full calendar of social events. Generator Hostels, with locations in major European cities, are another reliable option for social travelers.

The hostel common room is a social space that requires zero effort to Explore. You sit down with a book or your laptop, and within fifteen minutes, someone will start a conversation. I have found that the most reliable conversation starter is food. "Have you eaten? I was thinking about ordering something from that place down the street." Offering to share food is a universal gesture of goodwill that works in every culture I have encountered. I once made five friends in a single evening in a hostel in Hanoi by ordering too much food from a nearby banh mi stand and offering the extras to anyone who looked hungry.

Apps and Platforms for Meeting Fellow Travelers

Technology has made it easier than ever to find travel companions before you even arrive at your destination. The Couchsurfing app, despite its reputation as a free accommodation platform, is actually one of the best tools for meeting people. The "Hangouts" feature lets you post that you are looking for someone to explore with, and you can browse posts from other travelers in the same city. I have used Couchsurfing Hangouts to find hiking partners in Patagonia, dinner companions in Seoul, and a group to explore temples with in Bagan, Myanmar. The key is to post early, ideally two or three days before you arrive, and be specific about what you are looking for.

Meetup.com is another underrated resource. In major cities, there are often expat groups, language exchange groups, hiking groups, and photography groups that welcome visitors. In Tokyo, the "Tokyo Hikers" Meetup group organizes weekend hikes in the mountains surrounding the city, and I joined them for a day hike to Mount Takao that cost nothing except train fare. In Berlin, the "Berlin Expat Meetup" group holds weekly events at different bars and restaurants, and I attended one where I met a local journalist who gave me a personalized tour of Kreuzberg the next day. Meetup events are almost always free to attend, and the people who go are genuinely interested in meeting new people.

For more structured social experiences, platforms like Withlocals and Airbnb Experiences connect travelers with local hosts for small-group activities. I did a Withlocals street food tour in Bangkok that was limited to four people, and the intimate size meant we all talked throughout the three-hour tour. An Airbnb Experience I did in Mexico City, a mezcal tasting in a local's home, was limited to six people and resulted in an invitation to a family birthday party the next day. These experiences cost more than free walking tours, typically 30 to 80 dollars, but the small group size and the presence of a local host create a social Active that is hard to replicate otherwise.

Cooking Classes, Group Tours, and Structured Socializing

Some of the deepest connections I have made while traveling have come from cooking classes. There is something about cooking and eating together that breaks down social barriers faster than any other activity I know. In Chiang Mai, I took a half-day Thai cooking class at the Asia Scenic Thai Cooking School for about 35 dollars. The class included a morning visit to a local market, followed by four hours of cooking five dishes from scratch. Our group of eight people, all solo travelers, spent the entire afternoon laughing, tasting, and helping each other with techniques. By the end of the class, we had exchanged contacts and made plans to meet for dinner that evening. Three of us ended up traveling together to Pai the following week.

Multi-day group tours are another powerful way to meet people, and they have the added advantage of taking you to places that are difficult to reach independently. G Adventures and Intrepid Travel both offer small-group tours, typically 10 to 16 people, that range from three days to three weeks. The group Active on these tours is almost always social, and by day two or three, people are sharing meals, splitting taxis, and exploring together during free time. I did a seven-day G Adventures tour of the Galapagos Islands and left with a WhatsApp group of twelve people who still chat daily. The tour cost about 2,500 dollars, which is not cheap, but the friendships and the shared experience were worth far more.

Even shorter activities can create connections. A half-day bike tour through the rice paddies outside Ubud, Bali, cost 25 dollars and paired me with a couple from Melbourne and a solo traveler from Toronto. We spent the entire afternoon together and ended up at a hidden waterfall that none of us would have found on our own. A sunset sailing trip in Santorini, Greece, cost 45 dollars and included wine and snacks on a catamaran with twelve other passengers. By the time we docked, we had organized a group dinner for that night. The pattern is consistent: shared activities create bonds, and those bonds lead to shared meals, shared plans, and sometimes shared Trip.

Talking to Locals: The Underrated Connection

Most of the advice about meeting people while traveling focuses on meeting other travelers, but some of my most meaningful connections have been with locals. The challenge is that locals are going about their daily lives and are not necessarily looking to make friends with tourists. The key is to approach them in contexts where conversation is natural and welcome. Markets are ideal. When I am browsing a market stall, I ask the vendor about the products. "What is this? How do you cook it? Is it in season?" These questions show genuine interest in their expertise, and most vendors are happy to talk about their products at length. I learned how to choose the best mangoes from a vendor in Bangkok, how to cook fava beans from a woman in Cairo, and how to select the freshest fish from a fishmonger in Lisbon.

Language exchanges are another excellent way to meet locals. In almost every city with a significant expat or student population, there are regular language exchange events where locals practice English and foreigners practice the local language. In Madrid, the "Madrid Babel" language exchange meets every Wednesday at a bar called La Gata Verde, and the atmosphere is warm and welcoming. In Medellin, the "Parque Lleras Language Exchange" meets several times per week. These events are free to attend, and the format, usually half the evening in one language, half in the other, creates a natural, low-pressure social environment. I have met more locals at language exchanges than at any other type of event.

The simplest and most underrated way to connect with locals is to learn a few phrases in the local language and use them genuinely. Not the perfunctory "hello" and "thank you" that every tourist manages, but actual phrases that show you have made an effort. In Vietnam, when I said "xin chao, ban co khoe khong?" which means "hello, how are you?", to the woman who sold me coffee every morning, her face lit up. She started teaching me new phrases every day, and by the end of two weeks, she was inviting me to her family's Sunday lunch. That invitation led to one of the most genuine local experiences of my entire trip: a multi-course meal at her family's home in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City, with her parents, her children, and her grandmother, none of whom spoke a word of English. We communicated through gestures, laughter, and the sheer goodwill that comes from genuine human connection.

When Meeting People Does Not Happen

It is important to acknowledge that there will be days when you do not meet anyone, and that is okay. Not every day of a solo trip needs to be social. Some of my best travel memories are from days I spent entirely alone: reading in a park in Kyoto, hiking alone in the Swiss Alps, watching the sunset from a rooftop in Marrakech with no one else around. Solitude is one of the reasons people choose to travel alone, and there is no shame in enjoying it. The pressure to constantly socialize can actually be counterproductive, making you feel like you are failing at solo travel when you are simply experiencing one of its essential dimensions.

If you are going through a period of loneliness, which happens to every solo traveler at some point, the best remedy is structured social activity. Book a class, join a tour, go to a Meetup event, or simply sit in the common room of your hostel with a book and wait. Someone will talk to you. They always do. The solo travel community is vast and welcoming, and the people who choose to travel alone are almost always the people who are most eager to connect with others. Loneliness on the road is real, but it is also temporary, and the tools to overcome it are everywhere once you know where to look.

The friendships I have made while traveling alone are unlike any other friendships in my life. They are formed quickly, intensely, and without the filters and pretenses that characterize most social interactions at home. When you meet someone in a hostel in Guatemala or on a boat in Thailand, there is no shared social context, no mutual friends, no professional network. You are simply two people in a place, sharing an experience, and that purity of connection is extraordinarily rare. I have friends on six continents whom I see once a year or less, and every time we meet, we pick up exactly where we left off. That is the gift of meeting people while traveling alone: not just companionship for the moment, but relationships that expand your world permanently.