How to meet people while travelling solo (and keep them)

How to meet people while travelling solo (and keep them)

The walking tour ends in a square. The guide thanks everyone, a few people tip, and then the whole group stands there for a minute, checking phones, half waiting for someone to suggest something. Nobody does. You swap Instagram handles with the person you chatted to for two hours, and at nine o'clock you are eating alone again.

Nothing went wrong there. The way to meet people while travelling solo is to put yourself where strangers share the same space for a while, and more than once: a hostel kitchen or common room, a group day trip, a class, a sports session, a language exchange. Then comes the part almost everyone skips: suggesting one specific plan, with a time and a place. Meeting people is easy on a solo trip. Turning them into company takes one sentence. And if you would rather not leave it to chance, you can find someone for one leg of the trip before you go.

How to meet people when travelling alone: proximity and repetition

Not every place full of people is a good place to meet them. What makes the difference is not how many people are there, but how long you are together and whether you see each other again. A crowded bar gives you neither. A shared kitchen gives you both.

That is why the advice "just talk to people" falls flat. It is not about being more outgoing. It is about choosing settings where conversation happens on its own, because you are standing next to someone for forty minutes with something to do, and tomorrow you will be standing there again.

The best ways to meet people while travelling

Hostel common areas, the kitchen above all. Hostelling International puts it plainly: "Common rooms and kitchens make it easy to meet people, but sociability is never compulsory", and the kitchen is "usually the busiest room in the building". Cooking gives you a reason to be there, something to do with your hands and an easy opener, and the same faces turn up the next evening. When you book, look at the photos: a lounge with tables and sofas works, a corridor with a vending machine does not.

Group day trips. A day in a minibus with the same small group, a boat trip, a guided hike. People book them for the place rather than the company, which is exactly why they work: by lunchtime you have shared a view, a wrong turn and a sandwich, and nobody had to try.

Walking tours, but mostly at the end. During the tour the guide talks and everyone listens. The useful moment is the minute after it finishes, when the group hangs around not knowing what to do next. That is when "anyone fancy lunch?" lands.

Classes and workshops. A cooking class, a pottery session, a dance lesson, a surf or climbing course. Everyone has turned up on purpose, there is a shared task, and the people tend to be a broader mix of ages than a hostel bar.

Sport. Running clubs that welcome visitors, climbing walls, five-a-side, yoga in the park. Turning up regularly for a few days builds the repetition that makes people remember you.

Language exchanges. Many cities have evenings where locals and visitors meet to practise each other's languages. They are one of the few easy ways to meet people who actually live there, not just other travellers.

Coworking spaces. If you are working while you travel, a day pass, where one is offered, puts you among people with the same routine. They suit longer stays better: on a nine-day holiday you tend to leave just as the regulars start saying hello.

Meetups and local events. Event listings and community noticeboards advertise walks, quizzes, talks and board game nights. Pick one that you would enjoy even if you spoke to nobody, and the conversation becomes a bonus rather than the point.

If hostels are not your thing

Most advice on meeting people assumes you are twenty-five and sleeping in a twelve-bed dorm. If you are older, want your own room or go to bed at eleven, that circuit can feel like it belongs to someone else.

You do not have to give it up completely. Hostelling International says "private rooms are available at many of our hostels if you want the hostel amenities without sharing a sleeping space", so you can have a door that locks and still use the kitchen and the lounge. Beyond hostels, the settings that work best are the ones that mix ages naturally: day trips, small guesthouses where breakfast is at one shared table, and an afternoon class. If what worries you is less the meeting and more the evenings on your own, travelling alone without feeling lonely goes into accommodation, pace and the third-night dip in more detail.

How to make friends while travelling solo: the first sentence

You do not need a line. The easiest openers are about what you are both doing right now: "Is that the bus to the coast?", "What are you cooking? It smells better than mine", "Have you been to the market yet?". A question about the place gives the other person something easy to answer and a reason to ask you one back.

Shyness helps more than people think. Asking for a recommendation is a perfectly natural thing for a visitor to do, and most people enjoy being asked. If you sit at the counter rather than at a table for one, you will often find the conversation starts without you.

And not every chat has to go anywhere. Some last five minutes and that is fine. The aim is not to befriend everyone, it is to give the right people a chance to stick.

The sentence that turns a chat into a plan

This is the bit that decides whether you eat alone at nine.

Most people say goodbye with some version of "see you around" or "what are you up to tomorrow?". It sounds friendly, and it leaves the other person to do all the work: come up with a plan, pick a time and risk being turned down. So nothing happens.

What works is the opposite: a concrete plan, with a place and a time, that only needs a yes or a no. "I'm going to the market at eleven tomorrow and then for lunch nearby. Want to come?" The other person does not have to organise anything. And if they say no, nothing is lost, because you were going anyway.

That is the whole trick: suggest something you would do even if nobody came. It takes the awkwardness away from both of you at once.

Staying sensible when you meet people travelling

Nobody can promise that meeting strangers abroad is risk-free, and nothing here is a guarantee. What helps is the same common sense you would use at home, with a couple of habits that matter more when you are on your own.

The UK government's advice for solo travellers starts simply: "Leave an itinerary with someone at home and agree how regularly you will be in contact." It also suggests booking accommodation in advance, "in particular your first night's accommodation", and reminds you to "remember that being safe is more important than being polite". That last line is worth keeping in your pocket. You never owe anyone your company, your address or the rest of your evening.

In practice: meet new people in public places, get back to where you are staying under your own steam, and keep your phone charged and your money split. The government's advice for women travelling abroad adds a point that applies to everyone on a night out: "not leave drinks unattended, and do not accept drinks from strangers". If you would rather spend time mainly with other women, solo female travel groups compares the options, and what "women only" does and does not tell you.

Apps to meet people while travelling, and someone for one leg

Everything above solves company once you are there. It is spontaneous and often brilliant, but you do not choose who you meet or when. Sometimes you would like to know before you fly that the four days in the middle of your trip, the road trip or the stretch where eating alone is awkward, will have company.

That is what TravelMatch is for. You post a trip, or just one leg of a longer one, with a destination and dates, or you ask to join a trip someone else has posted that overlaps with yours. When someone sends a request, before you accept you see their profile, your compatibility percentage and reviews that can only be left by people who have travelled with them. If you accept, they join the group chat, and the trip has a shared itinerary, polls for decisions and shared expenses for splitting costs. In your profile you can say whether you prefer a women-only, mixed or any group; it is a stated preference, not an automatic filter, so read each profile before you say yes. TravelMatch is free and does not book anything: everyone arranges their own travel and accommodation.

There are alternatives for meeting other solo travellers once you are there. Event and meetup platforms list local activities, language exchange apps connect you with people who want to practise, and some hostels and booking sites have chats for guests staying the same nights. They are good for a coffee or an evening, less so for deciding who to spend several days with. How to find travel companions compares the ways people look for a travel buddy, and is it safe to travel with strangers covers what to check before you share a room, a car or a week with someone new.

Meeting people is not the same as having someone to travel with

Travelling solo and meeting people along the way has something you cannot replicate: you end up at dinner with people you would never have picked, and some of those evenings turn into friendships that last years. The flip side is that you do not choose. Some weeks you click with everyone, some weeks you eat alone seven nights running, and no technique removes the luck completely.

What you can do is not leave all of it to luck. Knowing who you will share at least part of the trip with takes the uncertainty out of the middle and leaves the good part intact: the chance encounters keep happening anyway. And if the real problem is not being alone there but never getting as far as going, I have no one to travel with goes through the real options.

You will meet plenty of people on your own. The trick is to invite one of them to the market at eleven.

→ Find someone for your next trip on TravelMatch · Free.

Reviewed in October 2026. Hostel information from Hostelling International and safety advice from GOV.UK (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office), both checked on 12 October 2026. Search phrases from Google's autocomplete in the UK, October 2026.