What’s the best way to meet new people while traveling?
We’re the kind of people who are more interested in ongoing relationships than casual ones. So when I think about meeting people while travelling, I’m less interested in how many people we meet than in what happens afterwards.
In recent years, we have increasingly travelled overseas on organised tours. I probably wouldn’t have predicted that years ago, but when work is busy I’m quite happy to let someone else handle the logistics. One unexpected benefit is the people.
In Antarctica, we became close friends with a couple from Perth. We ate together every day and shared an extraordinary experience. Eighteen months later, we are still in contact daily, and in January we are going away together to a coastal town south of Sydney.
Our recent trip to Vietnam was similar. We bonded with a wider group, have caught up several times since returning home, and still exchange messages about future travel.
I think tours help because they create repeated proximity. You spend days together, eat together, see remarkable things together and build a shared set of memories. Travel can compress friendship. In ten days, you can sometimes spend more time with someone than you would with a new acquaintance at home over several months.
But the real test comes afterwards. It is easy to finish a trip by saying, “We must keep in touch.” The friendship becomes real when someone actually sends the message, organises the dinner or says, “We’ll be in your city. Are you free?”
Perhaps that is the best way to meet people while travelling: travel in a way that gives strangers enough time to stop being strangers, and then make the small effort needed to keep the relationship alive when you get home.
A good holiday gives you memories of places. An especially good one sometimes gives you people as well.
What’s the best way to meet new people while traveling?
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