How to Make Friends Abroad: 10 Ways to Make Friends While Traveling Internationally

These apps are great for smoothly getting to know new people abroad.

Bumble

Maybe nowadays more known as dating app, but you can set your profile so that you are looking for friends. I met some nice people in Spain via this app.

Meetup

Probably the most common events app. Easy participation for free and paid events around the world.

Couchsurfing hangouts

Couchsurfing in itself is fun, but if you’re like me, so not 20 anymore and willing to sleep on all kinds of free couches, you can simply meet people via Couchsurfing hangouts.

Tandem

You can do language exchanges online in this cool app called Tandem.

Hostels

Staying in hostel does not mean you need to be 18 and share a room of 8 people.

You can even have your own room at a hostel and get to know people easily in the common areas.

Sharing the same home is the easiest way to make friends while  traveling as an introvert, as you literally don’t need to leave home.

Homestays

You can find lovely homestays safely, literally with a website called https://www.homestay.com/

Co-living spaces

If you are a digital nomad, I think one of the coolest thing to do is to co-live, for example in a villa or in co-living hubs. You can discover them for example from here: https://colivingcompass.com/
and here: https://coliving.com/for/digital-nomads

Volunteering is a great way of living abroad, while naturally connecting with people.

I recommend browsing options at https://www.workaway.info/

You can choose stays in cool projects around the world.

If you know already the destination you want to go to, you can look for opportunities from local NGOs.

There are many kinds of listings online, that list the easiest and hardest places to make friends abroad.

To be honest, it is much more dependent on your situation and attitude than the country you are in.

For example, my home country Finland is often seen as a hard place to make friends. To some extent, I agree: if you don’t speak the language and if you don’t have a natural way to be in touch with people, for example via work. 

(And if you are going to Finland, this 10 don'ts in Finland list can hel you as well :D)

So I would say it is definitely possible to make life-long friends anywhere, as long as you are ready to participate in events, meet new people often and want to make friends. 

This article about loneliness abroad gives more mental tips on how to tackle the mental aspect of loneliness abroad.

I know how it is when you are introverted, and simply want to make friends abroad, but you are not the kind of person who joins a pub crawl every night or wants to join every language exchange for chats. 

So it is hard to make friends abroad, if you are working remotely, as then you don’t get to know people via work. Then it is more important to be active on free time, doing the hobbies you like and going to local events. 

Countries are not either “one size fits all” kind of thing.

Personally I love yoga and I work remotely, so for me Bali is an ideal place to meet like-minded people. 

On the other hand, I am not really into going out, partying and drinking alcohol, and therefore I felt lonely and different in places like Malta. 

So it’s also about recognizing which kind of environments feed your soul, instead of simply relocating to Canggu, just because that’s “the thing” to do and “place to be”.

Language 

Let’s’ state the obvious; talking a common language is a must to have a bit deeper connection. 

If you are not speaking at all the local language, focus on finding other expats or english-speaking locals to hang out with.

Safety

I don’t want you to end up in sketchy or dangerous situations just to meet up with some people in new culture. Always meet up first in a public place.

Commitment

Third but not last; commit to participating social events a certain amount of times a week. Commit to an amount that is doable (there’s no shame if at the beginning it’s just once a week). 

Why: Because there’s not much point talking about the quality of friendships, if there isn’t even any quantity of seeing new people. 

These tips should set you for a great start to make friends in foreign country.