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Love traveling but don’t want to go it alone? Or maybe you arrived solo in Madrid and just want to chat with other travelers for recommendations and tips. We had you in mind when we researched and came up with these top 5 best websites to meet other travelers.
Backpackr
As the name suggests, this smartphone app is for backpackers all around the globe. The focus is to connect backpackers so they can do activities and excursions together, and also to create a community for travelers to share recommendations with one another.
Meetup/WeWork
The two sites which are owned and operated under the same management both present great opportunities to meet like-minded people while traveling. Meetup is not exclusively designed for travel, but for anyone in a new city finding a Meetup group about something they are interested in is an easy way to meet folks with the same hobbies or interests. WeWork meanwhile is a great website for digital nomads. WeWork connects remote workers with coworking spaces. Coworking communities are an easy place to strike up a conversation and ask someone to share a casual lunch.
Skout
While not specifically for travel, Skout is an app that focuses on meeting new people. The feature, Skout Travel, allows you to make connections anywhere in the world.
Ventoura
The Ventoura app focuses on two pieces: (1) connecting travelers with other travelers, and (2) connecting travelers with locals. On the local side, it’s a marketplace where locals can sell tours and experiences for travelers coming through their city. This way, travelers can get an authentic, local tour and make a new friend!
Wandermates
Wandermates focuses solely on connecting solo travelers with one another through meet-ups. With two simple options, the website allows visitors to meet other solo travelers or to meet an activity partner.
Couchsurfing
While Couchsurfing is primarily an accommodation service, it also markets itself as a social networking site. Since Couchsurfing is catered so specifically to the backpacking community, it provides advantages not expected of a normal booking site. Everyone advertising their couch for rent knows they are likely going to have young travelers staying with them and are eager to meet people. Because of that many hosts make an effort to include their guests in plans with friends. The site also consistently has “Couch Crashes”. These are multi-day social events that happen in different cities throughout the year and are organized by that city’s Couchsurfing community.
Travello
With close to one million travelers using the smartphone app, Travello allows you to search through possible travel buddies by gender, age, location, and traveler type. We like Travello because whether you want to lay on the beach or hike a volcano, you don’t have to go it alone.
Tinder
Why not?! Yes, we know Tinder’s reputation, but let’s put that aside for one second. The app’s primary function is to literally present numerous people and for the user to find who they think is interesting with ease and speed. Everyone not looking for a hook-up can easily put in their bio “Hey I’m traveling here and was hoping to meet cool friends for a drink”. That is a pretty easy solution. Swipe right on fellow travelers and be honest about intentions. It is also an easy way to meet locals. While similar apps like Bumble BFF make more sense for this type of situation, they are still catching on many places overseas, whereas Tinder has been established, and has a huge user count, pretty much everywhere.
Some might think Facebook these days is reserved for pictures of your great aunt’s cat or for people from high school to express worrisome political views, but the social media powerhouse is extremely useful while traveling. Many cities abroad, especially those that are popular with expats and digital nomads, almost always have Facebook groups for travelers. In bigger cities, users can get more creative and specific. In these places groups called “Expats in…” may have 10,000+ members so a simple “Lets hang out!” may get lost, but in more specific groups like “Yogis in Bali” or “Hiking Group in Medellin, Colombia” are a good place to find fun activities and people with similar interests. Also, for backpackers who are planning on staying in one place for an extended period of time Facebook groups are often useful places to find information on housing, employment, and visas for foreigners.
World Packers
With a community of well over 300,000 users across 100 different countries, World Packers is an awesome place to meet people as well as find helpful resources. It is an ideal tool to use for finding help with languages, doing a work exchange, or find friends. It also is a resource for volunteer opportunities. Volunteer projects are great ways to meet people while traveling as it places travelers into a group for them to help fix a problem, but also for them to create a shared experience for volunteers. Volunteering often creates a very strong bond amongst those working together.