Making Friends in a New City: What Actually Works

Making friends as an adult is hard work. It gets harder still when you have just moved somewhere, or when you are travelling alone, or when the friends you already have are scattered across three time zones and reachable only through a phone. My closest people are a message away, and I am grateful for that. But a message is not a drink on a Thursday, and it is not someone to talk to about the thing you both love. Travel, especially, is better with locals in it.

These are the things that have worked for me, and for friends I have asked.

Two things to settle first

Learn to be good company for yourself. There is magic in being alone, not lonely. People can tell the difference between someone who is content and someone who is scanning the room, and the first is far easier to talk to.

Then take the initiative. Say something to the person beside you on the train, or at the next table in the café. The worst outcome is a short, polite conversation. The best is that you find out the stranger has spent ten years doing the thing you have just started. I once made a friend on the train into Venice and we still send each other photographs from our trips. That city greeted me with blue water the moment I left the station — read about it in my Venice, Italy piece — but the friend is the part I did not expect.

For a version of this that went badly wrong and then right, see When a wrong train led to the right destination.

Join something you already care about

A language class, a dance meetup, a photography workshop, a day of volunteering at a local institution — anything with a shared activity built in. You do not have to make conversation from nothing; the activity does it for you. Universities, professional groups and cultural associations all take volunteers, and that is a way to build experience and friendships in the same hours.

If you do not know where to look beyond a basic search for your area, these are the platforms worth trying.

1. Facebook and Reddit groups

Unglamorous, and still the most effective. Search for your specific interest plus your city, or your community plus your country. Someone who has just moved from India to Europe might find groups such as Indian events in Europa or Indians in Germany. If you are a woman who travels, Girls Love Travel and Ladies Gone Global both run local meetups. In India, Put me in Touch is useful for asking a specific question, and Globetrotting Girls India is an active group for women travelling from or around the country. Expats, obviously, should join the expat groups for their region.

This is not theory. Expat meetups and city groups have produced some of my better friendships, and so has simply talking to the person in the next seat on a flight, in a carpool or on a tour. The photograph of Berlin street art below was taken by a woman I met through one of these groups. We became friends, met whenever our paths crossed in a city, and still keep in touch.

2. Couchsurfing

Couchsurfing brings travellers and locals together, and it is a good way to stay with someone who can explain the place you have arrived in. Beyond hosting, most cities have weekly meetings and events that anyone can turn up to. Make a proper profile, look for events near you, search for hosts for your dates, and consider hosting people yourself when they come to your town, or offering to show them around.

One caution: this is not a free-hotel scheme. The community runs on trust and respect, and it works when you treat it as an exchange of time rather than a discount. It is also uneven — a global platform, but in India it is active in only a few cities so far.

I have written before about the unexpected things that happened in Barcelona, including a shared bathroom and a cat that loved the shower, and separately about my friendship with my Barcelona hosts. That first-night dinner turned into three years of meeting whenever we were in the same country — Spain once, Switzerland another time. The people are the point.

3. Cuddll

Cuddll is an app for informal social gatherings, and as far as I know it launched only in India. The idea is that you create or find an event around something you enjoy and meet people while doing it. Events can be public or accessible only by link, so it doubles as a way to organise something private between friends. I have not used it myself, but I have used similar apps in Europe for photography and for meeting people with the same interests. Many apps that work in Europe never take off in India, so if you live there and want something beyond dating apps, it may be worth a try. It appears to have gone defunct in 2024, so check before you plan around it.

4. Meetup

Meetup lets you join groups built around an interest and turn up to their events. I have used it heavily in Switzerland, for professional gatherings as well as hobbies, and it has been the single most reliable source of new acquaintances there. In India it has not caught on in the same way.

5. NaNoWriMo

Every November, people who write commit to producing as much of a novel as they can. Local writing groups meet in cafés, sometimes a Starbucks, to work side by side in silence and then talk. If you write, this is a low-pressure way to meet other writers, in person or online.

6. InterNations

InterNations connects expats with locals, and city ambassadors organise a steady stream of events. Join the groups that match your interests, take part in the online discussions, and message people in your city directly.

The part everyone forgets

Meeting people is the easy half. What matters afterwards is the follow-up: staying in touch, being useful to someone, introducing two people who should know each other, and listening properly when someone talks. If you have moved somewhere for good, this is the work that turns a crowd of acquaintances into a circle.

We live in an age that makes the logistics trivial, which is both the advantage and the trap. The technology is not the hard part. Wanting to keep the friendship is.

Reading I found useful

• Why helping others will make you live a better life
• Why connection with self and others is so important
• 6 habits of people who make friends easily
• How to Make New Friends (and Keep the Old) as a Young Adult

If any of this has been useful, pass it on to someone who has just landed in a new city. And tell me what worked for you — I am always collecting methods.