I was sitting on a plastic stool in Hanoi, eating bun cha that cost less than a dollar, when a guy from Manchester sat down across from me and asked if the herbs on my plate were mint or coriander. I didn’t know. We spent twenty minutes sniffing leaves and laughing like idiots. That was it — I had a friend for the next four days. No bar crawl, no icebreaker games. Just two hungry people confused about Vietnamese herbs. That’s how it usually happens. Not with a strategy, but with a willingness to be slightly ridiculous in public.
I’ve been travelling solo since 2015. Sixty-seven countries, almost all on a budget that would make a financial advisor weep. In all that time, the biggest factor in whether a trip felt lonely or legendary wasn’t the destination. It was whether I made friends. Here’s what I’ve learned, including the stuff that cost me money and dignity to figure out.
My worst friendship fail happened in Medellín. I’d booked a private room in a fancy neighbourhood because I wanted “peace and quiet.” Three days in, I hadn’t spoken to another human being except the guy at the arepa stand. I was miserable. So I checked out, moved to a $9 dorm in Poblado, and within two hours I was playing cards with a Canadian nurse and a German cyclist. We rented a car together to Guatapé the next morning. That private room cost me $45 a night and my sanity. The dorm cost $9 and gave me three friends and a road trip. Lesson learned.
Why This Matters
You can see every cathedral, hike every volcano, eat every bowl of noodles on your list. None of it sticks the way people do. I can barely remember the Louvre. I remember, vividly, the night a Chilean guy and I got lost in Belgrade and ended up at a birthday party for someone we’d never met.
Friends make travel cheaper too. This isn’t a fluffy wellness argument. It’s arithmetic. Split a taxi four ways and it’s nothing. Share an Airbnb and your nightly rate drops by half. Cook dinner together in a hostel kitchen instead of eating out, and you’ve saved enough for tomorrow’s bus ticket. The social and the financial are tangled together. Solo travellers who ignore the social side often spend more, not less.
There’s a safety angle as well. Having someone who notices you didn’t come back to the dorm is a quiet form of insurance. I’m not saying you need a buddy system. I’m saying that when you know three people in a city, you make better decisions. You’re less likely to wander down the wrong alley at 2am because you’re bored and lonely.
So yes, it matters. Not because you’re failing at solo travel if you’re alone. But because the whole thing gets richer, cheaper, and safer when you let other people in.
Top 5 Tips
1. Stay in hostels with communal kitchens, even if you hate hostels. I don’t care if you’re 45 and need your own bathroom. Book a private room in a hostel instead of a hotel. The private room costs maybe 60% of a hotel, and you get access to the kitchen, the common area, and the people. The kitchen is the key. People who cook together talk. People who eat alone in restaurants don’t. I’ve made more friends chopping onions than I have at any bar. If you’re really anti-social, just go make tea at 7pm. Someone will talk to you. Guaranteed.
2. Say yes to the first invitation, even if it sounds boring. Someone asks if you want to walk to the supermarket. Say yes. Someone asks if you want to see a church you’ve already seen. Say yes. The first yes is the hardest. After that, you’re in the group. I once said yes to a “quick walk” in Tbilisi that turned into a 14-hour day trip to a monastery and a supra where I drank wine from a horn. Best boring invitation of my life.
3. Use free walking tours as a friend-finding tool, not a history lesson. Every city has them. They’re tip-based, so you pay what you want — usually $5 to $10. Here’s the trick: don’t just listen to the guide. Talk to the people next to you. Ask where they’re from, how long they’re staying, what they’re doing tomorrow. By the end of the tour, suggest lunch. Half the group will say no. Two people will say yes. Those two are your people. I’ve done this in maybe 40 cities and it works almost every time.
4. Learn three sentences in the local language and use them badly. Not for the locals — though it helps — but for the other travellers. When you butcher a greeting, you become approachable. You signal that you’re not too cool to try. I once said “thank you” in Georgian so badly that a guy from Argentina overheard me and started laughing. We travelled together for a week. Perfection is a wall. Mistakes are a door.
5. Do a shared activity that isn’t drinking. Hostel bars are fine, but the friendships that last are usually built on something else. Cooking classes, bike tours, day hikes, language exchanges, volunteer shifts. These cost money — usually $15 to $40 — but they create a shared task. You’re not just staring at each other. You’re doing something. I still text a woman I met on a $25 pasta-making class in Rome. That was six years ago. Twenty-five dollars for a six-year friendship is a pretty good exchange rate.
Budget Breakdown
Here’s what I actually spend to make friends on the road. These are real numbers from my last big trip through Southeast Asia and the Balkans. Your costs will vary, but this is the ballpark.
- Hostel dorm bed (vs. private room): Save $20–$40 per night by choosing a dorm. That’s $140–$280 per week. You’re not spending extra to make friends — you’re spending less and getting more.
- Free walking tour tip: $5–$10. Do this in every new city. It’s the cheapest social investment you’ll make.
- Shared dinner ingredients: $3–$6 per person when you cook with 3–4 others. Compare that to a $12 restaurant meal. You save money and eat better.
- Group day trip (split transport): A private car to a nearby site might cost $60. Split four ways, it’s $15 each. Public buses are cheaper, but the shared car is where the conversation happens.
- Activity-based meetup: $15–$40 for a cooking class, bike tour, or workshop. This is the one place I’d say spend up. It’s an investment, not an expense.
- Sim card with data: $5–$15 for a local SIM. You need it to coordinate with your new friends. Don’t rely on hostel wifi.
Total extra cost to be social: often zero. Sometimes $20 a week. And you’ll usually save more than that by sharing costs. The only real cost is the energy it takes to say hello first.
One Mistake to Avoid
Don’t wait for other people to invite you. This is the mistake I made for my first two years of solo travel. I’d sit in a common area, reading a book, hoping someone would talk to me. Sometimes they did. Mostly they didn’t. I told myself I was “putting out friendly vibes.” I was not. I was putting out “do not disturb” vibes and then feeling sorry for myself.
The fix is embarrassingly simple. You have to be the one who speaks first. Ask a question. Any question. “Is this seat taken?” “Do you know if the kitchen closes?” “Where’d you get that beer?” It feels awkward for about four seconds. Then it’s fine. The other person is usually just as nervous as you are. I’ve never once had someone say “please leave me alone.” Not once. And I’ve started hundreds of conversations this way.
The deeper mistake is treating friendship as something that happens to you instead of something you do. It’s a verb. You do it. You show up, you speak up, you suggest the plan. The people who seem to make friends effortlessly are just people who’ve gotten comfortable with the four seconds of awkwardness. That’s the whole secret.
You don’t need to be an extrovert. I’m not. I’m a mildly anxious person who would rather read a book than make small talk. But I’ve learned that the book will still be there tomorrow. The person across the room might not be. So I close the book and say something stupid. It works almost every time.
Go somewhere new. Stay in a dorm. Cook dinner with strangers. Say yes to the boring invitation. And when you feel that little pull to stay quiet, to keep to yourself, to protect your peace — ignore it. The best parts of my last sixty-seven countries weren’t the places. They were the people I met in them. Your next great travel story is probably sitting two metres away from you right now, also wondering if they should say hello. Beat them to it.