Making Friends as a Digital Nomad
Have you ever seen the life of digital nomads, or people who have the ability to work from anywhere in the world, as too good to be true? Don’t they get lonely? Today we have a guest writer, Kelsey of Sights Better Seen, to talk to us about how she makes friends while traveling and working around the globe. Kelsey is a nomadic travel blogger and Pinterest manager who spends her time living and working throughout Europe and the US. I hope you enjoy this good insight!
Making friends as a solo traveler was pretty effortless for me. I made the bulk of my travel friends at hostels, either in my room or at events (some hostels will host movie nights, pub crawls, board game tournaments, etc.). On free walking tours, I’d look for another solo traveler and strike up a conversation with them. It sounds nerve-racking, but I promise you it’s not - it always worked, and we typically explored the city together afterward! I even got the guts to go to a pub crawl alone in Ireland and met two women from Australia.
In 2019, I quit my job and made the shift from solo traveler to digital nomad. Before, I was bound to an office in a specific location, and could only travel using my 3 weeks of paid vacation time. But now, I’d found a gig teaching English online and could easily live in different places around the world while working since all I needed was a stable Wi-Fi connection. That meant I could explore after work each day, and really soak up the different cultures in other countries.
I assumed that meeting people would be just as easy as a digital nomad, but I was dead wrong. I didn’t want to stay in hostels anymore as it was much too difficult to work in shared spaces. And now that I was no longer in my early 20’s, the idea of sharing a room with 10+ people didn’t appeal to me, either. Instead, I planned to house-sit or rent my own apartment in each new location, which gave me my own space.
On free walking tours and pub crawls I met other travelers that were only visiting the city for a few days. As a nomad typically staying the max amount of time that my visa would allow (usually up to 90 days), I wanted to meet people that I would see throughout my time there rather than just once.
I realized pretty quickly that I had to come up with a totally different strategy to meet people as a nomad. It was a learning process with a lot of trial and error, but after almost 2 years of living on the road here’s what has worked for me.
My favorite way to meet other nomads, expats, and locals is through Facebook groups. I joined the Girls Gone International Facebook group in Hamburg, Germany, and had several fun outings with women I met there. Try searching Facebook groups for “Digital Nomad (city)”, “Expats (city)”, and “(hobby you’re interested in + city)”. It’s certainly much easier to find groups like this in larger cities than smaller towns, so keep that in mind when choosing destinations. I learned that the hard way after spending 2 months alone in small towns in England!
In December I went to Bansko, a small mountain town in Bulgaria that also happens to be a digital nomad ‘hub’. I met a ton of people there by joining the popular nomad coworking space, Coworking Bansko. (Here’s what an average week in the life is like in Bansko as a digital nomad, if you’re curious!) Going to so-called ‘nomad hotspots’ makes meeting other remote workers incredibly easy, and there are often other expats involved in the community, too. Other popular hubs include places like Bali, Indonesia; Medellin, Colombia; and Lisbon, Portugal. Check out Nomad List for other ideas.
Dating apps can work, too, as long as you’re either interested in dating or upfront about your intentions if you’re just looking for friends. I met someone in Germany on Tinder and we dated for a while, and I made some friends through him. Another popular dating app, Bumble, even has a ‘Bumble BFF’ feature that you can use for strictly platonic relationships!
Meetups or classes are great for meeting locals. I became friends with my aerial yoga instructor in Bansko! I have yet to actually try Meetup but I’ve heard a lot of great things about it.
If you have a flexible working schedule, you can try out Workaway! It’s a program that connects volunteers with locals looking for help with various projects. You can read the reviews and choose hosts that seem like people you could become friends with, or places that host several Workawayers at once. Usually hosts ask for about 25 hours a week, and then you can work on your own projects on your off time. I did this and had a great experience!
Co-living spaces are basically the adult version of hostels. I have yet to try one out, but other nomads that I’ve met seem to like them!
If you’re thinking about becoming a digital nomad but are afraid of being lonely, I hope this calms your nerves! I promise that it’s not at all difficult to meet people while working remotely - I just had to change my approach. I’ve managed to make some awesome friends that I still keep in touch with. The best part? They live all over the world, so I pretty much always have someone to visit!
Do you have questions about what its like to travel as a digital nomad?
Let us know in the comments below!
