How to Make Friends While Traveling with Matt Kepnes

Master the art of social connection on the road with Matt Kepnes. Learn research-backed strategies for meeting people and building lasting travel friendships.

Traveling solo can be one of the most rewarding experiences of your life, but it can also feel lonely if you don’t know how to connect with people along the way. Matt Kepnes, better known as Nomadic Matt, has spent over a decade traveling the world on a budget and is the author of How to Travel the World on $50 a Day. He’s visited over 90 countries, and he’s also an introvert. In our interview, Matt shared his best strategies for building genuine connections while traveling, whether you’re an extrovert who thrives on meeting strangers or an introvert who needs a little more structure.

Why Making Friends While Traveling Matters

Travel isn’t just about seeing new places — it’s about the people you meet along the way. Matt traveled to Costa Rica at the age of 23, one of his first international trips, and decided to do a formal tour group specifically so he wouldn’t be alone. On that trip, he had an aha moment: travel creates an opportunity for a fresh start, a chance to break away from the weights, perceptions, and history of home.

”In Costa Rica, I became the man I always wanted to be.” — Matt Kepnes

Research supports this experience. A study on the Fresh Start Effect by Dai, Milkman, and Riis found that temporal landmarks — like arriving in a new city or beginning a new chapter — motivate people to pursue their goals with renewed energy.¹ When you arrive somewhere new, you naturally feel a psychological clean slate that makes it easier to step outside your comfort zone and approach new people.

This fresh start mindset is your secret weapon. Every new destination is an opportunity to reinvent how you show up socially.

Introversion vs. Shyness: An Important Distinction

Before we dive into strategies, let’s clear up a common misconception. Many people say, “I’m too introverted to make friends while traveling.” But introversion and shyness are not the same thing.²

• Introversion is about how you recharge. Introverts gain energy from solitude and may feel drained after extended social interaction. This doesn’t mean they dislike people — they simply need downtime to recover.
• Shyness is about fear of social judgment. Shy people want to connect but feel anxious about approaching others.

You can be an introvert who is perfectly comfortable talking to strangers — you just need alone time afterward. And you can be an extrovert who is shy and struggles to initiate conversation despite craving social contact.

Matt himself identifies as an introvert. His advice isn’t about forcing yourself to become someone you’re not. It’s about using practical strategies that work for any personality type.

⚠️ Introvert Burnout Warning: If you’re an introvert, be intentional about scheduling downtime during your travels. Back-to-back social activities (hostel common areas, group tours, pub crawls) can lead to burnout fast. Build in solo mornings, quiet café time, or a day at a park with a book. Protecting your energy means you’ll actually enjoy the social moments more.

The Vietnam Shirt Story: Why Wearing Your Interests Works

One of Matt’s best stories about making friends while traveling happened after a trip to Vietnam. He was at a bar back home wearing a red shirt with a yellow star — the flag of Vietnam. Anyone who backpacks in Vietnam owns this shirt. A stranger recognized it immediately and struck up a conversation. That one shirt, that one small signal of shared interest, led to an instant connection.

Matt told us his traveling social norm became his standard social norm — approaching strangers based on shared signals felt completely natural.

The lesson? Wear your interests. A t-shirt from your favorite band, a hat from your hometown sports team, a pin from a cause you care about — these are all conversation starters that do the work for you. They give strangers a reason to approach you and an easy opening line.

Action Step

Before your next trip, pack at least two or three items that signal your interests: a graphic tee, a book with a visible cover, a sticker on your water bottle. These are passive invitations for connection. And bring home identifiers from the countries you visit to spark conversations once you’re back.

10 Proven Strategies to Make Friends While Traveling

Here are Matt Kepnes’ top strategies for meeting new people on the road, combined with science-backed social skills advice.

1. Stay in Hostels (and Use the Common Areas)

Hostels are the single best infrastructure for meeting fellow travelers. Unlike hotels, hostels are designed for social interaction. The common areas — kitchens, lounges, rooftop terraces — are built for mingling.

Matt shared a story about staying in a hostel by himself, going out for a drink, and sitting at the bar alone. A girl from his hostel walked up and asked, “Wanna hang out?” And just like that, he had friends.

His advice: remember that a lot of travelers are in the same boat as you — adventuring solo and looking to make friends along the way. Your shared context is your first similarity.

Pro tip: Don’t retreat to your dorm room after check-in. Spend at least 30 minutes in the common area. Sit at a shared table. Make eye contact. Ask someone where they’re headed next. That’s all it takes. Matt specifically suggests choosing a hostel with a big social calendar — ones that have a new activity planned each night, including nights out on the town and barbeques.

2. Take a Free Walking Tour

Free walking tours are available in almost every major destination worldwide. They’re an incredible way to learn about a city while standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other curious travelers.

The social magic of walking tours is that they create shared experience — one of the fastest paths to bonding.³ After two hours of walking, laughing at the guide’s jokes, and discovering hidden streets together, you already have something in common with every person in that group.

Action Step: At the end of the tour, suggest grabbing lunch or coffee with two or three people from the group. Most will say yes — they’re looking for exactly that kind of invitation.

3. Use Airbnb Experiences

Airbnb Experiences connect you with locals who host activities: cooking classes, street art tours, hiking adventures, photography walks. These are goldmines for meeting both locals and fellow travelers in a structured, low-pressure setting.

Unlike a bar or a random encounter, Airbnb Experiences give you a built-in activity and a host who facilitates conversation. This is especially valuable for introverts who find unstructured socializing draining.

4. Talk to Strangers on Public Transport

This one sounds intimidating, but public transport — buses, trains, ferries — offers a unique social opportunity. You’re sitting next to someone for an extended period with nothing else to do. A simple “Where are you headed?” can open up a surprisingly deep conversation.

Long train rides and overnight buses, in particular, have a way of opening people up. There’s something about being in transit that lowers social barriers.

5. Try CouchSurfing (with a Caveat)

CouchSurfing connects travelers with local hosts who offer a free place to stay and, more importantly, a genuine local experience. Staying with a host means you get insider knowledge, home-cooked meals, and a real human connection that hotels and even hostels can’t match.

⚠️ Important Update: CouchSurfing now requires a paid subscription (approximately $14.99/year or $2.49/month). The platform went behind a paywall in 2020.⁴ It’s still worth it for the community and the connections, but be aware of the cost before signing up. Free alternatives include BeWelcome and Trustroots. Even if you don’t stay on someone’s couch, you can still attend CouchSurfing meetups in your new city — these tend to draw an international crowd.

6. Learn a Few Phrases in the Local Language

Nothing endears you to locals faster than attempting their language. Even a clumsy “thank you” or “this food is delicious” in the local tongue signals respect and genuine interest. Locals will often light up, correct your pronunciation with a smile, and open up in ways they never would with someone who only speaks English.

7. Join Adventure Activities and Group Tours

Whether it’s a snorkeling trip, a mountain hike, a cycling tour, or a cooking class, adventure activities naturally bond people together. The combination of novelty, mild stress, and shared accomplishment creates fast friendships.

This is supported by research on misattribution of arousal: when your heart rate is elevated from an exciting activity, you’re more likely to feel positively about the people around you.⁵

8. Eat at Communal Tables and Local Restaurants

Skip the tourist restaurants with individual tables. Seek out places where locals eat: street food stalls, market halls, and restaurants with communal seating. Sitting next to someone over a meal is one of the oldest forms of human bonding.

9. Use Social Apps Designed for Travelers

Apps like Meetup, Bumble BFF, and Backpackr are designed to help you find new people in your area. Matt also recommends looking for Expat groups in the city you’re traveling to. Many cities also have Facebook groups for expats and travelers where people post about meetups, language exchanges, and group dinners.

10. Reframe Your Mindset: “Act As If”

Matt’s recommendation for introverts and all travelers is to pretend and lie to yourself until you start to feel comfortable. For Matt specifically, he pretended he wasn’t a shy introvert until he felt more conversational and open to making new friends.

”Live as your best self until you become it.” — Matt Kepnes

Here at Science of People, we prefer a more nuanced reframe: “Act as if” isn’t about lying to yourself — it’s about practicing the behavior you want to embody. Social confidence is a skill, not a fixed trait. Every time you introduce yourself to a stranger, ask someone to join you for dinner, or sit in a hostel common area instead of hiding in your room, you’re building that skill.

Be playful with your identity, personality, and even the answer to the question “what do you do?” When you’re traveling, you can reinvent yourself. And travel, with its built-in Fresh Start Effect, is the perfect laboratory for that practice.

The Friendship Frameworks: Rules Worth Knowing

Building friendships while traveling isn’t just about showing up. It helps to understand the science behind how connections form. Here are three research-backed frameworks that can guide your social efforts on the road.

The 80/20 Rule in Friendship

The 80/20 rule (the Pareto Principle applied to relationships) suggests that roughly 80% of your meaningful social fulfillment comes from about 20% of your connections. When traveling, this means you don’t need to befriend everyone at the hostel. Focus your energy on the few people you genuinely click with rather than spreading yourself thin across dozens of shallow interactions. Quality over quantity wins every time, especially when your time in a destination is limited.

The 11-6-3 Rule

The 11-6-3 rule is a practical framework for building a strong social circle. The idea is that a fulfilling social life typically includes about 11 acquaintances you see semi-regularly, 6 people you’d call close friends, and 3 truly intimate or “inner circle” connections. While traveling, use this as a mental model: aim to meet a handful of people at each destination, invest more time in the few you really connect with, and recognize that only a small number of travel friendships will become lifelong bonds. This takes the pressure off trying to make every encounter deeply meaningful.

The 222 Rule

The 222 rule is a relationship maintenance strategy: every 2 weeks, do something meaningful together; every 2 months, plan a special outing or trip; every 2 years, take a bigger shared adventure. While originally designed for romantic couples, this rule works beautifully for maintaining travel friendships after you’ve returned home. Set a reminder to message your travel friends every couple of weeks, plan a video call or reunion every couple of months, and aim to travel together again within a couple of years. Friendships fade without intentional maintenance, and the 222 rule gives you a simple structure to prevent that.

Maintaining Travel Friendships

Matt told us that when he first started traveling, Facebook wasn’t really a thing — you wrote down email addresses. Now, staying connected with travel mates is easier than ever with social media and messaging apps.

”You realize you may never see these people again, but if I do, it’s like catching up right where we left off as we shared this snapshot in time where we were the best of friends.” — Matt Kepnes

In the travel life, you may say goodbye more than the average person, but the opportunity to have friends and a network all around the world is exciting. Here’s a practical system:

• Exchange Instagram handles or WhatsApp numbers before you part ways
• Send a message within 24 hours referencing something specific you did together
• Create location folders in your inbox or contacts based on where people are based, so the next time you visit that city, you can reach out
• Use the 222 rule to maintain the friendships that matter most

People School 10,000+ students

After People School, Debbie got a $100K raise. Bella landed a role created just for her.

The science-backed training that turns people skills into career results. 12 modules. Live coaching. A community of high-performers.

Watch with sound

Explore People School Take the Free Quiz

Join 10,000+ students · Results vary

How to Make Friends While Traveling as a Couple

Most travel friendship advice assumes you’re solo, but what if you’re traveling with a partner? Couples often find it harder to make friends on the road because they can appear as a “closed unit” that others hesitate to approach.

Here’s how to stay open:

• Split up occasionally. Take separate activities or classes for a morning. You’ll each meet different people and can introduce each other later.
• Be the ones who initiate. Other travelers may assume a couple wants to be left alone. Break that assumption by being the first to say hello, invite someone to join your dinner table, or suggest a group activity.
• Stay in social accommodations. Hostels with private rooms give you couple privacy while keeping you in a social environment.
• Join group activities together. Walking tours, cooking classes, and adventure excursions work just as well for couples as for solo travelers.
• Befriend other couples. Look for pair travelers in similar situations. Couple-to-couple friendships often form quickly because the social dynamic feels balanced.

The key is signaling openness through your body language. A couple that sits in the hostel common area, makes eye contact, and asks others about their day will make friends just as easily as any solo traveler.

Red Flags to Watch For in Trip Buddies

Not every person you meet on the road will be a good travel companion. While most fellow travelers are wonderful, it’s important to recognize warning signs before committing to shared plans:

• They pressure you to change your plans. A good travel buddy respects your itinerary and finds compromise.
• They dismiss your boundaries. If you say you need a quiet evening and they guilt-trip you into going out, that’s a red flag.
• They’re consistently negative. Complaining about everything — the food, the weather, the locals — drains your energy and colors your experience.
• They take financial advantage. Watch for people who “forget” their wallet repeatedly or expect you to cover costs.
• They ignore safety concerns. Someone who pressures you to take unnecessary risks is not looking out for your well-being.
• Your gut says something is off. Trust your instincts. If someone makes you uncomfortable, you don’t owe them your time or companionship.

It’s okay to say, “I think I’m going to do my own thing today.” Protecting your travel experience is not rude — it’s smart.

How to Meet Locals (Not Just Other Travelers)

Meeting fellow travelers is relatively easy since you’re all in the same situation. Meeting locals requires more intentionality:

• Visit neighborhood cafés and bars instead of tourist hotspots. Regulars are more likely to chat.
• Attend local events. Check community boards, local newspapers, or apps like Meetup for concerts, markets, festivals, and sports events.
• Volunteer. Even a few hours at a local organization can connect you with passionate locals.
• Take a class. Cooking, dancing, pottery, surfing — learning something alongside locals creates natural bonding.
• Ask your host. If you’re staying with an Airbnb host or CouchSurfing host, ask them where they hang out.

”Moving to a new city doesn’t automatically make stuff happen. You have to go out and make things happen.” — Matt Kepnes

Solo Travel: Making It Work for You

Solo travel is the ultimate catalyst for making friends. When you’re alone, you’re more approachable, more motivated to reach out, and more open to saying yes to unexpected invitations.

But solo travel also comes with challenges:

• Loneliness is normal. Don’t panic if you feel lonely on day two. It takes time to build a rhythm.
• Safety first. Always trust your instincts. If a situation feels off, leave. Tell someone — a hostel receptionist, a host, a fellow traveler — where you’re going.
• Balance social and solo time. The goal isn’t to fill every moment with people. Some of the best travel memories are solo ones: a quiet sunrise, a long walk, a journal entry in a park.

Matt and I challenge you: on your next trip, do a couple of days by yourself and practice your social skills. Put yourself out there. Remind yourself that everyone is in the same boat. There will be a lot of receptive people — they’re likely feeling the exact same way as you.

How to Make Friends While Traveling Takeaway

Travel has a magical way of breaking down the barriers we build at home. The person sitting next to you on that bus, standing behind you on that walking tour, or cooking beside you in that Airbnb Experience might become one of the most important people in your life. All you have to do is say hello.

The beauty of traveling is that many social barriers from home are gone. You don’t need to be an extrovert, you don’t need to be fearless, and you don’t need a perfect opening line. You just need to show up, be present, and take advantage of the travel bubble.

If you want to take your people skills to the next level — whether you’re on the road or at home — check out our guide on how to make friends for even more science-backed strategies.