Is meeting new people while travelling really that easy??

Hello Celine 😊

I generally meet a lot of people while travelling, unless I am off the beaten track. But even off the beaten track there are generally one or two travellers to meet.

But how big are chances that you can actually get together and travel together for a while?

Yes, that happens if you are going in the same direction as somebody you meet.

You could post in the Looking for Travel Companions forum to find a travel companion if you want.

And what if you are a shy person and don't like to do the "first step"?

If you are receptive, then others will approach you.

Or how about you have been travelling for a long time and you just don't want do answer the same old questions anymore. So meeting new people is quite difficult then...

Yeah, answering the same questions over and over can become boring. But I dont thing there is much change of escaping it if you want to socialise.

Did you have negative experiences travelling with a person you met on the way?

I was on Koh Pha Ngan, Thailand and met a Canadian guy who wanted to travel back to Bangkok with me and my daugher and do some stuff together there. On the boat off the island he started giving me a lot of unsolicited childcare advice and opinions. This is something that most/all parents hate because it happens so often and from people who have no reason to believe they know better than the parents do. I got rid of him quickly when he did not accept my suggestion that he not give advice, because he is not a childcare professional or expert. There have been other times too when I have ditched travel companions because of various annoyances.....

Mel


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I'm generally quite a shy person with new people and not the best at making the first move. However, you'll find that in certain situations you will just get talking to people. For example, getting off a bus in Kon Tum, Vietnam and not having a clue which way to go for the centre, accomodation, etc, we got talking to an Australian girl who was travelling alone and in the same situation. We decided to all share a taxi and then met up later that night for food and drink. As it turned out, our route around Vietnam was almost the same so we would arrange to meet up at the different places. It meant we got the independence to do what we wanted but also had someone to go out for drinks with and things like that. You'll also meet people on tours and also often in hostels. Some of them you will get on with more than others. Some you will talk to for 5 minutes, others you might travel around with for the next couple of weeks before going your own way again.
There's something about travelling that helps you lose those inhibitions about talking to new people and while you do often ask/answer the same questions in the first ten minutes, each person you meet is different so conversation soon chugs along nicely on its own.

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Thanks to everybody for your replies, and Mell for your thread! It's really interesting! Surfing the internet I found a nice page regarding travelling alone: www.solotravel.org

Wisetalk: you are right, stay positive is the best thing to do! I guess you also radiate it and then people will be more ikely to approach you than if you are sitting sad looking in your chair 😊


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