How To Find Travel Companions Online
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If you're going travelling solo, you can find likeminded travel companions online to either meet at your travel destination or even travel there together to begin with
I wrote in my previous article Seven Reasons To Go Travelling Solo about how easy it is to strike out on your own and meet people along the way. But there's no reason why you can't find some likeminded people online to meet up with when you're travelling before you leave home. Indeed, you can meet people who live in the country you're visiting, who can show you the local view of your chosen destination. This is undoubtedly one of the most rewarding ways to spend your time aboard, especially if you don't speak the local language. Making connections with travel friends is also a good way of giving yourself some psychological reassurance that you're not plunging wholly into the unknown.
This sort of travel social networking has flourished in the last couple of years and it costs you little in terms of time and effort to set up a few profiles on different websites and then start locating likeminded users of the same site. Give as much information as you can on your profile about yourself and what you want to do - don't just say "Want to see the tourist sights of X". Have a purpose that other people will want to help you with, however trivial it may seem, like "I want to go and touch the tigers at the Thailand Tiger Temple" or "I want to learn to scuba dive on Koh Tao". The more specific you are, the more you can engage with those reading your profile. Also, think of it from your host's perspective - if you want to do something a little unusual, it will be more fun for them.
Here, then, are some of the most useful websites to help find travel friends:
1) Couchsurfing.com
The granddaddy of travel networking sites and a fantastically good idea that keep growing, despite their website meltdown earlier this year. CouchSurfing has hundreds of members all over the world who offer a place to stay for other CS members - maybe just a night or several days. You simply have to get in contact, talk to each other and if you get on, arrange when you can visit. Obviously this is a system that requires a huge amount of trust, and there seems to be a few people that think of CS as a dating system, but by and large it works. There are scores of testimonials on the site as to how well people have got on. CouchSurfing is free for people to join and use.
2) Lonely Planet Classifieds
A place for people to signal their interest in finding a travel buddy as well as shifting their unwanted travel gear and so on. As Lonely Planet is the biggest guidebook publisher by far and their website is visited by thousands of people each day, it's a good place to get noticed, although posting in the Lonely Planet Thorntree Travel Forums might also be a good way to raise your profile.
3) TravelPod
Travelpod is one of the bigger travel blog sites around, where you can sign up for a free account and profile and maintain a blog about your travels along with uploading pictures and using their burgeoning forums to meet others. Good for those people interested in maintaining an ongoing record of their trip, but possibly you might want to retain full control of your words by setting up your own blog.
4) Bootsnall
One of the oldest travel sites, Bootsnall also has a large discussion forum through which you can meet other people. It offers blog facilities but it's not really as slick as TravelPod.
5) MySpace
Much maligned by many, MySpace is the crappy bar where everyone goes because it's where everyone goes. People from literally all over the world are on here, and an informative profile about yourself outlining where you want to travel and what you want to do while you're there, plus some friendly Friend Requests, should get you talking to some locals. If you remain polite and unpushy, you should at least get some useful suggestions and ideas if not an invitation to meet up when you arrive.
Remember for many MySpace users for whom English is not their first language, chatting on MySpace is a good chance for them to practice their English, so don't be snotty if their spelling and grammar are a bit odd.
There's also travelersmeet.com which looks a bit blah from its site design, and companions2travel.co.uk which only offers a trial membership, so presumably you have to pay for it at some point.
When meeting anyone for the first time, however safe they seem, meet in a well-lit, public place and spend some time there before going anywhere else with them. If anything seems wrong, then gracefully withdraw from the situation and book a hotel instead. It is a little bit like a blind date, and you need to follow the same common sense rules for personal safety. In other words - try not to get falling down drunk on your first night out together...
I've had some memorable experiences meeting up with people online to go travelling. Back in 1997 I hitched a lift from San Francisco to Nevada's Black Rock Desert to the Burning Man festival via Burning Man's website forum, managing to organise my entire ride online from London with the lovely Patty. It seems trivial now, but back then it seemed like a real big deal. Everyone at home thought I'd get axed to death in the desert. (Or, at least, were secretly hoping...). I had a real blast at Burning Man - I wrote my account of it here - in part because it seemed so unlikely that a British bloke who couldn't drive and had no real idea where it was would ever actually get to Burning Man...
I digress. Any comments on the sites above and suggestions for better ones, plus recounting of experiences, good and bad, all gratefully received. Have fun.
Other Travelhappy posts of interest:
- Find More Friends When Travelling
- How To Be A Travel Guidebook Writer
- Cheap Flights: Where To Find Them Online
- Six Tips To Deal With Being Scared To Go Travelling
- Salsa Classes In Bangkok
[...] UPDATE: I written a short article about how to find other travel companions online through websites like CouchSurfing.com before you even leave your house. You might as well increase your chances of meeting likeminded people before you go travelling, and it can be a good psychological boost to have a plan to meet other people abroad. [...]