What’s the best way to meet new people while traveling?
When we plan a journey, we think about the places we will see, the food we will taste, and the photographs we will bring home.
But the memory that lasts longest is often not a landmark. It is a person. A fellow traveller who helped us find our way. A local who showed us something no guidebook mentions. A stranger whose conversation we still recall years later.
So how do we meet such people? Most advice is about where to go: hostels, tours, apps. I want to suggest something about how to be. The best way to meet people while travelling is to become a little less self-sufficient.
1. We Have Made Strangers Unnecessary
Modern travel is designed so that we need no one. The phone gives directions. An app translates the menu. We stay with our companions, check our screens, and move from one attraction to the next.
Each convenience is useful. Each also removes one more reason to turn to the person beside us. Meanwhile, interesting people are passing by.
2. Ask, Even When You Could Look It Up
A simple question can open a door:
“Where are you from?”
“Have you been here before?”
“Is there a local place you really enjoy?”
An app can tell you what is popular. Only a person can tell you what they love. You do not need a perfect opening line. Genuine curiosity is usually enough.
3. Let a Shared Experience Do the Introducing
Conversation comes easily when people are doing something together. Join a walking tour, sit at a communal table, take a cooking class.
You may begin as strangers. But after finding your way together, sharing a meal, or laughing over a small travel mishap, you may discover you have more in common than you expected.
4. The Road Has Always Been a Meeting Place
Classical Tamil poetry has an entire genre, the aatruppadai, built around one encounter. A bard returning from a generous patron meets a struggling fellow artist on the road and shows him the way. [1]
In Luke’s Gospel, two disheartened travellers walk to Emmaus beside a stranger and recognise him only when he breaks bread with them. The Qur’an (49:13) says humanity was made into nations and tribes so that we might come to know one another.
Three traditions, one intuition: difference is an invitation to acquaintance, and the road is where that invitation is most often extended.
5. Listen More Than You Speak
Meeting people is not about collecting contacts. Every traveller carries a story, and so does every local. Someone you meet may have grown up in a culture unlike yours, or faced challenges that changed how they see life.
Ask questions. Then listen, without rushing to compare their story with your own. You may come home carrying something more valuable than a souvenir: a new perspective.
6. Not Every Meeting Needs a Future
What if they do not want to talk? That is possible. Some travellers seek solitude, and that deserves respect, including on the days when the one seeking it is you.
Not every conversation becomes a friendship, and it need not. The Japanese tea tradition speaks of ichi-go ichi-e, “one time, one meeting”: treat each encounter as unrepeatable, because it is. One conversation may last two minutes. Another may last two hours. One may stay with you for years.
7. Be Open, But Be Wise
Needing people does not mean trusting everyone. Meet in public places, protect your personal information, and trust your instincts. Openness and good judgment are not opposites. They travel well together.
8. Carry the Habit Home
We do not need to cross a border to meet someone new. There is the neighbour we have never spoken to, the passenger beside us on the bus, the person waiting in the same queue.
Routine makes the world feel smaller than it is. Perhaps travel simply gives us permission to be curious. What if we brought that permission home, looked up from our phones, and asked a genuine question?
The Best Souvenirs Have Faces
Years from now, we may forget the name of the restaurant, the price of the ticket, and the route we took. But we will remember the person who helped us when we were lost, the stranger who made us laugh, the local who showed us a hidden corner of their town.
So perhaps the best way to meet people while travelling is not to search for friendship. It is to travel with an open mind, a curious heart, and the humility to need someone.
The destination gives us a photograph. The people give us a memory.
A Question for You
Have you ever met someone while travelling who left a lasting impression on you? What made that encounter memorable?
Note for readers
[1] Aatruppadai (ஆற்றுப்படை) (roughly, “showing the way”) is a genre of classical Tamil Sangam poetry, among the oldest literature in the language. Its best-known poems, such as Sirupanatruppadai and Perumpanatruppadai, belong to the anthology Pattuppattu (பத்துப்பாட்டு)(the Ten Idylls). In most of them, a poet or performer who has been honoured by a patron meets a fellow artist on the road. He describes the route, the landscapes and the welcome that await the newcomer.
John Britto Kurusumuthu
Rise & Inspire · riseandinspire.co.in
In response to the WordPress Daily Writing Prompt — 08 October 2026
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