How to meet locals whilst on your travels

It can be next to impossible to jump out of your personal shell and immerse yourself directly with the community you’re visiting and meet locals on your travels.

Especially when you first endeavour into travelling, this can be extremely difficult.

If you want to meet locals that live in the destinations you’re visiting, this can be a incredible experience which creates unique travel experiences.

In fact, I’ll go as far as saying they are the most treasured memories that I still keep from my travels.

Locals live, sleep and breath the place you’re visiting and take the place to heart, an experience that any traveller would want to make the most out of.

Not to worry, I’ve been in this situation endless amounts of times and I’m here to help you solve how to meet locals.

You meet Internationals in your daily life.

At this moment you must have already met a handful of Internationals, even in your home country.

Be it Exchange students you studied with or fellow work mates you met when working on projects.

I hope you have managed to keep in contact with them on Facebook because if there is one person who is willing to meet up with you and show you around its the past friendships you have already made.

I get messages from people all the time I met on my travels wanting to meet up to talk about the good times we once shared.

It’s easy to win these people over and meet up for a beer and go over the great memories you once had.

So do look in your phone book first and see if you might cross paths with someone you already know.

I remember when I went to Slovenia and had a cocktail with some old friends I made in Mexico, it was a lot of fun and great to meet up with them in their home country.

Couchsurfing

Couchsurfing is not just a resource to find a free place to stay for the night, it’s much more than that. A large database of locals waiting to hear from you to meet up for this very reason.

Couchsurfing is all about connecting cultures and offers just that. Everyone on the site is willing to meet locals and share experience’s with each other.

In fact, you can just meet up for a city walk or a coffee you don’t have to stay the night, some Couchsurfers are just looking for a nice opportunity to meet someone new and have a chit chat, so why not give it ago?

With Locals

Heading to Asia and want to try some local foods? Try With Locals, a website dedicated to connecting you with a endless amount of local Kitchens ready to cook up a feast.

After living in Singapore I quickly learned how important food is to the locals that live there and they can talk for endless amounts of hours about the dishes they love that take them back to their childhood.

I can’t see any other better way to connect with locals in this wonderful continent than through food.

It really is a big talking point and a great connection to a local culture. So why not book yourself one of these unique experiences and learn how to make the best local dishes as well as meeting a local family in their own kitchen.

You can also arrange a unique tour or activity with a local through the website, the possibilities are endless!

It really is a unique experience that is hard to create yourself, so why not give it a go if you happen to be travelling around Asia?

I wish you all the best with your venture into meeting locals, it’s one way that can directly connect you with the community you’re visiting and enhance your travelling experience all for the better.

If you happen to have used any of the above tips and would like to share your experience or have any more tips to add in regards to meeting locals on the road, feel free to post below in the comment section of this blog: