In a previous blog, “The Perks to Traveling: The Friends You’ll Meet,” we wrote about how it’s important to meet new people and build relationships. You never know, they could last a lifetime! But we also touched on how it can be intimidating to meet new people on an assignment in an unfamiliar location. What if there were tools out to there to meet people of similar interests and plan events to meet in real life? There is! Several apps have been developed to accomplish this. We will talk about our top three below.
Meetup
Meetup is an app that has events planned by local hosts that you can attend. Or, you can set your profile as a host to plan your own events! I have my own and very positive experiences using Meetup. My first experience with Meetup happened in my home city where I had a lot of friends but wanted to find others nearby with similar interests. I’ve also used it while working for a few months in a new and very large city. You enter some information about yourself and select what types of activities you’re interested in to build a profile. There are a variety of events planned by hosts like paddle boarding, happy hours, etc… I even joined a kickball game once! Both times I used Meetup I was able to meet great people and have a lot of fun with those I never would’ve met had I not used the tool.
Bumble
Although Bumble is typically known for dating, you can use its popularity to make new friends too! If you go into the app settings you can switch to search among the thousands of users looking for friends nearby and not dates. Create a profile seeking new people, write your bio with interests, and upload pics that show what you enjoy doing. Once complete you can start searching through other profiles and select those you think you’d have something in common with. If they think the same you’ll match on the app and your friendship begins!
Nearify
Maybe you prefer to meet people in a more natural way by simply bumping into someone at a local community event. Guess what… there’s an app for that too! Nearify is an app that informs you of events happening all around you. Concerts, fundraisers, sporting events, Broadway shows, and movies are just a few different types of events you can be notified of via push notifications. The list goes on. You can escape staying at home to watch movies and get into the local scene and meet some new people!
Your travel experience is yours to make what you want it to be. With these tools at your fingertips, you can easily make friends to share your experiences with!
Kevin Bradley is a Social Media Recruiter for the Imaging division of Aureus Medical Group.