How to make more friends while traveling.

In a world that's increasingly becoming more and more weary of strangers, the easiest thing you can do is just say, 'Hi!'

May 13, 2026

I’m sitting outside a café in Rotterdam North and I move a tiny table in front of a bench chair a few inches to the right and a tiny porcelain plate slips off and shatters loudly onto the ground.

Oof.

I look over at the woman next to me, big glasses, red hair over her shoulders, combat boots, and just sort of shrug my shoulders and go, “Shit.”

I bring the shattered porcelain into the cafe with the pieces splayed out in my hand like a toddler who’s been caught doing something bad and just tell her, “I f**ked up. I’m sorry.”

She says, “It’s OK,” and I go back to my chair to wait for my food to come. Bread with more bread, and butter and jam. Very European.

I tell the woman next to me, “She was OK with it,” and she laughs and says, “Of course. It happens.”

And we strike up a conversation.

She’s lively; she’s full of hope and energy and enthusiasm; and she’s in love.

It’s exciting, and I’m excited for her.

I tell her, “I love, love!” and she laughs.

She seems real, and she laughs a lot and she’s not so serious about everything.

We chat about her travels; my feelings about our increasingly Orange and wild President (he’s a twat) ; dated expectations of women and rampant misogyny.

She teaches me some phrases in Dutch that I quickly forget; I teach her some butchered Japanese phrases that I combine with Turkish and Dutch, too.

We hard talk about work — I love not talking about work.

And then we part ways, there’s no exchange of information or contact; no need for it.

Just two strangers enjoying a lively conversation.

That’s how you meet people.

You drop porcelain plates that shatter into pieces; you apologize to the staff or the owner; you feel embarrassed for a few moments; you make a passing comment to a stranger; you engage, maybe.

The conversation that began with a tiny spark has grown into a small campfire.

And it’s often as simple as saying, ‘Hi!’

The first thing that stops us from saying ‘Hi’.

Anxiety, usually.

Anxiety is an anticipation and fear of something happening, and typically that something happening, is, “This person will reject me or think I’m weird, and I will feel like shit for it.”

As a society, we’ve often been socialized to be weary of strangers which only results in greater isolation. it sucks.

But the more you talk to people, the more you realize: everyone is craving social connection and community and you can tell very, very quickly if someone wants to actually talk with you.

But here’s the thing about fear of embarrassment and about that feeling that somebody wants to be left alone — the embarrassment goes away, always, and your ability to pick-up whether or not someone wants to be left alone becomes sharper and sharper.

And on the other end of those perfectly rational fears are connections and relationships that potentially last your entire lifetime.

For example: I was walking around near the Bosporus Strait and the Golden Horn bridge in Istanbul, down by the water.

I see a woman with a camera taking photos.

I pause for a moment — is it too on-the-nose to ask someone what they’re taking photos of?

There are a million reasons why I shouldn’t.

But I do, I ask her what kinda camera she’s shooting on; what she’s taking photos of; if she’s captured anything good.

And she has, because she’s secretly a brilliant photographer.

We chat for a while, she says she’s traveling with her boyfriend who’s also a photographer, and we connect on WhatsApp, and later I hang out with her and her boyfriend and adventure around my neighborhood — Balat — capturing photos of people, in the way that they do.

It’s a much more authentic approach to photography that results in images that feel real. They talk to people; they ask them questions; they engage with them, then, snap!

I stay in touch with them for a while, but the greatest lesson I learned from them has stuck with me, too: curiosity makes better relationships and even better photos.

The second thing — curiosity.

Our first instinct when we notice something different or interesting or unique is, what’s going on there?

What follows that is, “No, no, I shouldn’t.”

Simple questions like, “What’s that?” Or, “What are you doing there?” Or, “What do you think about this place?” can open up the world.

Then you read the room.

If there’s no information being offered on their end beyond a simple, “Uh-huh,” it’s a dead-end.

And it’s OK.

If you’re curious, you’ll find that meeting people becomes as effortless as simply noticing something that they seem interested in or are doing or are engaged in and just digging in.

And it doesn’t have to be particularly complex or witty or anything.

Often, those things lead to answers that people are either not particularly interested in diving into or have simply been asked so, so many times, that it just doesn’t feel engaging to them.

”Where did you get that super hezelek shirt?!” is way more compelling than, “That’s a cool shirt.”

One is a dead-end; the other opens doors.

Open up enough of those doors, and before you know it, you’ll have friends everywhere you go.