How to make and keep friends when you keep leaving town
(This advice column is a public service by me, Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships. I’m a certified connection coach and have been facilitating community groups for almost twenty years. I regularly speak and lead workshops on the topics of adult friendship, building community, and cultivating healthy work teams. If you’d like to work with me, reach out on my booking contact form. If you have a question that you’d like answered in a future blog post or newsletter, instructions are at the bottom of this post.)
Q: Hi Kat, I've loved following your materials for the last year, and have a question. I feel like I'm always traveling and moving around, so I do ok keeping up with my virtual friendships, but I have trouble making and deepening in-person friendships. Do you have any advice? — A.L.
A: Thanks for being a subscriber/reader and for caring about your long-distance and back-home friendships. It’s definitely possible to deepen your in-person friendships even though you travel a lot. It just takes a little extra intention and creative thinking.
In fact, my advice is that you choose some solutions that feel creative and exciting for you, since that’ll make the effort feel more like a fun activity rather than a chore. Here are a few ideas you can use as-is, or riff on to make them more personalized to you.
Audio Postcards [When you’re away]
Y’know how people always say, “wish you were here”? Well, share something that makes your friends feel like they’re there: Send them audio postcards!
How it works:
When you know you’re going to be traveling, make a list of five friends you want to reach out to while you’re away.
Then, while you’re traveling, set a goal of taking five interesting photos on your phone.
Send each person one of the photos along with a short voice memo, explaining what was happening in that moment and why it makes you think of that person. Let them know that even though you’re physically far away, that they’re still close in your heart and that you’re carrying them with you on your travels around the world.
(Optional) You can invite them to reply with an audio postcard from their life back at home.
If you and your friends love this format of staying in touch, try Taylor Harrington’s idea for creating a pretend podcast with your friends.
And most of the ideas in my post about friend date ideas can be done from a distance, just like 100% of the ideas in my booklet Connected From Afar.
Friending from Far Away [When you’re away]
For making new local friends while you’re traveling far away, you’ll wanna think about choosing methods that are virtual-first, “we’ll meet face-to-face later” modes of meeting new people. Voila: Friendship apps, like BumbleBFF, Hey!Vina, We3, and Lunchclub. If you want to make new friends around the world, check out the friend-penpalling app Slowly.
To seek new friends in your home location, make sure your settings are set to your home location instead of your temporary location. Match with some people, then chat in the DMs to get to know each other a bit. This is a perfect activity to do while you’re away traveling. Then, set up a time to meet for a date when you’ll be back home.
Since most folks expect to go through this slower chat-online-first phase, and the DM-chatting step can last for days (or weeks!), you don’t even necessarily have to mention that you’re not at your home location unless the app uses geolocation to automatically display your phone’s immediate location—in this case, you’ll want to explain that in the DM, like this:
“Even though the app says I’m in Ireland right now, I actually *do* live in Austin! I’m just traveling right now. I’m hoping to meet some new people and I’m setting up some coffee dates and friendly walks for when I get back next weekend! :) Does either of those sound good to you? I love what you said on your profile about ___ and I’d love to chat more about that!”
The cool thing about this strategy is that it automatically gives your new friends something to ask you about, since they’re bound to be curious about what you’re traveling for, what it was like to visit that place, etc. It’s a great jumping-off place for a conversation.
Big Buddy Reunion Shindig [When you get home]
Treat every safe return home like a celebration—it is! You’ll give yourself something to look forward to by scheduling some special friend-reconnection time for your return.
And instead of trying to reconnect with all of your home turf friends one by one, make your reconnection time a special reunion session that has the added bonus of being a setting where your friends can make new friends by introducing them to each other.
If the idea of “throwing a party” gives you hives and makes you nervous, don’t think of it as a party—frame it in any way you want to, and as Priya Parker reminds us, people will be more excited to come if you give it a playful name.
Example party names you can use or riff on:
The Lazy Homies Saturday Morning Living Room Lounge
The Zero Effort Friday Night Pizza & Beer Backyard Chill Sesh
Random Awesome People Party
Together Again — with wine!
Friend Care Sessions [Anywhere you are]
Do you skincare? How about friendcare? To maintain ongoing friendships when you’re at home or on the go, make it a regular habit in your life.
Set aside 15-20 minutes for reaching out to local friends:
Make that call.
Batch a bunch of text messages.
Trade some of your social-media-scrolling time for some sending those “I’m thinking of you” text messages.
Share a podcast link or your review of that book that your friend recommended.
If you’re passing through their neighborhood, swing by and leave a sweet surprise note on their door.
A key part of keeping and deepening your friendships is following up to keep the ball in the air. These are all ways to do that, whether you’re at home or traveling far away.
Hope that helps!
XO,
Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together: The Secret to Cultivating Better Friendships
What to read next
Travel more and make friends at the same time: Friendship Retreats and Adult Summer Camps
Get closer quicker: The Newcomers Shortcut to Deeper Connection
Think it takes a lot of time to build a community? See how Holly did it in six months