How to make gay friends when you travel alone
To make gay friends when you travel alone, choose set-ups where you'll see the same faces more than once, like a group trip that lasts a few days or a shared house with a common kitchen, and find a local LGBTQ+ group before you land. And if you use apps, say clearly that you're looking for company, not a date.
Travelling on your own has real perks. Nobody vetoes the museum, and you can change your plans at breakfast. But a week of solo dinners can wear thin, and if you're gay, the obvious ways to meet people in a new place tend to be bars and hook-up apps. That's fine when it's what you're after. It's not much help when you'd just like company for the day. This guide covers what tends to work, with a few stories from Eric Crespin, who founded Among Our People and has spent most of the last few years travelling.
Choose trips where you'll see the same faces
Friendship needs repetition. A one-night stay in a big hotel gives you a nod in the lift and not much more. A trip where the same small group shares meals for several days gives you time to get past "Where are you from?". Eric's most recent example is a three-week overland safari from Victoria Falls to Johannesburg, across five countries, in October 2026. The group drove through villages by day and spent every evening around a campfire, where the talk drifted to relationships, marriage and why he'd never had children. Two local guides, one from Mozambique and one from Zambia, travelled with them. By the end of the trip, he says, they knew each other well.
Group tours, cooking classes that run over several days, walking holidays and retreats all work the same way. If you're nervous about a whole trip, start with a single day tour and see who you end up chatting to at lunch.
Share a roof
Where you sleep shapes who you meet. A hotel corridor rarely leads anywhere, while a shared kitchen often does. A few years ago Eric rented a room in a man's flat in Stockwell, in south London, mainly for the location and the price. The host kept to himself. The man staying in the third bedroom didn't, and the two of them ended up going bar-hopping together. Eric had come for a cheap bed and left with a friend for the week.
He'd seen it work long before that. In 1996 he started a gay ski week at a Club Med resort in France, and solo guests could share a room instead of paying extra for their own. A simple noticeboard let people say they were looking for a roommate. Most of them arrived with someone to ski with already lined up.
Choose a shared place with care, though. Read the listing and recent reviews, message the host before you book, and ask anything that matters to you. Tell someone at home where you're staying, and know where you'd go for the night if it doesn't feel right when you arrive. Our guide to meeting an online friend safely covers the first meeting with someone you've only met online, and most of it applies to a first night in someone's home too.
Find a local group before you arrive
The people who know a city best are the ones who live there, and a lot of them belong to something. A couple of weeks before you travel, search Meetup and Facebook for the city's name with "LGBTQ" or "gay", and look beyond the purely social groups to the hiking and board game ones. Check when a group last posted, since plenty quietly stop meeting, and whether it says visitors are welcome or gives you a way to message the organisers. If the city has an LGBTQ+ centre, its events page is often the quickest way in. Many groups are happy to have a visitor turn up for one evening, especially if you message first.
If bars aren't your thing at home, they don't have to be on holiday either. How to make gay friends without bars or clubs has more ideas, and our city guides for places like Barcelona and Amsterdam name specific groups to start with.
Say what you're after
Many of the best-known gay apps lean towards dating or sex. Eric's frustration on the road was that sometimes he simply wanted someone to go to a museum or on a hike with. If that's you, say it plainly in your profile or your first message: you're visiting, you'd like company for the day, and that's all. Some people will lose interest, which saves everyone time. The ones who stay are usually after the same thing. Gay friends, not dating goes into how to make that clear without it getting awkward.
Suggest the next thing
Plenty of travel friendships end after one good evening, simply because neither person suggests a second. If you've enjoyed someone's company, ask whether they fancy breakfast, or the market tomorrow. They might say no, and that's fine. If they say yes, the friendship has a real chance of outlasting the trip.
Be yourself, and know where you are
On the safari, Eric was open about being gay. He didn't announce it at every market stall, but around the campfire it was simply part of who he was, and he never felt threatened. He was also aware that in parts of that region the law and local attitudes can make being openly gay dangerous, and that he could leave in a way local people can't. Not every trip has gone smoothly. In Caracas in 2005, a hotel receptionist refused him and his boyfriend a double bed with a flat "¡Aquí, eso no se hace!" ("We don't do that here").
So before you go, check the law and the local attitudes in each country on your route. The UK government's travel advice for LGBT+ travellers is a good starting point. Then read the country page for each place on your route, check again shortly before you leave, and look at your own government's advice too. How open you choose to be once you're there is up to you, and it can change from one place to the next.
Some of these friendships last for years
On an overland trip from Kenya to Victoria Falls, Eric met a woman he got on with so well that he offered her the spare room in his home. She moved in, became a close friend, and years later they still write to each other. Not every travel friendship goes that far, but some do, especially when you keep in touch once you're home.
Travelling alone is a good way to meet people, as long as you give it a little structure. Choose trips and places where you'll see the same faces, line up a local group before you arrive, and be the one who suggests tomorrow's plan. On Among Our People, you can add the trips you're planning and look for a travel buddy heading the same way. And for the places you spend longer in, you can make a free friend card here and tell us who you're hoping to meet. Finish it on Among Our People and you'll see who else is looking for friends near you. ✦