The best part of traveling is the friends you meet and make. It’s one of the best ways to get a taste of the local culture.  A good way to get started on this is to dine where the locals do. Most write-ups and reviews will be able to tell you the level of engagement with locals that you’ll have.

Hostels/hotels are a fantastic way to meet fellow travelers too. Over beers or whatever the local chill-out practice is, you can get to know the world through a new friend’s eyes. I’ve met some of the most fascinating people in lodges….many are global citizens and they share my travel aspirations. A good ice breaker is to swap advice with a fellow traveler-in-arms, and if you really hit it off, you can exchange contacts to meet up in the future, be it in your home country, theirs, or a location on both of your bucket lists.

Chances are that if you share your travel plans with enough of your new-found friends, some of them will have contacts in the places that you are headed and may link you up! It’s easy to feel that you might be a burden, or that you are not interesting enough to take up some stranger’s time for a coffee, but resist that urge to skip the meeting. Jump into making new contacts! Remember that they are interesting to you because they are from a different culture, so they are probably very interested in what you have to bring from your own.

Making local friends is not only great for companionship, but for the fact that they can tell you, and maybe even show you, the best things about their country. You can read all day what a country is known for, what tourists and journalists think are the best spots (if they’re still around), but to get the cutting-edge skinny on what is hip and new in a place, you have to know a local in the know.

Lastly, these friendships foster new understandings of the area, and create a warmth and depth to your travels. They are also a great resource to practice your language skills if in a country where you don’t adequately speak the language. Don’t be scared! If you have some knowledge going in, then use it, and experiment with what you learn. Sometimes you will sound like a fool, but it will be much appreciated (not only as a comedic relief) and show that you really care about learning a culture. And it’s another great skill you can take home and perfect for the next time!