How To Easily Make Friends While On Vacation
This is the first of a series of articles I shall be posting from guest authors whose work often appears on the Internet. The subject throughout will be “How To Easily Make Friends While On Vacation”. Home Exchangers are, by nature, gregarious folk, but it occurred to me that some additional advice could help, especially for people embarking on a home exchange for the first time.
This first article is written by Simon Wright from Falkirk, Stirlingshire GB
Making new friends whilst on vacation can really enrich that holiday experience and will help to ensure that the vacation lives long in your memory. It may also lead to lasting friendships and possibly even romance. However, for many of us, there comes a time (usually after childhood) when making new friends seems to become increasingly difficult. It’s for this reason that it may be useful to consider some techniques and tactics that you can use to increase the probability of making new friends.
Firstly, be open to the idea of speaking to new people, even if they are from a different country. Those of us who are from English-speaking backgrounds are incredibly lucky, as so many people from other language backgrounds have English as their second language and often put us to shame with their level of competence. I’ve started with this point about openness as too often we shut ourselves off both by our actions and body language from other people. It is only if you have embraced the possibility of making new friends that you are likely to succeed in this regard.
Moving on then to actions that you can take, here are some ideas:
1. Sign up for activities and excursions:
When I was holidaying in Malta, I saw that there was a day trip, by boat, around some of the local islands and that included a swim in a place called the Blue Lagoon. My wife doesn’t like boats but was happy for me to take the trip, whilst she occupied herself with other things back on terra firma. A minibus arrived at our hotel to collect those who had signed up for the boat excursion and I found myself joined by a German couple. Given that they were from the same hotel, I said hello and asked them whether they were looking forward to the trip. We then ended up sitting together on the boat and it helped make the excursion more enjoyable. Indeed, it ended up being quite a sociable day, featuring a jeep safari and a nice lunch and I ended up chatting with quite a lot of people, from various nationalities.
Another example that I can think of was a time when a friend and I went camping in France and the camp site arranged a tennis tournament. The fact that we joined in on that event provided an opportunity to get to know some of our fellow campers.
2. Share a table with others in the hotel bar or at local bars:
Thinking, again, of that Malta holiday, the hotel that we were staying in had live music most nights in their bar. The music was very good and attracted a lot of guests and there were more people than seats. Therefore, if we found ourselves seated at a table by ourselves, the chance would be that another couple or group would ask if it was okay for them to sit at the spare seats. The combination of music, drink and the holiday feel-good factor is conducive to chat and this can be a great way to get to know your fellow holidaymakers.
On another occasion, I can remember a friend and I going to one of the local bars in Iceland. After a few beers, we found ourselves joined at the table by some locals and once they discovered that we were from the UK, they were keen to chat to us (in near perfect English) about music and sport and all the usual topics of conversation. It was a very good night, even if I did get lost on the way back to the youth hostel, but that’s a story for another time!
3. Be open to other opportunities to make friends:
Whether we’re talking about vacations or just day-to-day life, there are often many opportunities to speak to new people and potentially to make new friends. Perhaps, you’re having lunch in a caf and you see another person sitting alone who is reading a book by your favourite author. A comment on their good reading taste might lead to a conversation and, if not, then there’s nothing lost. Vacations mean we often do cultural things such as visit museums and art galleries. These are great for making friends as you will at least know that the other people presumably share a same interest.
Making friends is, of course, however not just as straightforward as taking the trouble to speak to a stranger. The other person may or may not be receptive. For example, they might think that you are hitting upon them romantically! The psychology of making friends is quite complex and it probably isn’t relevant to go into too much detail on it in this article. Suffice to say that there are subtle elements that will determine how successful individuals are at making new friends. Your body language and tone of voice are probably as important (if not more so) than what you actually say. On an aside, that’s why for romantic introductions it’s often not the quality of the chat up line that determines whether a couple fall for each other.
There’s no doubt that there are people (usually extraverts) who are better at making new friends than others (typically introverts). These people tend to be less anxious or stressed about introducing themselves and will therefore come across as more open in their body language and this (plus their confidence) may reassure us that they are not a risk. This is not to say that introverts can’t also make new friends. It’s just that we have to work a little harder, remembering to be open to the possibility of new friendships and to force ourselves to speak up when we have something interesting or relevant to say!
It’s also often possible to draw attention to ourselves (without the need to speak) through the way we dress.
For example, being Irish, I could wear an Irish rugby top and this might prompt people to speak to me who are interested in the fact that I’m Irish. Having holidayed in the US previously, I know that there were a lot of people who were interested to hear what Ireland is like and many of them said they had Irish links! That’s just one example but hopefully illustrates that we are often drawn to speak to people based on an element of curiosity or attraction. The attraction doesn’t have to be romantic attraction; we may just feel that someone looks quirky and fun from the way that they dress and behave.
In summary then, it is possible to make new friends on vacation and they may turn out to be lifelong friends. After all, the chances are that they share the same interests as you since you both chose the same holiday destination. That friendship might even lead to romance and more than a few marriages have started from holiday friendships. Making friends comes easier to some than to others but there are things that even the most shy of us can do to make it easier to make new friends. These include signing up for group excursions and activities, socialising in bars, and simply being open to the possibility of making new friends. Hopefully, the friendships that you make will be extremely rewarding and may even provide you with a network of friends all around the world, which is great for future holidays!
