How to Really Make Friends Abroad

Moving abroad changes a lot of things, but perhaps the biggest shock to the system is how you make friends.

Back home, friendships are often handed to us by circumstance. We meet people at the office, through our kids’ schools, or because they happen to live next door. Once established, those hometown friendships are incredibly resilient. You can get busy, lose touch for six months, and pick right back up over dinner as if no time has passed.

When you move to Italy or Spain as an adult, that built-in infrastructure disappears. You are starting from absolute scratch.

If you treat making friends abroad like you did back home, you will end up frustrated and isolated. Making friends as an expat isn’t like ordering takeout; it’s like gardening.

You have to select the right location, prepare the base, plant the seeds, and nurture them. It takes deliberate effort. Having moved neighborhoods over 50 times in my life—and eventually countries—and watching Guillermo navigate moves across the globe throughout his adulthood, we have developed a system for planting these new roots.

Here is how we build a community from the ground up.

Preparing the Soil: Knowing Where Not to Look

In the past, the default advice for expats was to jump into Facebook groups. Today? We usually advise against it. The algorithms tend to reward complaints, and these groups can quickly become echo chambers of negativity that poison your outlook before you even unpack.

Similarly, large expat networking organizations can be a mixed bag. (Guillermo and I actually met at a brunch hosted by Internationsin Shanghai!). While daytime events can be great, we often found the evening events felt a bit too forced or “hook-up” focused for our taste.

Instead of casting a massive, generic net, we focus on micro-communities.

Planting the Seeds: The Modern Expat Tools

If Facebook is out, where do you go? The real community building today happens in private chats and purposeful meetups.

• Girls Gone International (GGI): If you are a woman moving abroad, look for a local chapter of GGI. I was a member in Shanghai and actually helped start the Palermo chapter here in Sicily. It is strictly friend-focused—no business networking allowed. Think museum trips, hiking, and long lunches.

• WhatsApp & Telegram Micro-Groups: This is where the daily magic happens. I belong to several groups for every city I’ve lived in. You naturally get networked into hyper-focused groups based on your actual interests: culture, food, and activities.

• The “Same Time, Same Place” Habit: Pick a local café and go there every single morning at the exact same time. Pick a nearby co-working space and spend two afternoons a week there. Familiarity breeds approachability.

The “Expat Bubble” Reality Check

I cringe—and honestly, crack up a little—every time I see a post in a relocation group proclaiming, “I’m moving abroad and I will only speak to locals. Go away, English speakers!”

It is a noble quest. We are capable, accomplished adults. We think, “How hard can it be? Children do it!” But that mindset is entirely self-focused. It doesn’t take into account the other human being who has to struggle to decipher your broken sentences and made-up vocabulary.

This is why we strongly suggest a “soft landing” in the expat bubble. Expats understand the shared trauma of navigating the bureaucracy. They speak your language. They are the trellis you lean on when you are struggling to get off the ground. You help each other stand tall while you figure out a new climate, and because a trellis has plenty of room, you can continue to grow alongside them for years to come. The goal isn’t to stay entirely in the bubble forever, but you have to give yourself grace. Start with what you know so you aren’t isolated. Don’t cut yourself off from easy, comforting human connection just to prove a point.

Cross-Pollinating: Mixing Expats and Locals

Once you have your soft landing, you can start branching out. Local friends are the ones who truly anchor you to a place.

• Local Cultural Societies: Recently, Guillermo and I signed up for a walking tour with Le Vie dei Tesori, an organization exploring the history of our city. Because we put ourselves in a local environment, we ended up chatting with an Italian couple. The conversation became a beautiful, jumbled mix where we simply switched languages whenever we got tongue-tied.

• The Neighborhood Merchants: Never discount the people behind the counter. Just last night, we walked into a newer La Patisserie in town. Because Guillermo is an avid baker, he and the local owner instantly clicked. They talked about baking for almost an hour, and as we walked home, we realized he had likely just made a new friend. 

The Changing Seasons: When People Move On

This is the hardest truth of the expat garden: It is transitory. People move for short stints, visas expire, or they decide to try Portugal next year.

When people leave, you generally fall into one of two camps:

• The “Guillermo” Approach: Guillermo is the master of the long-distance garden. He makes an incredible effort to keep in touch via WhatsApp and LinkedIn, actively coordinating meetups during future travels.

• My Approach: I am very much an “out of sight, out of mind” person. And if you are too, that is okay. Thank goodness I have my core group of friends back home that I am still thick as thieves with. Because I have those deep roots, I don’t feel the pressure to hold onto every single new person I meet. I enjoy the relationships for exactly what they are in that moment. You don’t have to hold onto every single flower forever to appreciate that it bloomed.

The First 30 Days: Planting at Your Own Pace

There is so much pressure to have a vibrant social life the minute you land. But my biggest piece of advice for your first 30 days is this: Do exactly what feels comfortable to you.

When I moved to Shanghai, I hit the ground running. I was active in groups, chatting with people on the ground before I even arrived, and I was out on coffee dates within two weeks of landing.

When I moved to Spain and Italy, it was completely different. Yes, it was during COVID, but there were still outdoor activities I could have joined. I didn’t. I chose to take it slow. I spent those early weeks just trying not to get lost between the grocery store and my house.

I don’t think one way was better than the other. I have made wonderful friends and found great activities in both places.

There is no “right way” to move abroad. Start planting your seeds when you are ready. The garden will grow when it is supposed to.