5 Reasons Why It’s Worth To Make Friends On The Road

Are you a backpacker or digital nomad who travels around the globe most of the time?
Then you belong to a small but growing group of people who have the envious life full of adventures, experiences and knowing unknown places and cultures.

Whether you already lead this kind of life, or you just thinking about leaving your 9-5 cubicle lifestyle behind and go travel, we certainly have an important message to you:

Make friends everywhere you go

It is one of the most important advice from us – considerably experienced travelers of more than 4 years.

Of course, there are exact reasons why we claim this is a very good idea when you’re abroad and these reasons are quite simple:

1. Ease Your Homesickness

   Every traveler with any great adventures and experiences behind becomes homesick after some time. It is a natural process of emotions which comes along long-term journey far from home. Even if you travel with your life partner, you won’t avoid these feelings, because we have been used to the one certain place and people for the most of our lives. And naturally, we became bonded to these places and people, whether we like it or not.
   No matter how much we want to escape or forget, it eventually comes back to you after some time – this is why traveling is not for those ones who think it is a good way to escape and forget about something.

   When you are somewhere in a foreign place and suddenly feel homesick, there is no better cure than to speak and laugh with some good and honest friend. Not just any friend, though. It has to be someone, you feel you can trust and you know he wouldn’t let you in trouble.

   

   While it can be very difficult to find such a friend nowadays, especially for such a short time, you will learn to assess people after some time abroad.
   I couldn’t even count how many times we have been disappointed with someone we considered a friend, but things then turned out to be a little different.
   But still, during our travels, we have found many friends which we know we could trust and it became a true friendship.
   So I guarantee you, that after some time you will find out on your own mistakes and successes how to find a good friend.

   

2. Know New Culture

   It doesn’t really need to mean that you have to find solely friends of different religion or race, even though, it would definitely widen your knowledge.
   But as every one of us is unique and special, you can learn something new even if your friend comes from the next village.

   

   Differences between each other in culture, habits, and opinions create endless possibilities to enrich our mind with the thoughts from another angle. We may start to find out, that our opinions might not be always those right ones. And that there is not only our way of life and truth.

   I would never change anything for wonderful memories we have experienced with all our new friends. Thanks to them, we tasted the food we would probably barely tried, know their culture from a very close side as if we would be one of them for awhile and visited many places we would never read about in guides.

   Thanks to our friends, we have ditched our prejudices about religions, nationalities and different way of lives, which are subconsciously created by some western culture stereotypes.

3. Save Money

   Many times our friends helped us with accommodation or provided us with important information. It helped us to save some money on food, attractions, and other expenses.
   Some of our friends invited us home to sleep and dine with them and their families, which is one of the most worthwhile experiences one could ever try. This way, you not only save a significant amount of money but also have unique chance to take the best of your stay. You will be able to see things like a local and if your friend is willing enough, he/she can be your personal guide and show you many secret places around.

   

4. Have A Lot Of Fun

   In relation of connecting with people of different cultures, there is 100% chance you will have a bunch of fun time together. Just the plain knowing of each other will bring you a lot of laughs. And you will have a lot of unforgettable memories like this one:

   One hot afternoon on the beach we have been with our French couple friends talking together and suddenly we saw two huge fins in the water coming dangerously close to the shore. While people have started to scream and run out from water, our French friend persuaded us that “it’s not a real shark, it’s just a joke – it’s some kind of a ‘toy’…” Well, it wasn’t a toy and neither it was sharks.  It was two young orcas who got lost close to the shore. The funniest on all of it was the way he tried to not accept the thing which was obvious.  And he saw it with his own eyes…

   

   Other funny memories include English accents of other nationalities, which will bring you lot of fun and sometimes embarrassment. Except for exceptional New Zealand English which is sometimes very hard to understand, first memory what came to my mind regarding language was with our Italian friend. She constantly used to say “I’m angry” instead of “I’m hungry”… 🙂

5. Improve Your English

   You’ll never learn English fluently unless you speak, speak, speak… And the best technique of learning a language is to do it without realizing you are actually learning something, right? With a good friend, you will talk, laugh and experience new things while learning English.
   And when your language abilities are not advanced enough yet, at least you will have fun time to try to express yourself using all you can, including weird body language, haha.

   

   If you really want to move your English to a next level, it’s good to find a friend who is from English speaking country. Yes, maybe you will feel uncomfortable and unsure with your talking from the beginning, but it will pass and you will gain confidence.

   With a friend whose English is the first language, you will have great opportunity to learn the right accent and voice intonation, which significantly improves your talking abilities.

No matter how antisocial you are at home, once you get on the road, you better try to find a friend everywhere. It has a lot of positive assets for you and helps to prevent you from sad mood or even depression. You will learn a lot of things and enrich your mind and soul with new experiences and knowledge. Then it might be hard to leave, but be sure you will stay friends on distance forever and you never know when they will need your help next time.

Important thing is to be willing to give them back what they gave to you. Be prepared to help them if they will be in need and never forget what they did for you.

This post is a big Thank You to all of these wonderful people we met abroad. They helped us, talked and laughed with us, share something with us and created nice memories with us.

Do you make new friendships when traveling? How do you find this post, was it helpful or do you have a different experience?

Let us know, we kindly expect your comment regarding this topic.

© Independent Couple