How to Find a Travel Buddy (and Vet Them Before You Go)
To find a travel buddy, look in two places: online, where people post routes and dates before a trip, and on the road, where you can meet someone first and decide to travel together afterwards. The second is usually safer and works better, because you already know you get along before you share a bus, a budget or a room.
Whichever route you take, the finding is the easy part. The real work is vetting: checking that the person is who they say they are, agreeing on money and pace, and meeting in public before you commit to anything. This guide covers all of it.
Do you need a travel buddy or just travel friends?
It is worth being honest about this first, because it changes where you look. A travel buddy is someone you travel with for a stretch: the same route, often the same transport, sometimes shared rooms, for days or weeks. Travel friends are people you spend an evening or a day with and then go your separate ways.
Plenty of people who think they want a buddy actually want company at dinner and someone to do the sunrise hike with. If that is you, our guide on how to make friends while solo traveling is the better read, and you keep the freedom that makes solo travel worth it. If you want a real companion for part of the trip, for a trek, a road trip or a region that is easier with two, keep going.
How to find a travel buddy online
Finding someone before you leave works best for fixed plans: a specific trek, a road trip with a car to split, a festival. A few ways to go about it:
- Post your plan, not your profile. "Hiking the north loop, 5 days from the 14th, budget hostels, looking for one or two people" gets better replies than "looking for a travel buddy". Specifics filter out people who are not a fit.
- Use communities organized around your route. Forums and social media groups for a country, a trek or a style of travel (backpacking, overlanding, nomad life) are where people with the same plan already are.
- Ask your own network. A friend of a friend comes with a built-in reference, which no stranger online does.
- Travel buddy apps and solo travel apps. Some apps let you see who is heading to the same place. In HelloMates you can save your flight, and with Plus see who lands in a city this week and read the city chat before you arrive, which is a low-pressure way to find people on the same dates.
For a full rundown of the tools, see our guide to apps to meet people while traveling.
How to find a travel buddy on the road
This is the method that works most often, and the one we recommend for most people. You meet someone at a hostel, on a day trip or at a group dinner, spend a day or two in the same city, and only then decide to continue together.
It has three big advantages. You see how someone behaves in real situations (when a bus is late, when the bill comes, when they are tired). There is no commitment until you both want one. And you can try a short stretch first, like one shared day trip, before agreeing to a week.
To make it happen, keep your plans loose enough to change, and mention where you are heading next in every conversation. "I'm going north to the mountains on Thursday" is how most travel partnerships start.
On HelloMates, small group plans and invitations are a good testing ground: join a plan with a few other travelers, see who you click with, and suggest the next step from there.
How to vet a travel buddy before you commit
You would not hand your house keys to someone you met an hour ago, and committing to travel with someone is not far off. Before you agree to anything beyond a meal, check a few things.
Check they are who they say they are
- Have a video call if you met online. It is the simplest way to confirm a real person matches the photos.
- Look for consistency. Do their name, photos, stories and social profiles line up? Gaps are worth a question.
- Run a reverse image search on profile photos. The US Federal Trade Commission's advice on romance scams lists a photo that turns up under another name as a warning sign, and the same check works for a would-be travel companion.
Watch for money red flags
The FTC also describes scammers who build trust quickly and then ask for money for things like travel tickets or visas, usually by wire transfer, gift cards, payment apps or cryptocurrency. A real travel buddy does not need you to pay for their flight before you have met. Never send money to someone you have only met online.
Ask the questions that actually matter
Compatibility problems ruin more trips than scams do. Ask early:
- What is your daily budget? Rooms, food and activities, roughly.
- What is your pace? Early starts or late nights? Two cities a week or one?
- Shared rooms or separate? Do not assume.
- Drinking, smoking, partying? Neither answer is wrong; a mismatch is.
- How do we split costs? Pay as you go, or one person pays and you settle up daily?
- What happens if it is not working? Agree now that either of you can leave, no hard feelings.
Meet first in public, then try a short trip
Before you commit to days together, meet in a busy public place: a café, a market, a group activity. Keep it to a couple of hours. If that goes well, try a single day trip together before booking anything shared.
During that first meeting, notice how they treat staff, how they talk about other travelers, and whether they respect a no. Small things tell you how the long bus rides will go.
Tell someone you trust who you are meeting and where. The UK government's foreign travel checklist recommends keeping your accommodation and flight details backed up and shared with friends or family, which matters more, not less, once a new person joins your plans.
Keep your independence while traveling together
A good travel partnership leaves room for both people to walk away. A few rules protect that:
- Keep your own money and cards on you. Do not pool funds or hand over your bank card.
- Keep your own passport. Never let anyone else hold it.
- Know your own way out. Have the next town's transport and a place to stay in mind, even if you never use them.
- Book refundable when you can, until you are sure the partnership works.
- Take time apart. An afternoon solo now and then keeps things friendly.
If you are heading out late or going somewhere remote, set a check-in. HelloMates has a free one called Arm it: you set a check-in hour, write a message and pick contacts, and if you miss the hour, they get your message with the local emergency number. If you check in, nothing is sent. It does not contact emergency services itself, so it is a backup to calling for help, not a replacement. Keep the local emergency number handy too; our emergency numbers by country page lists them, and in Thailand the Tourist Police hotline is 1155.
How to find a female travel buddy
Many women prefer to travel with another woman, and that is a reasonable thing to look for. Women-only travel communities and groups exist for exactly this, and all the vetting steps above still apply.
In HelloMates, the women's lane has women-only plans and invitations in a space of their own, which is a comfortable place to meet other women traveling solo before deciding to go further together. For more, read our solo female travel safety tips.
When to part ways
Sometimes it does not work, and that is normal. Signs it is time: you dread the next day together, money keeps causing friction, or one of you keeps overriding the other. Because you agreed at the start that either person could leave, you can simply say "I think I'm going to head off on my own from here" and mean it kindly. Settle any shared costs that day, and go.
The short version
Find a travel buddy by meeting people first, ideally on the road, and only then deciding to travel together. Vet them with a video call or a public meeting, ask the budget and pace questions early, never send money to someone you have not met, and keep your own passport, cards and exit plan. Then a buddy adds to the trip instead of taking it over.