GirlGI | Girl Gone International Issue 7 | Page 58

10 Tips For Making Friends Abroad
By | Jessica Pan and Rachel Kapelke-Dale

Jessica

After collectively
living in New York,
Beijing, Paris,
Melbourne and now
London, here are our
surefire ways for
making friends abroad

Moving to a new place is intimidating in the
best of times. With friends, though, it quickly
turns into an adventure. After our graduation,
Jess moved to Beijing and Rachel moved to
Paris. We’ve been through the highs and the
lows, and we can tell you – all is not lost!

1 | Get Online

Rachel

Forget online dating – the Internet can
actually serve as your best friend on
your way to meet your best friend.
Meetup.com is a great way to find people with common interests – when Jess
moved to London, she messaged two
women who lived in her neighborhood
and liked the same cafes (they were
part of a local group). Now, these two
women are her go-to coffee friends,
and she can’t imagine the city without
them. Start today by joining one of
GGI’s city groups via Meetup.com or
Facebook!

2 | Use Your Existing
Friends
The simplest way to make friends is to
send out a mass e-mail to all of your
friends back home titled, ‘You Can Stay
in My Apartment in Paris If You Set Me
Up with Friends Here.’ I guarantee everyone will reply and you’ll get responses from people you haven’t heard from
in YEARS. Rachel did this when living in
Paris and spent the next two years exploring everything the city had to offer.

3 | Find a Common Cause
Remember how easy it was to make
friends in college? That’s because you
all had similar goals. Working on a project with someone, whether at work or
outside of it, can serve as an excellent
bonding experience. Rachel met a vivacious girl while organizing a film confer-