For years, travel apps focused primarily on finding cheap flights or booking accommodation. Now, however, many new platforms are looking for something else: facilitating encounters between people who share the same way of understanding travel. The destination remains important, but so does the company.Applications like Nomadizers or Backpackr allow you to connect with other travelers who coincide in city, dates, or interests, turning a getaway into a shared experience from the very first moment.The social dimension also extends to discovering the places you visit. While TourBar facilitates contact with locals, platforms like Withlocals offer personalized experiences guided by residents, far from the most crowded circuits. Others, like Eatwith, turn meals into spaces for cultural exchange, with dinners and gatherings around a shared table.Meanwhile, on Going Solo, users can create plans, join groups, or find travel companions in real time. Ultimately, new technologies have not only transformed the way we organize trips, but also the way we relate to each other.
Travel alone, but not so much
More than half of travelers seek to meet new people during their holidays, according to a study
If organizing plans with friends during the year can already be a headache, things get even more complicated when it comes to group travel. Perhaps that's why more and more people are opting to travel solo rather than giving up just because their partner or friends can't make it.
Even so, many of them also do not want absolute solitude. It is estimated that within this boom of the solo travel, 53% of travelers seek to meet new people during their getaways, according to the Travel Trends 2026 study by Skyscanner. “Travelers plan their trips with a more defined objective and prepare outings that reflect their personality and interests,” points out Bryan Batista, the company's director.
In parallel, travel agencies have emerged that focus on forming groups of people who travel alone but want to connect with other travelers with similar interests. “During my thirties, my friends couldn't come on trips with me, and the groups I found at agencies were either too large or too young. I wanted to go alone without feeling lonely,” explains Radha Vyas. From this need, she created the platform Flash Pack, which since 2014 has been responsible for creating groups of people of similar ages and interests to travel with company. According to the agency, after their trips, 80% of participants remain friends. “We are obsessed with creating good vibes in every group: you will feel like lifelong friends in less than twenty-four hours,” they assure on their website.
Another platform that works with the same objective is We Road, created in Milan in 2017. “Our work is based on creating relationships and interactions between travelers, and not just during the trip. We want to create connections between people,” assure its creators. And so explains one of their clients: “The group atmosphere was incredible: good vibes from the first moment. In the end, the best thing about the whole trip is the people you meet along the way,” explains Raúl, who went for a weekend trip to Budapest. “It was my first weekend with strangers and everything turned out perfectly,” adds Sergi.
Open mind
Not everyone wants to travel alone, nor does everyone want an organized trip. Between one thing and another, there are agencies like Paso Noroeste, which for more than twenty years has been organizing small group trips for people “with backpacker DNA” who seek to share “flexible adventures” and “im mersion in local culture”.
Álvaro Blanchard, its creator, assures that most travelers sign up individually, although sometimes couples or friends arrive. “We accept it, as long as they understand the philosophy of our trips: coming accompanied does not mean traveling in a bubble. The idea is to add, mix, and make it a shared experience for everyone,” he emphasizes. “It requires empathy and tolerance,” explains Lorena, who took a trip to Vietnam with the agency. “People snore, are vegan, fearful, or have sore feet. It can be a challenge, but with good humor and patience, everything ends up becoming funny anecdotes,” she assures. For her part, Marta, who took a trip to Madagascar, highlights how the adventure was not just the trip, but all the people she met there.
Traveling in a group is not always easy. According to Blanchard, you always have to go with an open attitude: “It always works better when you arrive eager to meet people, mingle, and let yourself be surprised. If you go with a closed mind, you won't enjoy it.” On the other hand, “every person is different. The most beautiful thing is to learn from others, even sometimes to yield and not impose your way of seeing things.”
One of the generations that most claims independence is also the one that seeks to build more networks and community when traveling. How is this possible? It is not a few studies that have long assured that humans have a fundamental need for belonging. A study conducted in the mid-nineties by social psychologist Roy Baumeister already concluded that happiness depends not only on individual freedom but also on social bonds.
Along the same lines, a study conducted in 2014 and published in Psychological Science claimed that positive experiences are much more intense when shared with other people, even strangers. And even more so: this happened in both pleasant and unpleasant experiences. To verify this, during the study participants tasted a pleasant-tasting chocolate. They all considered the chocolate to be tastier and more flavorful when they tasted it at the same time as when the other person was busy with another activity. And the same happened in reverse, when they tasted a chocolate that had a bad taste.
In the end, leaving alone, but with the possibility of meeting people with whom to share adventures and experiences, is one of those experiences that, many travelers assure, is remembered for a lifetime. It is about breaking routines, opening up to improvisation, and leaving space for the trip to end up taking you down paths you hadn't foreseen. In this balance between independence and connection is where many find the right balance: the freedom to travel at their own pace, but with the added richness of conversations, anecdotes, and friendships that can arise at any moment and that often end up being the best memory of the journey.
Women traveling alone have long ceased to be an exception. More and more are deciding to move around the world without company, driven by a combination of personal freedom, work flexibility, and a whole network of digital communities that facilitate the journey. The narrative, increasingly, is no longer about fear, but about opportunities and experiences that can arise during travel.South Korean writer Seen Aromi, author of Sola. Ni loca ni traumatizada ni difícil (VR Europa), argues that traveling alone not only transforms the way you look at the world, but also your perception of yourself. “Through contact with other women travelers, we discover very diverse paths that broaden our horizon about what is possible,” she assures.This change has also translated into new forms of mutual support. “In many countries, accommodations exclusively for women and communities that facilitate stays and mobility have proliferated,” the author emphasizes. The transformation is also visible in the digital sphere. Platforms like NomadSister connect women who travel alone and offer them accommodation, meetups, and support in different cities around the world.Beyond facilitating a bed or a recommendation, these communities have contributed to creating an international network of trust among women who share the same way of understanding travel: with autonomy, but without giving up companionship and mutual aid.
