How to Forge A World Wide Circle of Friends

To me, to travel is to be free. And to be free means to be yourself, regardless of where you come from and where you’re going. My experiences of traveling taught me this; by being myself, I was welcomed into a worldwide circle of friends. Friendship is notoriously hard to keep up with while traveling, especially if you are a backpacker like me. The ones I left behind were still on my mind and the pinching fears of opening myself up all over again felt exhausting. And through those fears, a new perspective emerged. Meeting people that you otherwise would not have known existed, in the places you least expected– puts you in a unique spot for learning the different shapes friendship can come in. And reevaluate what friendship means to you.

If friendship only blooms from proximity and circumstances, does that make it any less significant? In places like Poland, locals did not seem super interested in forming the long-lasting friendships I wanted from them. The type of friendship where we talk and text often, and share memes and emotional loads. Those types of friendships required an amount of time and commitment that neither of us had. This challenged my expectations of traveling from my Instagram and TikTok feeds. I had to take a second to rethink. Does friendship fundamentally require such an emotional reveal to acquire and maintain connection? My version from back home did, but it didn’t fit as snug anymore. So maybe they were on to something. Maybe friendship is more nuanced than I had given it credit. 

From their perspective, enjoying like-minded people’s company by sharing the present moment for however long or short it lasts, was good enough for them. No need to open and reopen yourself up like a used wrapper. Instead, by their example, showing up as your authentic self can be enough to garner friendships that look any which way you want. Time doesn’t have to exist when you meet nor does it have to resume when you’re gone. Once I opened to this, a new version of friendship formed to fit just right. So, no, friendship doesn’t only grow from proximity and circumstance. From my experience, it doesn’t need either. I left Poland with this mindset and it opened me up to more. In a world full of randos, finding people like you should be deemed a rare occurrence. And it is because they are so rare, that we should honor them in whichever way we want. If you’re already traveling the world on your terms, why shouldn’t the friendships you make along the way be too? 

So, I took this with newfound confidence and ran across the rest of Europe with it. My process was simple– I’d find and meet new locals and travelers through online communities (I used Reddit and Facebook), local communities, in person, or just for a quick bus ride– in each city I went to. I’d show up as my authentic, undoctored self and, most importantly, the one unfazed by the prospect of what came after. Some people I met didn’t like my vibe at all. But a whole bunch more did like moths to a flame. Some stayed around for the rest of the time I had, some still till this day, and others just until the next bus stop. And that’s how I began my worldwide circle of friends. And the best part is that I have a place to stay in so many of the cities I want to return to, it’s nuts.

In the end, the power of friendship won and a worldwide net of friends forged a new power all on its own. But of course, I can’t forget my friends back home. The friends who would go a few months to half a year missing me but still showed up once I returned as if no time had passed. They taught me one last lesson. Being away for so long gives old friendships a new lens to see through. You get to see the sturdy and solid foundations that took over 6 years to build and didn't so much sway once enough space was left for the wind to blow. It was then I realized that this type of friendship I had been opening myself up to what had been waiting here in the middle of America all along. A type of friendship that doesn’t require seeing each other every day, talking once a week, or even a call once a month, could break. Not showing someone you love them daily won’t magically permit them to stop loving you. My friends back home are the epicenter of my worldwide circle of friends. And that’s just how we like it.  

-K