How to Make Friends as a Foreigner in a New City

Culture · by Vairi Editorial · 6 min read

Making friends as a foreigner in a new city works best when you aim for a mix rather than only chasing locals or only clustering with other expats. As a foreigner you arrive into a place where everyone already has their people, their history, their in-jokes running twenty years deep. It can feel like turning up to a party that started without you. You are not locked out. You just have to find which doors are actually open, and which ones only look closed.

Locals or other newcomers first?

Other newcomers are easier at the start. They are open, also looking, and share your exact situation. Locals usually take longer because their circles are already settled, but they root you in the place in a way nothing else does. A large 2004 study of Swiss retirees who had relocated to Spain found that despite an obvious language barrier, most reported real relations with locals, and only two in five had even joined the expat clubs built specifically for people like them. The stereotype of the sealed expat bubble turned out to be softer than expected.

Leaving the expat bubble without ditching it

The expat scene is a comfortable landing pad and a lazy trap at the same time, and both things are true at once. Keep it. Add one thing that is mostly local: a neighbourhood class, a local sports team, a community group with an agenda that has nothing to do with your passport. You do not have to abandon the bubble. You have to make sure it stops being your only room.

Get in through contribution, not just socialising

One of the fastest routes in is to be useful. Volunteer. Join a local project. Offer a skill nobody asked for but everyone needed. Contribution gives you a role and a reason to be there, which is far easier to sustain than trying to socialise your way in cold, one small-talk exchange at a time. People remember the newcomer who fixed the thing, not the one who just showed up and watched.

What if everyone already has their groups?

Established groups feel closed from the outside, but most have room for someone consistent and warm who keeps turning up. The mechanism is repetition, nothing cleverer. Show up to the same thing enough times and you stop being the visitor and quietly become a fixture. It is slow. It also works more reliably than any single perfect introduction ever will.

Build a mixed social portfolio

• One local, activity-based thing near home for the long game.
• One newcomer or international group for easy, immediate company.
• One contribution role, so you are useful and known by name.
• A couple of warm weak ties you actually follow up with, instead of letting them evaporate.

You are not building one friendship. You are building a small ecosystem, and it holds up better precisely for being mixed rather than pure.

Where a tool like Vairi fits

When you have no local network to draw on, being introduced to a few aligned people gives you a starting point that is not the expat bar by default. Vairi runs a short AI-led onboarding instead of a swipe grid and hands you a small set of matches, grouped loosely by where you are in life right now, rather than a crowd you have to break into cold.

That is not one friendship riding on hope. It is several loose ones running side by side.

Add one mostly-local, repeating thing to your week this month. Keep the expat friends. Just make sure they stop being the whole map.

Should I prioritize meeting locals or other expats first?

Other newcomers are easier at first because they share your exact situation, but locals root you in the place in a way nothing else does. A 2004 study of Swiss retirees in Spain found most built real relationships with locals despite the language barrier, so aim for both.

How do I break into a friend group that already seems closed?

Keep showing up to the same thing repeatedly. Established groups rarely stay closed to someone consistent and warm, it just takes months of repetition rather than one clever introduction.

Is volunteering actually an effective way to make friends abroad?

Yes. Contribution gives you a role and a reason to be there, which is easier to sustain than trying to socialise your way in cold. People remember the newcomer who helped, not the one who just watched.

Is it bad to stay in the expat bubble?

Not entirely. The expat scene is a comfortable landing pad, keep it, but add one mostly local, recurring activity so it stops being your only source of company.

How long does it take to feel settled as a foreigner in a new city?

Longer than a single event or two. Give it months rather than weeks; repetition, not a perfect first meeting, is what turns a newcomer into a regular.

With no local network yet, a few introductions beat breaking into settled groups cold.

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