Is Wanderbuddies worth it for making friends after a move?

Product · by Simone Rainieri · 8 min read read

Short answer: Wanderbuddies is built for finding travel companions, not for building a local friend circle after a move, so for the specific job of making friends where you now live it is a weak fit. The apps branded Wanderbuddies describe themselves around travel: matching like-minded people to share trips, tours, and experiences, with booking built in. That is a real and useful category. It is just a different one from what you need when the boxes are unpacked and the problem is that you know nobody in your new city.

One honesty note before the verdict. There is more than one thing using the Wanderbuddies name, including an Australian tours-and-travel site and a separate travel-companion matching platform, and public information on any single app marketed specifically for post-move local friendship is thin. I am not going to invent features for it. What I can do is judge it against the job you are actually hiring an app to do, and point you to options with clearer, checkable track records for that job.

What Wanderbuddies is actually for

Every Wanderbuddies listing I could verify centres on travel: find someone to share a trip, join a tour, coordinate dates and costs, book experiences. That is companionship for a journey with an end date. It can absolutely produce a friendship, the way a good hostel or a group tour sometimes does. But it is optimised for the trip, not for the slow, repeated contact that turns a stranger in your new city into someone you see every week. Those are different mechanics, and it matters, because the thing that actually builds friendship after a move is repetition close to home.

Why after a move is a different problem

When you move, you lose the built-in repetition that made your old friendships possible: the same colleagues, the same gym, the same regular faces. Research on how friendship forms is blunt about what replaces it. Jeffrey Hall''s 2018 study found it takes roughly 50 hours of shared time to move from acquaintance to casual friend, and closer to 200 for close friendship. A travel-buddy app gives you one intense burst of hours on a trip, then nothing. A local app or a recurring activity gives you the smaller, repeated doses that actually accumulate. That is the real reason a travel-first tool underperforms for this specific need, and I walk through the mechanics in [how to build a social circle after moving](https://vairi.app/journal/how-to-build-a-social-circle-after-moving).

What works better for local friends after a move

For repeated local contact, Meetup is the obvious free starting point, because a weekly group gives you the same faces on a schedule. Bumble For Friends gives you a large local pool to match with one-to-one, free at the core with paid extras. If you are somewhere like London or New York and want something more curated, that is where a matching app earns its keep. I put together the specifics for newcomers in [the best apps to make friends in a new city](https://vairi.app/journal/best-apps-to-make-friends-in-a-new-city) and, for the emotional side of the first few weeks, [feeling lonely after moving, what actually helps](https://vairi.app/journal/feeling-lonely-after-moving).

Where Vairi fits, honestly

Vairi, which I work on, is designed for the after-a-move problem in a way a travel app is not: it gives you one local match at a time, matched on temperament rather than on where you want to holiday, and it is anonymous first so you talk before you trade photos. That suits the moment after a move, when your confidence is often low and a single focused introduction beats scrolling a feed. The honest constraints are big, though. Vairi runs only in London and New York, so if you moved anywhere else it does not help you yet, and it costs about 3.99 pounds a month rather than being free. It also has a small, early user base, which means fewer people than Bumble For Friends or Meetup in the same city. If you are in one of those two cities and want depth over reach, it is worth a look. If you moved elsewhere, start with the free local options above.

So, is Wanderbuddies worth it?

If your goal is a travel companion, it may well be worth trying, and you should judge it on its trip-matching, verifying current features and any booking fees on its own site before you rely on it. If your goal is a local friend circle after relocating, it is the wrong tool, not because it is bad but because it is built for a different job. Spend your first month on repeated local contact instead, and treat any trip friendship you make as a bonus rather than the plan.

Your first month, if you have just moved

Skip the search for one perfect app and build repetition instead. In your first two weeks, lock in one recurring thing: a weekly Meetup, a class, a run club, a volunteering slot. Recurring is the operative word, because the same faces on a schedule is what a travel app can never give you. One weekly fixture beats five one-off events, because friendship needs repeated low-effort contact, not a single big push.

Alongside that, use one matching app for one-to-one introductions, and give yourself a small quota rather than an open-ended scroll: three real first messages a week, each one an actual reaction to the person, not a template. The aim in a new city is not to talk to everyone, it is to find the two or three people worth seeing again, then see them again quickly while you are still a fresh face to them.

Expect the first month to feel slow, because it is supposed to. If Hall''s research is right that casual friendship takes something like 50 hours of shared time, then after four weeks of a weekly fixture and a couple of meetups you are only a fraction of the way there, and that is normal, not failure. The people who make friends after a move are rarely the ones who found a magic app. They are the ones who kept showing up to the same few things long enough for a face to become a friend.

If you did meet someone good while travelling

There is one case where a travel-buddy app crosses over usefully. If you met someone on a trip who happens to live in or near your new city, that connection already has a head start, because you have shared real hours together, which is exactly the currency friendship runs on. The mistake people make is letting that fade into a vague we should hang out that never happens. Convert it fast. Suggest a specific, ordinary plan in the first week or two, not a grand one.

That aside, keep the two jobs separate in your head. A trip can seed a friendship, but the thing that grows it is the same local repetition that grows any friendship: seeing the person often enough, in low-key ways, that showing up together becomes a habit. If you treat a travel contact as a local one and put in the repeated small meets, it can become a real friendship. If you wait for the next trip to see them again, it usually will not.

Key takeaways

Wanderbuddies is a travel-companion matching platform, and public information on any dedicated post-move friendship version is limited, so do not assume features it does not advertise. Making friends after a move depends on repeated local contact, and Hall''s research puts the bar at roughly 50 hours for a casual friend. Travel apps deliver one burst then stop, which is why they underperform for this. Better fits are Meetup and Bumble For Friends for free local reach, and Vairi for a curated one-to-one match if you are in London or New York and can pay about 3.99 pounds a month. Match the tool to the job: trips versus a standing local circle.