Online meetups for expats and newcomers: where to start before you know anyone

Guide · by Simone Rainieri · 7 min read read · Published 6 November 2026 · Updated 7 November 2026

The online meetups that work best for expats and newcomers are small, recurring and hosted: a handful of people, the same evening each week, someone keeping the conversation going, and voice rather than a chat box. Pick one, go three weeks running, and message one person after each evening. That does more than trying ten different events once each, because the people you get to know are the ones you keep seeing.

Below: where to find those events in 2026 (Meetup's online listings, InterNations, language exchanges, expat Discord servers and a few more), what the research says about why the format matters, and a four-week plan for your first month. Everything here happens online, so you can start before the boxes are unpacked, or before you've even landed.

Why newcomers should start online, and start early

Making friends after a move is slow for most people, and the survey data backs that up. InterNations' Expat Insider 2025 survey collected answers from 10,085 people of 172 nationalities in February 2025. 42% said making local friends in their new country was difficult. Only 16% said their friends were mostly locals, against 38% whose friends were mostly other expats and 46% with a mix. And 27% said they didn't have a personal support network where they now live.

Those are global averages, and the figures swing a long way from one country to the next.

Online events get round a timing problem. In the first weeks you don't have colleagues you know well, a regular café or any sense of which local groups are good. An online evening needs none of that: a laptop or a phone, an hour, and a time zone you've finally worked out.

What makes an online meetup worth your evening

A 200-person webinar with a chat sidebar won't do much for anyone's social life. The events that lead somewhere tend to share four things:

A small group, roughly three to eight people, so everyone speaks and you can remember names by the end.
A recurring slot, the same night every week or fortnight, so faces repeat and the second conversation picks up where the first stopped.
A host or some structure, such as questions, a game or a topic for the night. Long silences are what sink most video calls between strangers.
Voice or video rather than text only, with the camera optional if you'd rather ease in.

The last point has better evidence behind it than you might expect. In experiments published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General in 2021, Amit Kumar and Nicholas Epley found that people expected a phone call to an old friend to be more awkward than an email, and expected to feel just as connected to a stranger by typing as by talking. Neither held up. Talking built a stronger bond in both cases, and it wasn't more awkward. The voice itself seemed to do most of the work, picture or no picture.

Where to find online meetups as a newcomer in 2026

Here are the places worth checking, roughly in order of how quickly they get you talking to the same people twice. Our own app comes last, as it does in all our lists.

Meetup's online events

Meetup's search lets you filter events by whether they happen online or in person. Try your new city's name with "online", or browse topics like language exchange, book clubs and newcomers' groups. Quality varies a lot. Look for groups with a regular schedule and recent comments from attendees, and skip anything that reads like a sales pitch. Our Meetup review goes into more detail.

InterNations online events

InterNations is the best-known expat network, and it has run online events for members under the name InterNations Global, which it describes as open to all members, paying or not. Check the Events section of your city's community for anything online. If it feels too large or too business-like, our InterNations alternatives piece covers other options.

Language exchanges on video

Language exchange apps are an underrated route for newcomers because the structure comes built in: half the call in your language, half in theirs. Tandem is free to use, with voice and video calls inside the app and a paid Pro tier for extras such as advanced filters. Pair up with someone who lives in your new city and you have a local with a standing reason to talk to you each week. Reviewers note that conversations aren't moderated, so use the same care you would on any app for meeting strangers.

Expat Discord servers and city subreddits

Plenty of cities have an expat or newcomers' Discord server, and most big ones have a subreddit with a weekly thread for people new in town. They're good for practical questions (which bank, which area, which phone plan) and less good for friendship, unless the server runs regular voice nights. Our guide to finding good Discord servers explains how to tell an active one from a dead one.

Facebook groups for internationals

City groups for internationals are still busy in a lot of places, and they're often where online events get announced. Treat them as a noticeboard. Friendships rarely start in comment threads, which is why we wrote up what works better than Facebook groups.

Vairi's Friday Aperitivo (our app)

Vairi hosts Friday Aperitivo every Friday at 8pm UK time: a free hour online at small tables of three to six people, voice first with cameras optional, and Vairi as the host. At the end everyone privately picks who they'd like to keep talking to, and when two people pick each other a private chat opens between them. The evenings are open to members across Europe and the US, and Vairi's weekly introductions run across Europe, the US and Canada. It was designed for people in exactly this position, and it works alongside the options above. How Friday Aperitivo works.

Start before you move

If you can, join your new city's online communities before you arrive. A 2012 study in New Media & Society by Jih-Hsuan Lin, Wei Peng and colleagues surveyed 195 international students at a large US university. Those who used Facebook to interact with Americans, and with friends back home, reported better social adjustment. It's an older study of one platform and one group of students, so it can't tell you which app to pick. What it does suggest is that early contact with people in the new place, even online, is part of settling in.

In practice that means joining the Discord, subscribing to the subreddit and booking one online event in your new time zone the week before you fly. You'll arrive with a couple of names you already know.

How to turn one online evening into a real connection

Most online events end with a round of "nice to meet you" and nothing after. Three habits change that.

Follow up within a day. A message that mentions something they actually said ("did the flat near the canal come through?") lands better than "great to meet you".
Suggest a specific next conversation, such as a 20-minute call next week or the same table at the next event, instead of a vague "let's keep in touch".
Go back to the same event. The second time you see someone you're no longer strangers, and the conversation starts further in.

A simple plan for your first month

If you'd like something concrete, this takes about two hours a week:

Week 1: join two online communities for your city (a subreddit or Discord server, plus one group for internationals) and book one small online event.
Week 2: go to the event, then message one person the next day.
Week 3: go back to the same event, and add a language exchange call if you're learning the local language.
Week 4: suggest a 20-minute call with the person you've talked to most, and keep the weekly event in your diary.

Four weeks won't produce a close friend. They will give you a few people who know your name, which is where most friendships in a new city begin. For a realistic sense of the rest of the timeline, see how long it takes to make friends in a new city.

Key takeaways

Small, recurring, hosted online events beat big one-off webinars for meeting people you'll see again.
In Kumar and Epley's experiments, talking built more connection than typing without being more awkward, and the voice mattered more than the picture.
42% of expats in the Expat Insider 2025 survey found local friends hard to make, so it pays to start in your first weeks, or before you move.
Message one person within a day of each event and go back the following week.

Sources

Meet people from your city, from your sofa.

Friday Aperitivo is one relaxed hour online with a few new people, every Friday at 8pm UK time. Tables of up to six, voice with camera optional, and Vairi hosts with question cards. Free.

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