How do you make friends overseas?

[leoncour]

I have a friend who went with some other people on a journey throughout Europe last summer...and they met and stayed with several friends that they knew all throughout the continent. I asked him how he was able to make so many contacts in Europe from California and he said they he met them when they studied abroad for a year at our university.

Anyways, I really only have one contact in Europe, which was my French tutor this quarter, and she is gone now. I am also out of university, so how does anyone go about making contacts overseas so that you can have friends to hang out with and show you around the sites? I am afriad of being overwhelmed with loneliness and depression if I went there without knowing anyone. I was considering using a service such as friendfinder.com...is this a viable option?

[TranquilSkye]

you could do an internet search for pen pal sites. or if you're traveling with a company/tour you can talk to them about getting in touch with other people on the tour beforehand. you could even just hop in an international chat room and see who you meet in there.

[Jaime_s]

There is a travel website that you can become a member of and talk to people about different places. A lot of the time people post messages, like I´ll be in paris on these dates...does anyone want to meet up.

you might want to give it a shot

www.virtualtourist.com

Jaime