How to Make Friends in a New City: A 30-Day Plan

The short answer

Quick answer: Friendship runs on time spent together. A University of Kansas study (2018) found it takes about 50 hours together to go from acquaintance to casual friend, about 90 hours to become a friend, and more than 200 hours to become a close friend. In 30 days you will not build a best friendship, but you can start several. Here's how: pick two or three recurring activities, show up every week, and invite people to do something after.

What the research says

Hours matter. Jeffrey Hall of the University of Kansas published his findings in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships in 2018. He surveyed 355 adults who had moved to a new city in the previous six months, plus 112 first-year KU students. The results:

Leisure counts more than work. Hours spent working alongside someone did less to move a relationship forward than hours spent hanging out, joking around or catching up. Your new colleagues can become friends, but mostly through time together outside work tasks.

Invite people. Hall's summary of the practical lesson: "You can't make people spend time with you, but you can invite them."

People like you more than you think. A 2018 study in Psychological Science, led by Erica Boothby with Yale psychologist Margaret Clark and colleagues from Harvard and the University of Essex, found a "liking gap": after a first conversation, people consistently underestimate how much the other person liked them. It held for men and women, for short and long conversations, and across repeated meetings. Clark's explanation: we are too busy worrying about what we said to notice the other person's signals.

In practice, that means the follow-up message you are hesitant to send is probably welcome.

Connection is good for you. The World Happiness Report 2026 found that social media built for real social connection is positively linked with wellbeing, while algorithm-driven feeds show a negative link. Use apps to meet people, not to replace them.

• Acquaintance → casual friend — about 50 (range 40–60)
• Casual friend → friend — about 90 (range 80–100)
• Friend → close friend — more than 200

Days 1–7: Set up your routine

• Pick a base. Choose one café, gym or co-working space near home and go at the same time several days a week. Repeated, low-pressure contact is how acquaintances form.
• Choose two recurring activities. A weekly run club, a language exchange, a climbing gym, a choir or a five-a-side game. Weekly is the key word, because that is how the hours add up.
• Tell people you are new. "I just moved here" is the easiest conversation opener there is, and people tend to offer tips.
• Check who is around. On whoin, open your city page, for example Lisbon, Berlin or Istanbul, to see who else is in town.

Days 8–14: Show up again

• Go back to the same activities. The second and third visit matter more than the first: names start to stick.
• Learn three names and use them. Bonus points for remembering them next week.
• Run clubs are one of the most reliable formats because they meet weekly and often end with coffee or food. Read our run clubs guide.

Days 15–21: Make the first invitation

• Turn one acquaintance into a plan: "A few of us are getting food after, want to come?" or "Do you want to try that new place on Saturday?"
• Remember the liking gap: the other person probably enjoyed talking to you more than you think.
• If you work remotely or in tech, look for meetups and hack nights; see how to meet builders while travelling.

Days 22–30: Host something small

• Invite three or four people you have met to a simple plan: a picnic, a board-game night, a walk.
• Mix groups. People from your run club and your language exchange may get on, and you become the connector.
• Add up your hours. If you have spent five or six hours with someone this month, you are roughly a tenth of the way to a casual friendship by the KU numbers. That is normal progress, not a slow start.

Common mistakes

• Waiting to be invited. Everyone else already has routines. You will usually have to make the first move.
• Trying many one-off events. Ten different events give you ten first conversations. One weekly event gives you ten conversations with the same people.
• Judging the city too fast. Thirty days is the opening chapter, not the verdict. The research suggests close friendships take months of regular contact.

If you feel lonely

Feeling lonely in the first weeks after a move is common. The research above suggests close friendships take months of regular contact, so a quiet first month is not a sign that something is wrong with you. Keep your weekly routine going. If loneliness lasts or starts to affect your daily life, talking to a doctor or counsellor can help.

Best cities to start over

If you are still choosing where to move, our best cities to live in 2026 guide compares options. Large, international cities with lots of newcomers, such as London, Barcelona, Toronto and Melbourne, have many recurring clubs and events.