Finding Travel Partners Online

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Sheba

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Has anyone ever meet a person online that was traveling to the same destination as you? During your conversations you discussed meeting up. Did this ever work out? Did you actually follow through and meet up with this person? How did it work out?

I am curious because I meet a person online that will be traveling to India the same time as me. They are suggesting that we meet up and travel together. I personally don't know this person and I'm a little afraid to meet them.
 
I have - my recommendations would be to get to know them well, and ideally don't meet up with them one-on-one until you're comfortable with them. Group get-togethers or being in a heavily populated area is best, initially I think. You don't want to go hiking in the wilderness with them to start with, for instance!

I would always still say to exercise caution. You can make some lifelong friends, but it's always best to be practical and realize that not everyone is who they say they are online.
 
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I have met people online in the past. Basically, we only talk with emails or chat now and then. I have never given them too much of my personal information. A few of them can be so flaky and turn on you so easily. Others can try and ask you for so many favors. If you want to try to meet this person I'd do as @amelia88 suggested. I wouldn't run off all over India with them. You can meet them in a public place and spend the day. I wouldn't let them know what hotel I was staying in. This way at the end of the day you both go your separate ways.
 
Andre said:
I have met people online in the past. Basically, we only talk with emails or chat now and then. I have never given them too much of my personal information. A few of them can be so flaky and turn on you so easily. Others can try and ask you for so many favors. If you want to try to meet this person I'd do as @amelia88 suggested. I wouldn't run off all over India with them. You can meet them in a public place and spend the day. I wouldn't let them know what hotel I was staying in. This way at the end of the day you both go your separate ways.
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That's a really good tip too about not letting someone know where you're staying. The last thing you want if you get a weird vibe from someone is them knowing where you are based...especially as a solo female traveler myself I always like to exercise caution. It's great meeting new people, and I don't want to limit myself from that, but it's also about being practical! :)
 
If you decide to meet this person I'd meet them on a tour. You can book the tour together online. Afterwards, you both arrive for the tour. Spend the day with them and talk. You can then decide if you want to spend more time together after the tour.
 
Personally I don't like meeting people online. My best friend had some problems with this in the past. She is so sweet and can really get suckered into feeling sorry for a person. I try to stay away from online relationships and conversations. I don't need the problems they can bring.
 
People are different. Some people are very open to meeting people online and traveling together. I am not really that kind of person though. For me to be able to travel with someone, I need to know them really well.
 
I think I wouldn't mind traveling with someone I meet online as long as we have separate hotel rooms. After all, don't we all travel to meet new people?
 
Yes, Paul, as you mentioned, most people travel to meet new people. However, traveling with someone is completely different. I think you should know the person well and, more importantly, trust them.
 
This is something that I do not think I would do. Knowing someone and spending time with them every now and then is one thing, but traveling with them is another.
 
I think I would not mind finding someone to travel with online. It could be fun and adventurous, but I agree that you should get to know the person a bit better before deciding to travel together.
 
When I was in university, I hooked up with a lot of other students for travel. There were people planning trips to just about every destination, and so you had options no matter where you wanted to go. It was a big university, with a larger university in town, so there were a lot of students. I would recommend posting at their forums, if you are in that age group.
 
I've done this a few times. If you talk to the person a lot beforehand and really get to know each other, it can work out wonderfully. It's always nice to meet new people, and it's even better if both of you happen to be exploring the same new place as well.
 
I honestly wouldn't be able to trust anyone enough online to share trips with. I only go with very close friends and immediate family. It really takes a whole lot of courage to be with someone when you barely know anything about them, but I guess that's how you make new friends, right? Well for me, I would never try it. What if your contact was a serial killer or something? Ever thought about that? It's pretty creepy. Just stick to your friends and stay away from online meetups until you're absolutely sure about them.
 
While finding a travel partner or a group online might sound like fun and a way to expand your horizons, its not something that I'd recommend ever doing to be honest.

Safety as got to be the main priority, and even though you might get on well with them over the internet, that's totally different than meeting face to face and actually travelling together.
 
While this has never happened to me, it has happened to my husband. It's not much of the context of meeting up in another country to travel together, but more so, he has built friendships from people he met online. But he has talked and chatted with them for over a year before finally meeting up with them.

They met up in a very public place and since then, they constantly meet up to bond together. It also helped that he knew the background of these people and they were all professionals, one's a doctor, one's an engineer and the other one's a programmer.

But there has also been incidents where strangers met online. Then they meet in real life and disaster happens. Sometimes, the trusting person ends up getting robbed or having something worse happen to him. And that's also for the same amount of time of getting to know each other.

What I'm trying to say is, it's not always safe to meet people online. But there can be instances where the people you meet online can be your lifelong friends. But how do you differentiate the two? How will you know if that person is dangerous?

A few tips that I can give you is:
  • Don't ever reveal your personal information, like address, credit card information or even hotel address.
  • Meet up in a public place and as much as possible with other people you know.
  • Don't trust people right away, be as observant as possible.
  • Finally, if your gut is telling you to not meet this person, then don't meet this person. You're not obliged to do so anyway.
I hope this helps!
 
Meeting people who you have only met online us always going to be risky, but like you say there's always ways you can make it safer for yourself.

Meeting is one thing though, I don't think I'd want to go travelling with somebody who I'd only just met, as you're going to be spending a lot of time together, and I think for that you need to at least have some sort of strong friendship at least.
 
I had the same idea but with a group of people instead. Some still think that this would be dangerous because it would be like inviting trouble to come with you on a trip. I think going with a few more people would be safer because statistically speaking, there's bound to be more decent people just looking for companions to be with on a trip.
 
I think the vast majority of people are good, not perfect but good. There is however a small minority who are not good and you need to be careful of them without denying yourself the opportunity to meet the good people out there. The internet has given us the chance to meet people we could only meet by pure chance previously, you can try vet people before hand. There has been some great advice here already about safety precautions, my point is that you should go for it but do follow the precautions. You might make some great fellow travellers, even life long friends!
 
Every person I've met online and established any sort of relationship with has been a good friend to me, and treated me well. Of course internet meetup horror stories exist, and I always take what measures I can to ensure my safety. I like the idea of finding a travel partner online, although I would probably choose a female travel companion.
 
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