Is there a social network to find travel mates and organize travels?

Question

I like travelling but I don't like to travel alone. I would like to find travel mates, is there a good social network focused on this topic?

Answer 1

GlobeTrooper

Globetrooper is a tool to find travel partners for group trips and world adventures.

More specifically, Globetrooper is a tool for adventurous travellers to create trips and invite people from all over the world to join them.

The Globetrooper website also contains detailed information about regions and adventures in the Globe Guide. For example, you can read about the Middle East or about Climbing Mt Kilimanjaro.

Gives

• Dates
• Flexibility
• Ranking by difficulty and risk
• Confirmed Travelers
• Estimated Cost
• And a forum to discuss the terms locations.

I tried testing but it seems the Caribbean is not supported yet.

Image Source - Mashable

Answer 2

The (aptly named) Lonely Planet Thorn Tree forums, which have been around forever, might be worth a look. I know a number of people use it to co-ordinate shared journeys.

Back in the day, before 'social networking' I used to join IRC channels related to a country / or randomly strike up ICQ conversations with English speaking residents before I travelled there.

I made many good friends over the years, most of whom I'm still in contact with, who showed me places and culture I would of missed as a 'normal' tourist.

Even if you don't meet, you'll often get great background information about the country.

Answer 3

It's not exactly what you're looking for, but you might have some luck with http://www.couchsurfing.org/

Answer 4

Dopplr is a really cool way to share trip itineraries and will let you know when you are in the same place as a friend. Also not exactly what you are looking for, but close as well.

Answer 5

Mr. Katz and Mr. Hadley picked 2 of the top 10 social networking travel sites from this list. The one I'd mention that I didn't see in there was tripit.com. It has similar itinerary-sharing features as Dopplr, but also consolidates all of your trip plans (air, hotel, car rental, etc) into a single, easy-to-use format. You send your confirmation e-mails to plans@tripit.com and it handles the rest.

If you're looking for travel companions, there are a ton of different companies who do that. I don't know if their web presences have a strong social networking aspect to them though. I'd try searching Google with a term like "travel for singles" and see what comes up.

Answer 6

You can check out TravBuddy