In a nutshell
- 66% of Europeans feel it is harder to meet new people today than in the past, while more than half are dissatisfied with their social relationships.
- Loneliness emerges as a cross-cutting phenomenon across ages, cities and countries: according to the WHO, one in six people worldwide suffers from social isolation.
- People are increasingly seeking opportunities to connect offline: 72% would like to have more real-world experiences, and 63% feel the need to belong to a community built around shared interests.
- Travel confirms itself as the most effective context for building new connections: 45% consider it the ideal setting for meeting people, and 83% feel more open to others when they are travelling.
- The most meaningful relationships are born from shared experiences, time spent together and stepping outside routine, elements that foster bonds perceived as more authentic than those built online.
Last year we published the first edition of the WeRoad Research, starting from a simple question: how is travel changing?
To find out, we interviewed nearly 6,000 people across Europe, discussing digital detox, personal growth, sustainability, and new habits. But reading the responses, we noticed another theme was emerging, one that was only partly connected to travel.
Loneliness kept coming up. 55% of people said they felt lonely in their daily lives. 58% said meeting someone new had become more difficult. Yet we had never directly asked about loneliness.
This year, we started from there.
For the second edition of the WeRoad Research, we shifted our perspective: no longer how people travel, but how relationships are changing. We involved more than 5,000 people across Italy, Spain, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, inside and outside the WeRoad community. Alongside quantitative data, we added interviews, qualitative conversations, and a focus group held at SXSW 2026 in Austin, United States, then cross-referenced the results with international sources including OECD¹, WHO², World Happiness Report³, Skyscanner⁴, GetYourGuide⁵ and Eventbrite⁶.
What emerges is fairly clear: people still want to meet each other, but in everyday life it seems increasingly difficult to create the right occasions for this to actually happen.
Meeting new people has become more difficult
66% of people surveyed say that making new connections is more complicated today than in the past: twelve months ago the figure was 58%. The reasons are very concrete. Almost half (47%) point to a lack of opportunities in everyday life; a third (33%) cite a lack of time; 25% say they don’t even know where to start; and one in five identifies social anxiety as the main obstacle.
And there is another interesting finding: 52% are not satisfied with their social relationships.
The World Happiness Report 2025³ also signals an important shift: 19% of young adults worldwide say they have nobody they can truly count on. In 2006, the figure was 14%.
Our Research confirms this from a different angle. When asked “among the ten most important people in your life, how many have you known since forever?”, 41% answered “just one to three”. Long-standing friendships still matter enormously, but for many adults they are no longer enough, on their own, to sustain an entire social life.
Loneliness does not depend on where you live
One of the most interesting findings concerns where people live. The sample was distributed almost evenly between metropolises (23%), large cities (16%), medium-sized towns (19%), small municipalities (20%) and villages (21%); yet the answers were surprisingly similar. People who live in a big city and those who live in a town of a few thousand inhabitants often describe the same difficulty: there is a lack of spontaneous opportunities to meet new people.
This is a problem that transcends national borders. In June 2025, the WHO² published the report From Loneliness to Social Connection: Charting a Path to Healthier Societies, defining loneliness as a global public health priority: one in six people in the world suffers from social isolation, and 871,000 deaths are associated with isolation every year.
In recent years, many sociologists have linked this change to the gradual disappearance of so-called “third places”: spaces that are neither home nor work (bars, clubs, communal spaces, cultural centres) where people used to meet without having to plan everything. Scott Galloway, professor at NYU, discussed this in his newsletter No Mercy / No Malice⁷, citing data showing that in the United States, the proportion of people with fewer than three close friends has doubled since the 1990s (from 16% to 32%), while those with no close friends at all has risen from 3% to 12%.
Spaces to feel part of something
In this context, however, another element also emerges: people continue to seek spaces where they can feel part of something.
63% of respondents say they feel the need to belong to a group built around shared passions and interests. This is a need that goes beyond travel, touching on the very way people seek spaces to connect more naturally and less artificially. A conviction shared by Kindred, a home-sharing platform founded on mutual trust:
“The most important relationships rarely start online. They begin over a shared meal, in a spontaneous conversation, when a friend introduces you to someone at a bar, at the gym, or at an exhibition. When you’re physically present with people, defences come down and trust builds naturally and more quickly. We are made to welcome and to feel part of something, but modern life has pulled us away from that instinct, optimising everything for efficiency and convenience. What people are looking for today is not content. It’s someone to be with. At Kindred, we see this every day through our members’ stories: give people the right context and community doesn’t need to be built. It just happens.” — Justine Palefsky, CEO and Co-founder, Kindred
People want to go back offline
We asked where people get to know each other best today.
In first place comes travel, cited by 45% of respondents (+15 vs 2025). Work and university follow at 33%, friends of friends at 31%, sport and hobbies at 29%, events at 28%. Apps and social media come last, at 9% (+5 vs 2025). Perhaps the most interesting figure is the comparison with last year. In 2025, 30% of people cited travel. Today the figure is 45%.
Apps grow slightly, from 4% to 9%, but remain at the bottom of the ranking. This doesn’t seem like a rejection of the digital. Rather, it reflects a certain fatigue with interactions that often remain superficial or fragmented.
84% of people surveyed say that building relationships that matter is harder today. At the same time, many people say they feel the need to return to more concrete, shared experiences.
72% of respondents would like to have more social experiences offline (+0.32 vs 2025). 34% travel to step outside their comfort zone. 13% seek experiences away from the digital dimension.
Eventbrite⁶, in the report Fourth Spaces, described exactly this phenomenon: 95% of young adults want to bring the interests they cultivate online into real life. 84% have found genuine friends through live events.
Why relationships seem different when travelling
83% of people surveyed say they feel more open towards others when travelling; 66% say they have built a meaningful connection with someone they met on a trip; and 52% consider relationships born while travelling more genuine than those formed in everyday life.
Skyscanner⁴, in the report Travel Trends 2026, observes something similar: 39% of travellers have travelled or would consider travelling abroad to meet new people, and among Gen Z the figure rises to 55%.
When we asked what makes relationships formed while travelling different, the answers always returned to the same elements: 60% point to shared experiences; 43% to spending entire days together; 30% to being away from routine. More distantly, 19% cite the absence of mutual expectations, and 16% mention not feeling trapped in their usual roles.
Doing what, not just where and with whom
The type of experience also seems to make a difference. GetYourGuide⁵, in the report Hidden Trends List 2026, records a 59% increase in bookings for workshops and hands-on experiences, and 76% of travellers say that learning something new on holiday has become more appealing than in the past. A trend confirmed by those who organise these experiences. Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide co-founder & CEO, puts it this way:
“Today, travelling means creating real relationships, not simply ticking places off a list. And we see this especially in the moments when people do something together: kneading bread, learning a craft, sharing a table, exchanging stories with a local guide. It’s also why workshops are one of the fastest-growing categories on GetYourGuide: bookings have increased 59% year on year. Experiences don’t just show you a place. They give you a reason to talk, laugh, put yourself out there and feel part of something, even if just for an afternoon.”
What we discovered in the United States
During SXSW 2026, we organised a focus group in Austin with Americans between the ages of 20 and 30, to understand whether the dynamics observed in Europe also applied in the United States. In many cases they did, sometimes even more clearly.
When asked “have you ever given up on travelling because you couldn’t find anyone to go with?”, seven in ten participants raised their hand: some had cancelled the trip, others had decided to go alone. One person shared that they had been ghosted by friends while planning the trip.
The conversation also revealed an interesting distinction: between meeting people and building relationships that last. Many said they were open to meeting new people, but more selective when it came to forming genuine bonds, shared passions, common interests and the right context were seen as decisive factors.
Voices from the US
Some testimonials:
“It’s easy to collect friends along the way, but as you grow older you prefer to meet people who share your passions and interests.”
“There’s a difference between meeting someone and building a real relationship. Things often stay on the surface.”
When we asked whether they would travel with a group of strangers, almost all responded that it depended on how the experience was organised: shared activities, a clear programme and a few moments designed to break the ice were enough to make them feel more comfortable.
“People are much more open to putting themselves out there than we think. The difference is the context: the moment when you go from ‘who are these people?’ to ‘OK, I can feel good here.’”
More than travelling with strangers, what seems daunting is the idea of entering a situation with no context.
One interesting element concerned location: a participant from New York described her city as a place where it is easy to meet people through friends of friends, while a participant from Wisconsin described the opposite.
In the United States, unlike what emerges from the European survey, where you live seems to matter much more.
What we take home from this Research
If there is one thing that emerges clearly from this research, it is that we have not lost the desire to be together.
63% of people seek a sense of belonging. 72% would like more offline experiences. 58% consider meeting new people important when travelling.
The point is that many of the contexts in which this used to happen spontaneously seem to have weakened. As the OECD¹ confirms, there is no correlation between the number of people you socialise with and the quality of the relationships you have. You can socialise often and still feel lonely.
The WeRoad Research 2026 perspective
What continues to work, on the other hand, has fairly precise characteristics:
- 66% say meeting new people is more difficult than in the past [+8 vs 2025]
- Travel is the number one context in which people feel they get to know others best: 45% [+15 vs 2025]
- Apps and social media remain last: only 9% consider them effective [+5 vs 2025]
- 72% would like to have more social experiences offline [+0.32 vs 2025]
- 63% feel the need to belong to a group built around shared passions and interests
- 52% are not satisfied with their social relationships
- 83% say they feel more open towards others when travelling
- Two in three people have built a meaningful bond with someone they met while travelling
- For 60%, what creates connection is shared experiences, not simply time spent in the same place
The desire to meet has never gone away. What is increasingly missing are the right contexts for it to happen. And travel, for many people, is beginning to make a real difference.
The full results of the Research are available on the dedicated landing page.
For further information, data or interviews: press@weroad.com
BIBLIOGRAPHY
¹ OECD (2025), “Social Connections and Loneliness in OECD Countries”, OECD Publishing, Paris. https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/social-connections-and-loneliness-in-oecd-countries_6df2d6a0-en.html
² WHO (2025), “From Loneliness to Social Connection: Charting a Path to Healthier Societies”, World Health Organization, Geneva. https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/978240112360
³ Wellbeing Research Centre, University of Oxford / Gallup / UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (2025), “World Happiness Report 2025”. https://www.worldhappiness.report/ed/2025/
⁴ Skyscanner (2026), “Travel Trends 2026: Catching Flights and Feelings”. https://www.skyscanner.net/travel-trends/connections
⁵ GetYourGuide (2025), “Hidden Trends List 2026”. https://www.getyourguide.press/blog/getyourguide-unveils-2026-hidden-trends-list
⁶ Eventbrite (2025), “Fourth Spaces: Bridging Digital and Physical Worlds”. https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/press/newsroom/fourth-spaces-bridge-digital-and-physical-worlds/
⁷ Scott Galloway (2023), “Friends”, No Mercy / No Malice. https://www.profgalloway.com/friends/
