When I first started solo traveling, I didn’t have a roadmap for finding community.
Solo travel felt lonely. Where were the other travelers?
What changed everything for me were the Facebook and WhatsApp groups that connected me to like-minded travelers. Through those spaces, I found people to co-work with in Bali, snorkel with in Playa del Carmen, and grab dinner with in Buenos Aires. They weren’t just social lifelines; they were portals into belonging.
As I began building Travel Not to Escape, my goal was to help travelers make meaningful connections. In doing this, I joined dozens of groups, showed up at countless events, and started noticing certain patterns.
Some communities felt instantly welcoming. Others looked great on paper but had unspoken rules and closed circles. I started asking questions about what makes a space feel truly inclusive, and what happens when well-meaning leaders unintentionally build walls instead of bridges.
The Good Intentions Behind Gatekeeping
Most community leaders are trying to protect something special. Creating and maintaining a safe, authentic space is hard work, especially in transient, digital-first spaces like nomad hubs. Without some kind of structure or boundary, groups can easily lose focus or spiral into noise.
Research on group identity and social cohesion shows that shared values and expectations increase trust and engagement in groups (1). People need to know what a space is about in order to feel safe enough to participate.
So yes, some level of curation matters. But the tension arises when that curation starts to feel like control.
When Boundaries Become Barriers
In Vietnam, I joined a group meant to bring travelers together offline. But when members posted their own free meetups, like yoga circles or coworking meetups, their posts were deleted. The original vision may have been about connection, but eventually, only the organizer's events were promoted. What started as a shared community felt more like a business funnel. Soon, the most engaged members formed their own groups where sharing and co-creating were welcomed.
Psychological reactance theory explains that when people feel their freedom is restricted, they tend to resist or create alternatives (2). It’s not rebellion for rebellion’s sake, it’s a natural defense of autonomy.
In Thailand, I saw a similar pattern. A group that once felt communal slowly shifted toward exclusivity. People who didn't attend the right events or know the right people were left on the sidelines, not knowing what was going on unless it was a paid event by the organizer. In response, smaller, more casual communities began to spring up. New leaders emerged. Factions formed not out of drama, but out of necessity.
When the Community Cracks
Mexico City was one of the most vibrant communities I’ve experienced. The events were electric. Dinners turned into dance nights. You could feel the magic. But then the community’s charismatic organizer became the center of some serious whispers like rumors about unpaid rent, mismanaged funds, and inconsistent leadership. Whether the rumors were true or not, trust eroded. And in any community, trust is the invisible thread that holds it all together.
This fracturing isn’t unusual. Social network theory tells us that as communities grow and diversify, new branches form to meet different needs (3). It’s not always conflict that drives division. Sometimes it’s evolution.
The Medium Is Not the Message
In Spain, things got complicated and personal. A well-known organizer had created their own app to manage community events. It was beautifully designed and ambitious in its goal to centralize all messaging, RSVPs, and event logistics—a huge undertaking and, on paper, a valuable contribution to the local nomad scene. But the issue wasn’t the technology. It was how it was enforced.
At an event, I exchanged WhatsApp numbers with someone I had just met. Later, the organizer approached me and said I had disrespected the community by not using the app to connect. She had eavesdropped on my conversation.
That moment made me pause. Not just because it felt like a personal boundary had been crossed, but because it pointed to a deeper challenge. Most long-term travelers have been using WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn for years to find their people. To expect them to instantly abandon those platforms and only use a single app, even for personal follow-ups, felt unrealistic and unnecessarily restrictive.
Creating a community app for messaging and events is an admirable endeavor. Done well, it can reduce noise, make event discovery easier, and help new members plug in faster. But trying to replace existing connection tools altogether, rather than complement them, can backfire. Community building isn’t about centralizing power or limiting choice. It’s about creating containers that support trust, spontaneity, and autonomy.
An app can guide the experience. But it shouldn’t own the experience.
A Normal Part of Growth
When a community becomes too rigid, people don’t just leave. They recreate. They replicate the parts that worked and leave behind the ones that didn’t. This kind of fragmentation often leads to a rich ecosystem of micro-communities, each tailored to a unique vibe or value set.
This is not failure. It’s regeneration.
We often talk about community like it’s a fixed destination, but really, it’s a moving river. And just like rivers fork and flow, so too do our networks.
The Power of Meta-Awareness
One of the biggest tools we have in navigating this tension is meta-awareness, our ability to observe our thoughts, biases, and assumptions about a group without immediately reacting. Neuroscientific research shows that cultivating this awareness activates the prefrontal cortex, which supports flexible thinking, emotional regulation, and empathy for opposing perspectives (5).
This means we’re better equipped to ask:
Am I protecting the integrity of this space, or am I protecting control?
Are the rules about safety or about preference?
Is it time to adapt or time to let go?
Takeaways for Community Builders
If you’re creating spaces for others, online or offline, here are some lessons worth remembering:
Curate, but don’t control. Give people a center to gather around, not walls to climb.
Allow multiple points of connection. Let people relate in the ways that feel natural to them.
Encourage feedback, even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially then.
Recognize when it’s time to evolve. The most resilient communities are the ones that stay in motion.
The truth is, community doesn’t always need to be centralized. There’s always enough space for new ones to emerge. And wherever there are humans seeking connection, there is always another chance to begin again.
A Lesson for Travelers Looking to Connect
If you’re a traveler seeking connection, know this: there is always a place for you. It may not be the first group you join or the first event you attend. But that doesn’t mean you don’t belong. Keep showing up. Keep creating what you wish existed.
Try out new spaces, but trust your gut. If something feels off, it’s okay to move on. If someone shuts you out, know that someone else will welcome you in. The more you stay open, the more you’ll find people who see you for who you are—not just where you’ve been.
And if you don’t see the community you need, you might be the one meant to build it.
Citations
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict. The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations.
Brehm, J. W. (1966). A Theory of Psychological Reactance. Academic Press.
Barabási, A. L. (2002). Linked: The New Science of Networks. Perseus Publishing.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1985). Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behavior. Springer.
Farb, N. A. et al. (2007). Attending to the present: Mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.
