Travel Pool
The Travel Pool — Local Guides & Fellow Travelers
Studying abroad is one of the loneliest experiences college offers, even though it's sold as the opposite. Research on college student wellbeing consistently links studying abroad and living away from an established social network to higher reported loneliness, and one estimate puts social isolation among college students globally at around 25%, rising further for students abroad dealing with language and cultural barriers. The Travel Pool exists so you're not meeting your first local contact by luck.
Who the Travel Pool Is For
- Students studying abroad for a semester or year
- Anyone planning school-break travel who wants a local contact before landing
- Fellow travelers looking to team up for part of a trip
How Matching Works in the Travel Pool
The Travel Pool runs on Vacation Mode, set your destination and travel dates, and Groove Connects matches you with locals and fellow travelers in that location for a live video chat, the same two-minute format used everywhere else in the app. Match before you land, and you've got a contact on day one instead of week three.
FAQ
Vacation Mode is the feature that lets you set a different location; the Travel Pool is where you meet people specifically around travel and local-guide connections in that location.
Groove Connects currently matches people within the United States, with plans to expand globally — check the FAQ page for the latest on availability.
Yes — set your future destination and dates ahead of time to start matching with locals before you leave.
The same core rules apply as any in-person meetup — video chat first, meet in public, tell someone your plans — plus the LGBTQ+ travel considerations on the Safety page if you're traveling somewhere with different local laws.
Land with a contact already in place
Join the Travel Pool and match with locals or fellow travelers before you go.
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