- Beating loneliness abroad — what it means
- Beating loneliness abroad means making friends by setting up an environment that forces you to run into the same people again and again — a language school, a share house, local work, a Meetup every day. This is what the author did across roughly a year in the Philippines and Australia.
Hi, I’m Masato.
Going abroad long term — a working holiday, a sudden relocation — brings on far more episodes of poor mental health than an ordinary salaried life did. In my case it was loneliness and badly managed working hours. I have fully recovered since.
This article draws on what I went through to explain how to build a full life abroad. Mainly, how to cure loneliness overseas and how to collect interesting experiences.
To date I have circled Japan in 2022, toured Asia in 2023 and moved to Thailand in 2024. Earlier I lived in the Philippines and Australia for about a year in total. Back then it was a working holiday; these past two years I have traveled as a nomad worker.
(2026 update: this article collects experiences from my working holiday and nomad years. I am now based in Sendai, running website production and AI development as Webharu Inc.)
This piece started out under the title “The nomad trip ends: how I solved my own mental problems over two years of travel”, scribbled down in a Starbucks in Rifu, Miyagi, in October 2023 when the trip finished. The content had drifted from the title, so I changed the title. At the same time I rewrote “The nomad trip ends: how I solved my own mental problems over two years of travel” as a new article aimed at nomads, so read that one as well.
The article you are reading now is the one to use when you are about to throw yourself into a long stay abroad — emigration, a working holiday. Here goes.
How to make friends and escape loneliness even without confidence in the language
Here is how I made friends abroad. These are ways of meeting people, of course, but meeting alone does not make a friend. The point is to set up an environment that forces you to run into the same people again and again.
- Go to a language school
- Live in a share house
- Get a local job
- Go to the same place regularly (a sauna, a restaurant, a basketball court, a bar, a cafe)
- Go to a Meetup event every day (free events are fine)
- Join the Japanese community
- Visit other share houses
Do these and friends appear almost immediately. The relationships start shallow, but time makes them real. Go in with the attitude that finding one or two people you genuinely click with is lucky. As an adult you get good at managing distance and everything stays on the surface, but in English you can worry about that far less, which makes it surprisingly easy.
Once you have friends, your English improves much faster too. All of this is what I actually did, and anyone can do it. A few notes on each item.
Go to a language school
“I don’t need to study English any more.” “School is expensive, I would rather not.” That was me. But going to a local school has big upsides and I recommend it.
What school gives you Friends
Knowing which parts of town are dangerous
Finding work
Finding a share house
School is generally a place to study, but abroad it doubles as an information source like that. And if you make friends at a similar language level, it becomes conversation practice.
Research language schools in Japan before you go. Mainly, visit a study-abroad agency and ask which schools they recommend. Then sign the contract after you arrive, by visiting the school in person, which comes out cheaper. (Some places require an application through their website in advance.)
Without the instinct to move first, nothing happens and the course simply ends. Be clear about why you are going to school, and act on it.
Live in a share house
Chatting people up on the street is hard work. Even at a guest house, striking up a friendly conversation out of nowhere is not my strength. So I chose a share house.
How you choose one matters, though. Here is what a sociable share house looks like.
- A clean, spacious living room (the important one)
- For making friends, a shared room rather than a private one
- Check whether you can have friends over
- Know the owner’s nationality
Roughly speaking, those are the conditions I search on. The living room in particular has a lot to do with how much contact there is. With no living room you cannot eat together in a shared space, so the chances to talk drop sharply.
Check whether you can have friends over, too. The place I was in before was strict, and friends were absolutely not allowed inside. But a friend of mine lived in a share house where guests were always welcome, so there were parties constantly, and that is where I made a lot of friends.
A house with a lot of strangers coming through can get worse for safety and comfort, though, so check carefully before you move in.
“Know the owner’s nationality” is not about discrimination; it is about understanding culture. In Japan and Korea, for instance, people generally do not walk through the house in their shoes, and many are particular about cleanliness.
In America and Europe, on the other hand, people walk around indoors in their shoes, and might shower every three days. It varies by person, of course, but those cultural differences can become a source of stress. Share houses tend to attract residents of the same nationality as the owner, so it is worth checking during your visit.
I once had a European housemate whose smell was fairly strong (body odor and perfume). Once we got close I could get English lessons out of him and say “go and shower!”, so it turned out to be a genuinely interesting experience.
Go to a Meetup event every day (free events are fine)
During my working holiday in Australia I went to Meetup events almost daily. At first I turned up terrified and could not talk to anyone. But going every day, you get used to the setting. Before long a regular crowd formed and we would go out together.
If one visit produces nothing, do not let it get to you; go every time and hold a conversation for just five minutes. Repeat that for a single month and you become something like a regular. Also, larger Meetup events are full of people standing on their own. They often talk to you first, so the bar is low.
Join the Japanese community
Join a Japanese community for nomads, or drop in on a Japanese share house. Abroad, Japanese friends come easily, and you can help each other out.
Deciding “I came all this way, so I am not going to talk to Japanese people” is fine, but on a long stay abroad you start wanting the pleasure of having Japanese friends. Knowing at least the outline of the local Japanese community, so that you can help each other when it counts, takes a weight off.
The remaining items need no explanation, so I will leave them there. The one that was best for me personally: the apartment block housing my share house had a sauna, and I went every day. (Simply because I like saunas.) The regulars grew into friends, local Australians taught me English, and we trained together. A wonderful time.
Those are the tactics for making friends abroad. You can make friends this way without ever having to start the conversation yourself. If being alone starts to feel dull, try them.
How to collect more experience than anyone else while you are there
Make a lot of friends and you get to experience everything from work to hobbies. But there is plenty you cannot experience by depending on other people. Start with these two.
- Get a local job
- Get hold of a bicycle, a motorbike or a car
Get a local job (nomad or not)
Get a job locally. It depends on your visa and how long you are staying, but local work delivers many times more experience than you expect. And you find friends. Frankly, it is the most important item here.
Being a digital nomad makes no difference. Take a local part-time job. If you work remotely full time, work a little in the gaps or at weekends. You pick up local friends, local values and the atmosphere of local working life. To me, a very important item.
In Australia, working people start early and finish early. And they are fairly cheerful on the way in. The mood differs from a Japanese commuter train in the morning, which told me “people in this country seem to enjoy work reasonably well, and a lot of them seem happy”. The mood of a country matters.
What kind of job should you take?
Any job is fine, but avoid a company that is Japanese-run, Japanese-only and has no customer contact. As long as there is service work, or at least some chance to talk to customers, it is fine. A warehouse staffed entirely by Japanese people frankly defeats the point of coming abroad.
I took exactly that job in Australia — Japanese-run, Japanese-only, no customer contact. I quit within a week; the whole place was Japan. Japan of the Showa era, at that. Simply quitting would have been a waste, though, so I went looking for the next job.
“Hello, I’m Masato Kurita, starting today. I have only just arrived, so I may have a lot of questions — thank you for having me.” Say that and a few kind people will answer “ask me anything if you get stuck”.
Leave it a while, then ask about the local scene and your colleagues’ futures: “Are there a lot of Japanese-run companies like this one?” “What are your plans from here?” That gets you information and grumbles — “Company X pays better than we do”, “Company Y is apparently really easy”. Then note the company names down and search them later. They advertise part-time roles, so apply on the spot.
The person who gave you the information is thinking “I have heard the rumors, but making the move is scary”, so tell them “I’ll go in first and scout it. If it is a good company, I’ll introduce you.” That way nobody thinks badly of you. I really did move a colleague to a new company that way, and we became close afterwards.
The upshot: in one week I moved from a Japanese-run, Japanese-only, no-customer-contact workplace to an Australian-run, English-first, customer-facing one, and my hourly rate went up by six dollars. The work was far easier, too — genuinely about a tenth as hard as the Japanese-run place. Easy and enjoyable.
Get hold of a bicycle, a motorbike or a car
A car means group trips and getting anywhere you like, which is convenient, but it is not that easy to arrange.
So my recommendation is a bicycle. It doubles as exercise and takes you a long way. It is exhausting at first, but feeling the exhaustion fade is its own sense of progress, and you get to enjoy the local countryside and scenery as you go. Australia was a happy country where everyone you passed was smiling.
So cycling to work in the morning becomes naturally enjoyable. And you naturally smile more. Roads abroad are often wider than in Japan, which gives a real sense of openness. Next time I go abroad, a bicycle is the first thing I get.
Incidentally, public transport abroad is inconvenient and bewildering. Trains simply fail to arrive on some days with no warning, running late is normal, and leaving early is normal too. To a Japanese person, honestly, it is unusable. It differs by country, of course, and I use it for longer trips, but as a daily habit it is a nuisance.
In summary: what I would do next time I go abroad
- Housing: live in a share house
- Transport: buy a bicycle (look for a used one)
- School: go to a language school for just one week (friends, job hunting)
- Work: start looking after two weeks; until then, ask the people I meet
- Habit: go to a shop near home every day (chat with the staff)
- Community: start a Japanese community, or join one that exists
- Go to the same sauna or basketball court every week or every day
- Attend Meetups every day
Next, if it is a long stay, I want to go to New Zealand. I mean that seriously, and have done since COVID arrived. But as an adult, once it is no longer just you, all sorts of things get complicated.
I will finish with something said at a show by UVERworld, a Japanese rock band.
FAQ
How do I beat loneliness while living abroad?
The trick is to create an environment that forces you to run into the same people again and again. What worked for me was a language school, a sociable share house, a local job, a Meetup event every day, and going to the same shop or sauna regularly.
How do I choose a share house where people actually mix?
Check four things: a clean, spacious living room; a shared room rather than a private one; whether you can have friends over; and the owner’s nationality (cultural differences). Whether there is a living room at all has a direct effect on how much contact there is.
Should I take a local job even if I work remotely?
I recommend it. You pick up local friends, local values and the atmosphere of local working life, so even the gaps in your week or the weekend are worth it. The trick is to avoid a workplace that is Japanese-run, Japanese-only and has no customer contact.
How do I find a local job abroad?
What worked was asking colleagues at my first workplace about other companies — pay, how easy they are to work at — then searching the company name and applying to their listings. That took me to an English-first workplace in one week, with a six-dollar rise in hourly rate.
What is the best way to get around while living abroad?
A bicycle. It doubles as exercise, takes you a long way, and lets you enjoy the local scenery as you go. Public transport abroad often fails to run on time, which makes it inconvenient for daily use, so get hold of a used bicycle early.
