How to Make Friends in Sydney as an International Student

This is written for anyone new in Sydney to study, whether you are at a university like UNSW, Sydney or UTS, at an English language school in the city, or here on a working holiday and taking classes. The situation is the same: you arrived, you know nobody, and everyone around you seems to already have a group.

First, something worth knowing

Sydney is genuinely difficult for this, and not because of you. In the Time Out Index 2022, a survey of 30,000 people in 53 cities, Sydney finished third from the bottom for how easy it is to make new friends. So if you feel like it is harder here than you expected, you are right, and the people around you feel it too.

The good news is that you are in the best possible position to fix it. Students arrive in groups, at the same time, all knowing nobody. That is the easiest social situation that exists. It just does not last long, which is why the first month matters so much.

Your first week: the window that closes

In your first two weeks, everyone around you is open. Nobody has a group yet. Everyone is nervous. By week five, groups have formed and joining them takes real effort.

So in week one, do the boring obvious things and do them immediately:

• Say yes to everything. Every class invitation, every welcome event, every "we are getting food, do you want to come". You can be tired in week six.
• Get phone numbers on day one, not day ten. After a good conversation say "let us swap numbers". This feels forward. It is completely normal here.
• Sit next to someone different each day in class for the first two weeks. You are collecting options.
• Join your school's social activities even if they look childish. Language schools run parties, excursions and language exchange events, and they exist exactly for this reason. Universities have Orientation Week, clubs and societies. Sign up for more than you plan to keep.

The mistake almost every international student makes

Here it is: staying inside the student bubble.

Your classmates are also new, also foreign, also lonely, so friendships form fast. That is genuinely good and you should enjoy it. But your class will finish, people will go home to different countries, and if that was your whole social life, you start again from zero.

Also, and this matters if you came to improve your English, a group of international students mostly speaks simplified English to each other. Six months of that will not improve your speaking as much as two months of real conversations with locals.

So the rule is: one activity with students, one activity with Australians. Both, every week.

Where to actually find locals

Australians are friendly in conversation and slow to make new friends, because most of them already have a group from school. You will not meet them by waiting. You meet them inside their routines.

Free morning fitness, which is the Sydney way

This is the single best answer, and it costs nothing. Sydney has an unusually strong morning fitness culture, it is very welcoming to beginners, and it almost always ends with coffee, which is the social part.

• Bondi Beach Run Club runs 5km every Monday and Wednesday at 6.15am from the Bondi surf bathers club, then coffee. Free, no sign up, just arrive.
• Coastal Run Co runs about thirty minutes every Tuesday and then everyone gets coffee. They say all paces are welcome and they mean it. Walking breaks are fine.
• Parkrun is a free timed 5km on Saturday mornings at many locations across Sydney.
• Ocean swimming groups meet at Bronte and Coogee if you would rather swim than run.

You do not need to be fit. Slow runners and walkers are normal at all of these. Nobody will ask about your English level. You are just a person who came running.

Language exchange nights, which are made for you

Sydney has a real language exchange scene, and it is the perfect middle ground: locals genuinely want to be there, and nobody minds if your English is imperfect, because half the room is practising something.

• Sydney Lingual Mingle on Meetup, with over 1,500 members.
• Australian English Conversation and practice, also on Meetup, close to 1,000 members.
• Sydney International English Club and similar groups run regular evenings around the city.
• Tandem, an app that connects language partners, has hundreds of users in Sydney.

These events are usually free or a few dollars, they repeat weekly or monthly, and the whole social contract is that you talk to strangers. There is no easier room in Sydney to walk into alone.

Work, if you have a job

Hospitality work is one of the fastest routes into an Australian social circle. Cafes, bars and restaurants employ a lot of students, shifts create instant familiarity, and staff drinks after a close are a real thing. If you have working rights, this is worth considering for social reasons as much as financial ones.

If your English is still improving

This is the fear that stops most people, so let us be direct about it.

Choose activities with a shared task. Sport, cooking classes, volunteering, climbing, surfing. When you are doing something together, silence is normal and nobody notices grammar. Conversation happens naturally in the gaps.

Prepare three sentences. Where you are from, what you are studying, and one thing you like about Sydney. That is enough for ninety percent of first conversations, and after that you mostly listen and ask questions.

Ask people to repeat things. "Sorry, can you say that again?" is a completely normal sentence that native speakers also use. It is not embarrassing.

Learn a few Australian words early, because they appear constantly: arvo means afternoon, heaps means very or a lot, keen means interested, "how are you going" means how are you, and "no worries" means everything is fine. Understanding these four or five words makes casual conversation much easier.

Our guide on how to start a conversation with a stranger has more openers that work in any setting.

Where to live matters more than you think

Sydney is very large and split by a harbour. A friendship between someone in the eastern suburbs and someone in the west often dies from travel time alone. If you can choose, choose short.

• Eastern suburbs such as Coogee, Randwick and Bondi: the highest number of students, backpackers and new arrivals, plus the morning beach culture. Easiest place to be new.
• Inner West such as Newtown and Glebe: cheaper, close to the University of Sydney and UTS, lots of pubs, live music and students.
• Sharehouses over studio apartments. A sharehouse gives you instant housemates, and their friends become your friends. Living alone in a new country is the fastest route to a lonely year.

Week three is where the whole thing is won or lost. The first time you go somewhere, you know nobody. The second time, someone recognises your face. The third time, someone says your name and asks how your week was. Most people who say "I tried and it did not work" went exactly once.

Frequently asked questions

Sources: Time Out Index 2022 · Sydney language practice groups on Meetup · Bondi run club listings. Group sizes and meeting times change, so check each group before you go.