Moving to a new town in your 20s or 30s

Moving to a new town in your 20s or 30s, whether you've followed a partner, chased a job, craved a fresh start, or simply decided the city wasn't for you anymore — the experience of rebuilding your social world from zero as an adult is more common than you think. But what nobody tells you is how hard it can be to make new friends.

So, you've done it — you've made the leap, signed the lease, unpacked the boxes and it feels great. But you soon you realise there's no one to enjoy it with. 

You scroll through Instagram and everyone else's life looks full. Group brunches. Familiar coastlines. Friends who've known each other for years. Meanwhile you're learning the names of streets and wondering whether the woman at the coffee shop remembers your order yet.

If that's where you are right now — or where you've been — this is for you. Because making friends as an adult is genuinely, quietly hard, and almost nobody talks about it honestly. Here's what we've noticed in the Sunsup community: the outdoors is one of the fastest ways to find your people. The outdoors gives you something to do, something to talk about, and a reason to show up somewhere regularly. And regular showing up is basically the whole secret to adult friendship.

Why adult friendship is so much harder than anyone admits

At school and university, friendship happened by accident. You were thrown together — same classroom, same halls, same seminars — and proximity did most of the work. You didn't have to try particularly hard. You just had to show up.

In your 20s & 30s, nobody throws you together with anyone. You have to build it from scratch, deliberately, while also holding down a job, navigating a new place, and probably feeling more tired than you did at 20. It's not a personality flaw that it's hard. It's structurally hard. The architecture of adult life doesn't make space for it the way school did.

And moving to a new town strips away even the thin social scaffolding you might have built — the yoga class you'd been going to for two years, the colleague you'd walk to lunch with, the neighbours who knew your name. You're starting from zero. That takes courage. It also takes a strategy.

Why getting outside is the fastest way to find your people

We're not going to tell you to download a friendship app (though they exist and some people love them). We're going to tell you what we've actually watched work — in our own lives and in our community of women across the UK who've done exactly this.

The outdoors works as a social shortcut for one simple reason: it gives you a reason to be somewhere, regularly, with the same people. And regularity is the whole secret to adult friendship. Not one brilliant conversation. Not instantly clicking with someone. Just: showing up to the same place enough times that your face becomes familiar, then welcome, then missed when you're not there.

It also helps that being outside together creates a kind of instant intimacy that a bar or a coffee shop doesn't. When you're cold together, wet together, slightly out of breath together — small talk dissolves fast. You get to the real stuff quicker. You laugh more easily. You have something to talk about that isn't work.

"You don't find your people by searching for them. You find them by going to the same place they go."

Where to start — practically

1. Say yes to the activity, not the person. Don't put pressure on individual connections. Commit to a group activity — a swim meet, a running club, a coastal walk — and let friendship be the byproduct, not the goal. It's much lower stakes and it works far better.

2. Go back at least four times before you decide. The first session is the hardest. The second is just hard. By the fourth, someone knows your name and it starts to feel like yours. Don't write anything off before you've given it four chances.

3. Make the first move — the outdoors makes this easy. "Is it always this cold?" and "have you been coming here long?" are all you need. Shared mild discomfort is a brilliant equaliser. Everyone's a bit vulnerable when they're standing on a windy beach at 7am.

4. Suggest coffee or a post-swim drink. Most people will say yes. This is where groups become friendships. One "anyone fancy a coffee after?" is worth ten exchanged Instagram handles.

5. Once you have one or two people — host something small. A walk, a swim, a park yoga session. You don't need to be a local or an expert. You just need a date and a location and enough courage to put it out there.

Be patient with yourself

Making friends as an adult is genuinely harder than it was at school, and that's not a reflection on you. It takes longer. It takes more courage than it should. And it's worth it.

The women in our community who came out the other side — who now have a swim crew or a walking group or a group chat that makes them laugh on their commute — all started exactly where you are. A bit lost. A bit brave. Standing somewhere new, wondering if they'd made the right call.

It starts with one session. One small yes. One wet, windswept, brilliant morning where you turn to a woman you've never met and think: I'd like to do this again with her.

This is Week 1 of 12.

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