I'm planning a big Interrail trip this year.
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I'm planning a big Interrail trip this year.
What's the easiest / best / most fun way to meet up with friends for a drink in random cities?
I usually put out a message on social media saying "Anyone in $city fancy a pint tomorrow?"
Is there a way to see which of my friends on Signal / WhatsApp / LinkedIn are in a specific city? Or let them know I'm going to be within 10km of them?
I think I want engineered serendipity. Does that exist?
There was this interesting accidental stalkerware called Jabberwocky that worked on that idea that you bump into people every day that you don't interact with, but apparently there's that person in the pub who also buys produce the same time as you every week, maybe you should wave or chat them up.
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I'm planning a big Interrail trip this year.
What's the easiest / best / most fun way to meet up with friends for a drink in random cities?
I usually put out a message on social media saying "Anyone in $city fancy a pint tomorrow?"
Is there a way to see which of my friends on Signal / WhatsApp / LinkedIn are in a specific city? Or let them know I'm going to be within 10km of them?
I think I want engineered serendipity. Does that exist?
@Edent I book hostels on hostelworld and use their chat to meet the other people backpacking there at the moment. It always worked but the target age is 18-30

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I'm planning a big Interrail trip this year.
What's the easiest / best / most fun way to meet up with friends for a drink in random cities?
I usually put out a message on social media saying "Anyone in $city fancy a pint tomorrow?"
Is there a way to see which of my friends on Signal / WhatsApp / LinkedIn are in a specific city? Or let them know I'm going to be within 10km of them?
I think I want engineered serendipity. Does that exist?
@Edent I have used Dopllr styled blogposts that only went out through RSS to regular readers. Marked up and all. Like here: https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2025/12/25936/ But hoping to see dopplr redone in activitypub using the proper activitystreams for it.
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@Edent dopplr? Sorry, wrong decade.
@jtonline yes please!
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@Edent You can announce it as a story on Signal
@malte good idea. I've never done stories there. I've also never seen them.
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@Edent I don't know but if you're in Rotterdam I'll buy you a pint*!
*Dutch sizes may vary
@hdv sadly not this trip. But hopefully soon!
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@Edent I book hostels on hostelworld and use their chat to meet the other people backpacking there at the moment. It always worked but the target age is 18-30

@carl I fear I am too old for hostel beds

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@jtonline yes please!
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@Edent I have used Dopllr styled blogposts that only went out through RSS to regular readers. Marked up and all. Like here: https://www.zylstra.org/blog/2025/12/25936/ But hoping to see dopplr redone in activitypub using the proper activitystreams for it.
@ton oooooh! Nice!
I enjoyed my cencenelec meetings years ago. Have fun! -
@Edent I don't know but if you're in Rotterdam I'll buy you a pint*!
*Dutch sizes may vary
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I'm planning a big Interrail trip this year.
What's the easiest / best / most fun way to meet up with friends for a drink in random cities?
I usually put out a message on social media saying "Anyone in $city fancy a pint tomorrow?"
Is there a way to see which of my friends on Signal / WhatsApp / LinkedIn are in a specific city? Or let them know I'm going to be within 10km of them?
I think I want engineered serendipity. Does that exist?
@Edent while you might not be staying at hostels, most of them have a pub/bar, and some of them are nice and social (and everyone is willing/wanting to talk to others)
I don't know if you know of any, but I have also found people on "maps" (map of all "X" maps, like "global map of niche hobby" e.g., freeskating & toki pona speaking)
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I'm planning a big Interrail trip this year.
What's the easiest / best / most fun way to meet up with friends for a drink in random cities?
I usually put out a message on social media saying "Anyone in $city fancy a pint tomorrow?"
Is there a way to see which of my friends on Signal / WhatsApp / LinkedIn are in a specific city? Or let them know I'm going to be within 10km of them?
I think I want engineered serendipity. Does that exist?
@Edent I find organized chaos to work best. The organized part is if there's friends I really want to meet I make sure to contact them beforehand to plan around. For the rest, it's mainly posting on Mastodon with a general message, or just enjoy being on my own ;-). (cc @bigcalm, thanks for boosting)
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@malte good idea. I've never done stories there. I've also never seen them.
@Edent All the contacts you'd like to see it will see it
