One of the biggest concerns many potential computer nomads have is being lonely. Pulling up stakes and heading off alone to a foreign country for the first time can be a daunting experience. You get off the plane alone without so much as an acquaintance within thousands of miles. Despite the fact that you are likely to be much safer than in any American city, the strangeness of the surroundings can make you feel less safe.

The truth is it is much easier to make friends overseas than it is in America. This varies, of course, depending on the customs and culture of the country you are visiting. It is easy to make friends with fellow English-speaking travelers. In many countries the locals will walk right up to you on the street. They are eager to meet foreigners and practice their English skills on a native speaker.

If you are still concerned about arriving in a foreign land without a friend or relative waiting, the Internet is a great place to make friends overseas or find a traveling companion. You can use the Internet to find a friend or potential lover just about anywhere in the world. There are countless dating services, message boards and chat groups on-line.

Google Groups

A place with many special interest groups is Google Groups. You can either post your messages to existing groups or create your own. Creating your own group is a good way to meet people with a special interest not covered elsewhere on the Internet. Maybe you are interested in starting a nightclub or restaurant in Costa Rica, and are looking for a like-minded partner. Creating a group on the subject of investment in Costa Rica is one approach. Identify the description of your group with as many keywords as possible while keeping it readable. Obvious keywords for this type of group are investment, overseas, Costa Rica, restaurant, bar and nightclub. Of course, with over 100,000 groups you're likely to find something already active.

Most groups are open to anyone, though some require membership and are moderated. Moderated discussion means that a moderator screens all messages to make sure the topic is appropriate to the group's subject matter. The moderator has the power to keep inappropriate messages from being posted. The mailing list function allows you to send messages to all subscribing members of he group you manage simultaneously. The member list contains the names, email address and a profile of the interests of each member.

Creation of a group can also be a way to attract friends or lovers with common interest. Shooting pool, for instance, might be a hobby you enjoy. Ideally, anyone you get close to will share your love of shooting pool or playing billiards. If you're planning on moving to the Philippines for several months, how would you know that pool-shooting is a popular past-time among expats and tourists in the Philippines? And that the Philippines is an excellent place to have hand-crafted cue sticks made to your exact specifications? This is the type of information you can share.

Google Groups contain numerous country-specific discussions. These can be good for meeting traveling partners and friends in the country that interests you. Topics range from tourist information like good hotels and restaurants to political issues. Another series are the travel groups. A search for travel-related groups turns up over 2400 groups, including travel to Asia (rec.travel.asia) as well as most other popular destinations. General travel groups include alt.travel and rec.travel.misc.

The problem with Google Groups is that many are little used and unmoderated. They are cluttered with advertisements for dating services and X-rated sexual propositions. Some groups contain personal ads for people looking for another person for correspondence, sex or dating but are really ads for porn sites. Even so, they do contain useful ads, though mostly they are for men seeking sex with women. Some of the groups on dating and personal ads include alt.personal.ads and alt.romance. The alt.personals series of groups include a few possible places to meet people around the world: alt.personals.asian, alt.personals.intercultural and alt.personals.new-zealand. Of course, there are many others.

You can search for a specific country such as Argentina. Using this keyword will turn up thousands of messages. A better method to search is to combine several keywords. If you are interested in investing or starting a business in Argentina, then try using keywords such as invest and Argentina. Using multiple keywords reduces the number of message found from over 10,000 to less than 50. Another example, to find a traveling partner, is to type in the keywords India travel partner to find someone interested in joining you on a trip to India. A search on these keywords turned up ten messages.

The Omgili search engine lets you search hundreds of discussion forums outside of Google Groups. Google Groups and the many other forums are great places to meet people anywhere in the world with interests similar to your own. With thousands of topics ranging from foot fetishes to nuclear physics, you are likely to find one on the subjects that interest you.

Social Networking

These are some of the most popular web sites on the Internet. MySpace, for example, is ranked fifth in the world with 141,352,882 members as of December 2006. Social networking sites are all-purpose sites for networking, dating and sharing common interests. MySpace has millions of members with profiles and photos posted where anyone can browse. Sites similar to MySpace tend to be huge and sweeping. Most of the members tend to be teens and young adults. These sites include special interest groups on just about everything imaginable. Suppose you are interested in traveling to Ecuador and are a rock and roll fan or musician. A search of the group directory on MySpace turns up 301 groups, several with an interest in the rock and roll scene in Ecuador.

Another free way to meet people internationally is to place a classified ad on Craigslist. It is organized by location with areas for many countries, from Ireland to India. Examples of other large social networking sites include friendster and orkut.

Bookmarking and Meeting People

Another kind of social network using the bookmarks you create every day when browsing the web has caught on. StumbleUpon, Digg and del.icio.us track the pages you bookmark and thus determine your interests. Like regular social networking sites, you can also create a profile with personal information. The difference is you browse the profiles of other members to see their bookmarks and help understand their interests in detail.

You can cross reference your interests. Maybe you're looking for a boyfriend who loves Beethoven. For example, if you are one of (the few) who, like myself, enjoy musician Al Kooper, StumbleUpon will show how many others – three – share your interest. Then you click on Al's name and see the three loyal fans (one of them being myself). If you click on Beethoven, 783 names will show up.

Virtual Worlds

You can also meet people through your imagination. For those who prefer to become a fantasy computer nomad, you can always become a virtual traveler without ever leaving your desktop. In a virtual world fantasy you create a character, called an avatar, to represent you. You can make it look like yourself or give it a dragon's head. Likewise, you can act like yourself or pretend you're a munchkin from The Wizard of Oz. Second Life even has everything from it's own on-world dating services to strip club casinos.

These worlds are real to the point where some even have an economy. Second Life uses a currency called Linden Dollars. Fine, you say, how do I spend my imaginary bucks? Sell them here just like would any other world currency. Linden Dollars, at this writing, are now getting US$1.00 for 250, making them about as valuable as the Mauritania Ouguiya or 19 or so times more valuable than the Zambia Kwacha, currently getting 4685 per U.S. dollar. Second Life even made history recently with its first virtual millionaire real estate tycoon, a Chinese lady. Where else can you buy your own island for US$1,675?

There are many types of virtual world sites and games. A good listing and review of many is at Virtual World's Review.

For those more inclined to meet people in a "Lord of the Rings" style fantasy realm, Ultima Online, Everquest and World of Warcraft can turn you into a well-equipped elf or dwarf. While these are not as "real life" simulations as the sites discussed above, they can be even more fun for lovers of sword and sorcery type games. Fantasy online games also tend to have a much higher percentage of male users; one study found 20% females on Everquest. Like Second Life, you can cash in your castles, weapons and characters for real-time currency. Check here for a detailed listing of these MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games).

Online Dating Services

Personally, I think the best way to travel is with a woman in her native land, as friends and lovers. This makes it easier to meet the locals, and she can help with communications, negotiating and show you things you may never have seen otherwise. The risk, of course, is that you may fall in love and want to stay with her. You may find a partner who takes to a nomadic lifestyle, but I think that most interested partners will be willing to travel with you for weeks or even months, but not years.

There are thousands of international dating services on the Internet where, for a small fee, you can find a photo and description of a woman or a man. When you find someone interesting, you can either pay a small sum for an individual address or purchase a subscription to exchange messages with anyone in the entire database. The only difference between these and local dating services are they are on-line and men and women come from around the world.

A web site I manage, Fantasy Islands, contains thousands of women and men around the world. While it was written for men who want to travel the world and meet women, the techniques can also be used by women. It is for people who are interested in meeting people from another country or culture. Many are also interested in long-term relationships. You can conduct searches by age, sex, country or keyword. For instance, you may be interested in a man from Brazil who likes "samba" and "jazz." You would then perform a search using both keywords for a Brazilian man between the ages 30 and 45.

Pen-Pals

Another way to meet people worldwide includes free pen-pal services. Easypenpals has "397066 pen pals ads in 485 categories." Most of the people registered in the database did not have photos. A similar service, called Interpals, is also free with thousands of potential pen-pals listed, many with photos. PenpalsNOW has many free listings but no photos. The Google Group, soc.penpals, has postings from thousands of people looking for someone to correspond with.