Making Friends in Stuttgart
As an adult in a new city, making friends always poses something of a challenge. If you’ve moved to a new country and haven’t mastered the language, it’s even more difficult to build up a social circle. Fortunately, there are plenty of opportunities for making new friends in Stuttgart.
There’s a stereotype that says it’s hard to get to know German people. Some say that it’s because Germans are more reserved or even unfriendly. The truth is that most Germans are very loyal friends and take friendship seriously. They often have friend groups that date back to their time in kindergarten! Holding onto friends for so long means that German adults often have full social calendars and little time to devote to making new connections. But if you do make a German friend, you’ll really be able to count on them!
And you aren’t limited to Germans – Stuttgart’s population is about 25% foreigners, and an additional 15% have a foreign background. There’s also considerable migration from within Germany. That means you have plenty of people around you who are familiar with the challenges of being new in town and far away from their old friends.
Let’s take a look at some practical examples of how to find friends in Stuttgart!
1. Join a group for newbies or expats
Since so many new people are moving to Stuttgart all the time, multiple groups have formed to help them meet each other and connect with locals. New groups pop up all the time, but a few have established themselves as reliable places to meet people. Neu in Stuttgart has a weekly meetup in the evening. Stuttgart Expats organizes a wide range of events, from club nights to festival visits to picnics. You can also register on Spontacts to find people looking more spontaneously for other participants in various leisure activities.
2. Work on your language skills together
Improving your German will provide plenty of advantages to your experience in Stuttgart. Plus, in-person language classes and discussion groups are great ways to meet people! You can find a huge range of language courses in Stuttgart, but the Goethe Institute, the German Institute, and Inlingua are a few well-established schools. There are also a number of discussion groups where you can join for spoken practice, including the German Conversation Group and the Deutsch Language Study Group.
Of course, you can also make friends while practicing other languages! There’s a popular practice in Germany of exchanging language practice help with a buddy known as “Sprachtandem”. With a language tandem partner, you each help the other with a language you’re good at and they’re trying to learn. German-English exchanges are most common in Stuttgart, but you’ll find plenty of interest in other languages as well! You can register on Tandem.net or the VHS’s tandem portal to find others who want to swap language skills.
3. Register for a sport
Being part of a team is a great way to foster friendships, as is striving together to improve your physical performance. Sports in Germany are often organized through registered clubs, and Stuttgart has a number of popular ones. Consider becoming a member of a large Sportverein like MTV Stuttgart, tus Stuttgart, Sportfreunde Stuttgart, or SportKultur Stuttgart. There’s also Abseitz, a club especially for LGTBQIA+ folks and their friends. Or you might prefer to check for a smaller local club near your residence.
You can also use a tool offered by the city of Stuttgart to find sports offerings, providers, events, and locations. You can filter based on a variety of factors, including your location, age, schedule, and preferred sports.
4. Find an interest group
Stuttgart is a large enough city that for pretty much any interest, you can find other people who share it with you. There is an incredible variety of meetup groups, and they offer the advantage of allowing you to join whenever works well for you, without any long-term commitments. Search Meetup.com for whatever interests you, from furniture making to international politics to birdwatching. Attend a specialized networking event, for example for female entrepreneurs or queer professionals. Get placed in a group of 10 to play board games via Social Match. Stuttgart Expats also has a number of subgroups organized around interests, generally accessible via WhatsApp.
5. Take a class
Learning is a lifelong practice, and attending a class means repeated interactions with a group of people who share at least one interest with you! The Volkshochschule (VHS) has courses across a huge number of categories, including health and wellness, technology, philosophy, history, music, dance, and of course languages and sports. Stuttgart’s Street University offers workshops in areas like cooking, handicrafts, sustainable living, creative projects, sport and wellness, and citizenship. You could also consider signing up for weekly classes at a local studio for art, dance, or yoga.
6. Participate in collaborative community events
Stuttgart is a large city that is also an assembly of former villages whose community life remains vibrant. Check your local town hall or village center for flyers about community offerings. These offer excellent opportunities to make local connections. Become a member of Nebenan.de to find activities taking place nearby and get to know your neighbors. You can also just try searching Facebook Events for collaborative activities like a Kochabend (cooking meetup), group hike, singalong, or volunteering opportunity in your area.