Do you Tinder while travelling?

Tinder can be a great way to find authentic local experiences while travelling. Photo / iStock

Swiping right while in another country could lead to more than just a date - it's also a great way to meet locals and stumble into experiences you'd never have otherwise.

Recent research from Topdeck Travel, which provides group tours for 18 to 30-year-olds, found that one in eight Millennial men were hoping to find a romantic partner while on vacation - and one in 11 postgraduate Millennials had done so.

Do you use Tinder while travelling? Tell us about your experiences

And it seems many young travellers are using Tinder to do just that - but it's not always used to find love, rather as a way to make new friends and take advantage of local knowledge.

Writing for Travel and Leisure, New York woman Allison P. Davis described her adventures "Tindering across Europe", with experiences ranging from lukewarm cuddle dates in London to the "best date ever" in Stockholm.

"My goal wasn't to get laid," she wrote. "I was more curious to see what Tinder could offer a single traveling woman besides just convenient sex."

While travelling in Los Angeles, she updated her profile to read "Here for a month, help me find the good tacos" - and while she said she had few dates, she had also "had eaten a lot of really excellent tacos".

Meeting local people on Tinder was a great way to facilitate "the other chief travel fantasy, experiencing a city as if it were your own," she wrote.

A thread on Reddit's travel subreddit collected the overseas Tinder experiences of many travellers - most of whom lauded the app's usefulness when it came to meeting locals

"In Southeast Asia I got a mix of people interested in meeting foreigners, those who use it to practice English, and prostitutes," one user wrote.

Another said that using Tinder in Hong Kong had led to them ending up at "some fashion party in Sai Ying Pun with free booze and food".

During a group tour of the Netherlands, one user said another member in his group made a joke about him "using Tinder to find a local girl to do my laundry as we were all running out of clean clothes and had no time to get them washed".

Oddly, this pitch seemed to work on one local woman and he met up with her and one of her co-workers with a big bag of laundry.

"It was a great time as we had a coffee and then went to her house and she actually did both of our laundry,"he wrote. "She took us on a tour of the city and had a great time hanging out with us for the next week when we went to dinner after work.

"Just a case of a joke turning into a really cool experience and Tinder oddly helped facilitate it."

A woman using Tinder in Russia had a different experience when she realised not everyone swiping through the pictures was a local.

"At least 80% of the guys swiping in Russian cities were located in far-away countries, just wanting to check out Russian girls from "7640 miles away", she wrote.

Tinder introduced a function called "Passport" last year, which allowed users to change their location and connect with people anywhere in the world.

Someone else wrote that overseas Tinder success depended on how long you stayed in a location.

"If you are spending a day or so in a city, chances are you won't have much luck," they wrote. "Girls don't spend as much time on the app so you'll get most matches just after you leave the city."

And another user wrote that while he used Tinder, "being gay, I find Grindr to be more helpful."

While the gay mobile dating app was typically used for hook-ups, he said "it's whatever you make of it."

"I mostly use it to find guys to go out for drinks, or see what bars are popular on whatever nights. Other than that, I don't tend to sleep around when I travel."

Another Reddit user agreed and said "one of the best parts about being gay is Grindr while travelling".

So it seems that swiping right on holiday can be very worthwhile - a new friend, or maybe more, could be just a plane ride away.

- nzherald.co.nz