Things to Do as a Couple in a New City

The first weeks in a new city are strange: everything is available and nothing is yours yet.

We’ve done this move a few times now. Boxes, then a long walk, then the slow realisation that we have no idea where to buy good bread. The tourist list gets you through the first fortnight. After that you need something else — repetition.

Find three places, not thirty

We stopped trying to see everything and picked three: a café for slow mornings, a green space for walks, and one place to eat that we could afford on a normal Tuesday. Going back to the same three turned a city into a neighbourhood faster than any list of landmarks.

Put yourself on a schedule

The thing that made the biggest difference was signing up for something with a fixed time. A weekly class, a sports club, a choir, a run group, a course that runs for six weeks. It doesn’t matter much what it is — it matters that it repeats and that you have to leave the flat.

Anagha joined a pottery course in one city purely because it was five minutes away. Two of the friendships from that room outlasted the mugs, which were genuinely bad.

Markets, small venues, local events

Saturday markets, a neighbourhood festival, a cinema that shows odd films, a bookshop that hosts readings, a bar quiz. Small local events are useful for two reasons: they tell you what kind of place you’ve moved to, and they’re easy to leave early.

Go with curiosity, not with the expectation of making friends by nine o’clock.

Do the boring exploring together

Some of our favourite memories of a new place are unremarkable: the tram to the end of the line, a hardware shop, a wrong turn onto a very good street. Being new is one of the few times a couple gets to be tourists at home. We try to enjoy it before it wears off.

And when it does wear off — usually around month four, when the city stops being an adventure and starts being where you live — the three places and the weekly thing are what stay.