Best Erasmus Cities for Solo Students (2026)

What actually matters when you go on Erasmus alone

A city can be beautiful, cheap and well-connected and still be lonely. When you arrive without a ready-made group, a different set of variables takes over — and these are the seven we scored every city on.

• Making friends — how quickly a newcomer gets absorbed into an existing group, and whether locals mix with exchange students or keep to school-friend circles.
• International community size — a large, permanent pool of exchange students means you are never the only new person in the room.
• ESN activity — a strong local ESN section runs a welcome week, weekly meet-ups, trips and a buddy/mentor programme. This is the single highest-leverage factor for a solo arrival.
• Student life — student housing, campus bars, sports clubs and societies that let you meet people repeatedly rather than once.
• Safety — walking home alone at night without thinking about it changes how much you actually go out.
• Social atmosphere — cities where life happens on squares, terraces and riverbanks beat cities where it happens behind closed doors.
• English friendliness — how far you get in shops, admin offices and casual conversation before your local language catches up.

The ranking below weights making friends, international community and ESN activity most heavily, because those three decide your first three weeks — and your first three weeks decide most of the semester.

The 10 best Erasmus cities for solo students in 2026

1. Valencia — the friendliest place to land alone

Valencia is our top pick for solo students because everything about it is low-friction. The city is flat, walkable and built around outdoor life: the Turia park, the beach at Malvarrosa and the Ruzafa terraces are all default meeting points where showing up alone is normal. Erasmus numbers are enormous relative to the size of the city, so you are constantly around other people in exactly your situation.

ESN Valencia is one of the most active sections in Spain, with a proper welcome week, weekly language exchanges and cheap weekend trips. Spanish helps a lot socially, but you will manage the first months in English while you improve. Add a budget most students can sustain and you get a city where going alone barely feels like a risk.

2. Prague — the biggest international bubble in Central Europe

Prague has one of the densest concentrations of exchange students in Europe, and an entire social infrastructure built around them: international dorms, English-taught courses, hostel-style meet-ups and an ESN calendar that never really stops. If your worry is 'what if nobody talks to me', Prague answers it by volume.

English gets you everywhere in the centre, the city is safe late at night and public transport runs after hours, which matters more than people expect when you are heading home on your own. The trade-off is that it is easy to spend the whole semester inside the international bubble and barely meet Czech students.

3. Bologna — a real student city, not a city with students in it

Bologna hosts the oldest university in the world and behaves like it: the entire city centre is organised around student life. Piazza Verdi and the porticoes work as an open-air common room, and because locals are students too, the mixing between Italians and internationals is far better than in bigger Italian cities.

For a solo arrival this matters enormously — you are not restricted to Erasmus-only events. Some Italian is needed for daily life and paperwork, but student circles switch to English easily. Compared with Rome or Florence, Bologna feels less touristy and much more like a community you can join.

4. Lisbon — huge community, very high English friendliness

Lisbon combines one of Europe's largest Erasmus populations with a country where almost everyone under 40 speaks good English. That removes the usual first-month friction: you can sort a flat, a phone contract and a gym membership without a word of Portuguese while still being welcomed when you try.

Nightlife is street-based in Bairro Alto and Cais do Sodré, which is ideal when you are new — you drift between groups rather than needing an invitation. Housing is the weak point: start looking early, and consider a shared flat over a studio precisely because flatmates are the fastest social shortcut there is.

5. Budapest — ruin bars make meeting people effortless

Budapest has an unusually welcoming format for solo students: ruin bars are big, chaotic, multi-room spaces where conversations start by accident. ESN Budapest is very well organised, and the low cost of living means you can say yes to every trip and dinner in the first month, which is exactly when saying yes pays off.

Hungarian is not a language you will learn in a semester, so plan on English socially. The city is safe, the metro is efficient, and the international student population is large enough that there is a meet-up almost every night.

6. Ghent — the safest, most English-friendly small city

Ghent is the pick for solo students who find giant cities intimidating. It is compact, extremely safe, and almost everyone speaks excellent English, so you are never stuck. Student life is concentrated: the same faces appear in the same bars along the Graslei week after week, and familiarity turns into friendship faster than in a metropolis.

Belgian students are famously sociable during the academic year, and the university's club and society structure gives you a reason to show up regularly. Budgets are higher than in Central Europe, but transport costs almost nothing because you will cycle everywhere.

7. Krakow — safe, cheap and socially generous

Krakow scores extremely well on safety and affordability, and Polish students are notably welcoming to internationals. Kazimierz is the social heart: dozens of small bars within a few streets, cheap enough that you can go out several times a week on a tight budget.

ESN Krakow runs regular trips (the mountains are two hours away) which is a strong shortcut for solo students — a weekend away in week three does more for your friend group than a month of classes.

8. Porto — warm, walkable and easy in English

Porto is smaller and calmer than Lisbon but keeps the same advantages: friendly locals, widely spoken English and a student scene tightly packed into a walkable centre. Nights along the Douro and in the Galerias de Paris area are informal and cheap.

The exchange community is big enough to guarantee company and small enough that you recognise people after two weeks — a balance that suits students who want friends rather than crowds.

9. Ljubljana — small, extremely safe, unusually kind

Ljubljana is one of the safest capitals in Europe and one of the easiest to navigate alone. English is excellent across the student population, the centre is car-free and everything happens along the river. Metelkova gives it an alternative edge that keeps it from feeling sleepy.

The international community is smaller than in Prague or Lisbon, which means fewer events but tighter groups — a genuine advantage if crowded scenes exhaust you.

10. Vienna — structured, safe and full of internationals

Vienna is consistently ranked among the world's most liveable cities and has an enormous international population, so being a foreigner is completely unremarkable. Public transport is superb and safe at any hour, and the ESN section is highly organised.

Viennese social life is slightly more formal and slower to open than in southern Europe, so friendships take a few weeks longer — but they tend to be durable. Budget accordingly: Vienna sits well above the Central European average.

How to build a friend group in your first two weeks

The city matters, but your first fortnight matters more. Solo students who follow roughly this pattern almost never end up isolated.

• Arrive before the welcome week, not after. The groups that last all semester form in those five days. Missing them costs you months.
• Sign up for the ESN buddy/mentor programme the moment applications open — it hands you a local contact and a group before you land.
• Choose a shared flat over a studio. Flatmates are the highest-return social decision you will make, and they come with their own networks.
• Say yes for 14 days straight. Every dinner, every trip, every awkward mixer. You can be selective in October; in September you are building the pool.
• Join one non-Erasmus activity — a sports club, a choir, a climbing gym, a language tandem. It is the only reliable way to meet local students.
• Take the first ESN trip. Twenty hours on a bus with strangers is the fastest friendship accelerator in the Erasmus playbook.

Safety and English friendliness, honestly assessed

Both factors are frequently exaggerated in either direction online. In practice: Ljubljana, Ghent, Vienna and Krakow are the cities where solo students report the least worry about walking home late. Larger destinations like Barcelona, Rome and Madrid are safe in terms of violent crime but demand standard big-city awareness about pickpocketing in nightlife areas and on transport.

On language: Portugal, Belgium, the Netherlands, Slovenia and the Nordics are genuinely comfortable in English, including with administration. Spain, Italy, France, Poland, Czechia and Hungary are comfortable in English socially but not always at the bank, the town hall or the doctor. Budget a few hours for a beginner language course — it is also, conveniently, a room full of other new arrivals.

Which of these fits you specifically

• Want the maximum number of people in your situation: Prague, Lisbon, Valencia.
• Want to actually meet local students: Bologna, Ghent, Krakow.
• Want to feel safe above all: Ljubljana, Vienna, Ghent.
• Want to survive comfortably in English: Lisbon, Porto, Ghent, Ljubljana.
• Want a low budget so you can say yes to everything: Krakow, Budapest, Valencia.

Still torn? Run the City Finder quiz to get a personalised ranking based on your own priorities, then put your two finalists side by side in Compare Cities to see budgets, ratings and student quotes next to each other.