[Throwaway90283]

Use couchsurfing, and search for hosts that 'want to meet up', and were online in the past week. There are tons of people interesting in showing travelers their city, so send them messages. Or, check the couchsurfing forums and meetups. It's usually just a bunch of locals and travelers grabbing drinks. Popular cities have hundreds of people attending and daily events, while less popular cities might have 5 or 10 people getting together for drinks once a week. There are always new people at every meetup, so you'll fit right in showing up at the pub alone and joining the group.

Or, if you're staying somewhere for a few months, then offer couchsurfers a couch to sleep on. People are always passing through, so you give an interesting person your couch for a couple of nights, and discover the city with them.

It's made my travels a lot more fun, and I now pick places to live that are popular on couchsurfing because it's that much easier to meet people.