one less stranger.

by victoria comment

geronimo balloons.

happy new year, you guys! i’m just popping in briefly today to say i hope your year is beginning beautifully. one of my intentions for the new year is to put myself out there in the world a bit more, try new adventures and meet and make new friends. airbnb has a really lovely social media campaign to make #onelessstranger in the world, and they gave me $10 to try and meet new friends. so i asked jihan of geronimo balloons if she’d like to join me in giving out a few balloons to complete strangers in her echo park neighborhood and see if we could meet some great people.

we did indeed meet some wonderful people — an echo park shop owner; a lovely couple walking their dog; a sweet older gentleman who’d lived in the neighborhood for many, many years; some mad scientists; and a wonderful guy on a motorcycle who shared his favorite childhood memory with us. i’d say the experiment was quite the success — due in no small part to jihan and geronimo balloons!

if you’d like to do something fun and creative to meet a stranger in the world and share your experience, you can post your images to instagram or your social network, and be sure and tag it #onelessstranger — it’s a nice way to get 2015 off to a very good start. you can also view some of the great and really friendly ways people have contributed to #onelessstranger right here. happy 2015, y’all!! here’s to a few less strangers and a friend-filled year!

this post in partnership with airbnb, but all thoughts and opinions are my own. thank you for supporting the businesses that bring you fresh content from sfgirlbybay every day.