Hot Girl Walk Chile: the project to make friends while walking

The word that defines Maite, Ivannia, and Any’s friendship is “connect.” This same word would later become the driving force behind his project. Hot girl walks in Chile (@hotgirlwalkchile on Instagram), a space for Women can meet other women and thus form new friendships, network or simply connect with someone different from their close circle.

“I have a problem and that is that I like to make friends all over the world,” she says straight away. Maité Espinoza (27) head of foreign trade in a mining sector service company and one of the founders of Hot girl walks in Chile . “Seven years ago, I went to a makeup workshop. My mission was to meet people who had the same tastes as mine, but I didn’t meet any girls in the class. Any was taking photos and I loved her atmosphere. I went to talk to him and we stayed talking until the end. The next week I invited her to my birthday,” Maite recalls of the beginning of her friendship with Any Martinez , also founder of the initiative. “I had just arrived in Chile from Venezuela and I had few friends. “Maite adopted me into her group for her birthday and it stayed in my heart forever,” says Any (29), photographer and owner of the photography studio. @magnetiquestudio.cl .

At first, Maite and Any saw each other once or twice a year, but they always stayed in touch through social media. However, They managed to form a friendship driven by their same interests and tastes. In July 2022, a third member arrived in the group, with whom they immediately clicked. “I was on TikTok and a live stream of Ivannia came up. He talked about the signs of the zodiac and I really like that. I went to his profile and watched all the videos of the process of creating his podcast. I said, ‘This mine wants to be big and I want to be with these people,’ so at the same time live I told him I was going to buy him a coffee and that’s what I did. Then I introduced her and Any, because I knew the three of us could put something together, even if we didn’t really know what,” Maite recalls.

“During that first coffee with Maite, I thought about how we had never met before, because we liked the same things and had similar dreams. That someone recognized me for my personal podcast project was very nice,” says Ivannia Vanni (24), creator and host of White Dragon Podcast (@whitedragonpodcast ), graduate in audiovisual direction, producer and the last of the founders of Hot Girl Walk Chile.

Earlier this year, Maite traveled to Miami and attended one of the Hot Girl Walk Miami, an example where several women who normally walk alone come together to do it together and, at the same time, meet new people. “During this walk I met some very interesting people. I told the organizers in Miami that I wanted to replicate this here and mentioned the idea to Ivannia and Any. They were extremely excited. The same day we created the Instagram, graphics and possible dates,” says Maite.

The first march took place at the end of March this year. About fifteen women arrived at the Bicentennial Park where they walked for about forty minutes, then stopped for a coffee and finally sat in a circle on the grass to chat.

To guide the conversation, they used cards that Ivannia made and uses in her podcast, which contain different, more direct questions to get to know people better. “It’s specific questions, like ‘Tell me the story of your first hug or your first love,’ ‘What’s the best comment anyone’s ever made to you?’ or “Do you believe in destiny?”, which help people to open up and let go,” explains Ivannia. “It’s nice to see that the same girls tag each other on Instagram stories when they meet up, go out take a walk, have a coffee or even, on the same day of a walk, go for lunch together later,” he adds.

The video they posted on TikTok explaining what the appeal was about went viral and for the next march, more than 80 women arrived at the Providencia Sculpture Park. “It was impressive, we were shocked because we covered almost all of Andrés Bello between us. We thought it was something we should continue to do,” Any recalls.

So far there have been nine versions of this meeting, including one in Viña del Mar, since their followers asked them to extend the initiative to the fifth region, in which some women from Santiago also participated. “We wanted to create a safe space for us all to share, network, talk about manifestation, the law of attraction and all those things. Having created this community allows us to inspire girls to create things. It’s not only an opportunity to make friends, but also to encourage each other to do different things. When we hear them talk about their projects, it’s an ecstasy for us, like seeing the same faces again during other walks,” says Any.

“On the second march, I asked who had a hard time making the decision to go and several raised their hands. They made it a personal challenge to attend, as a promise to themselves. Many people have realized after the pandemic how difficult it can be to socialize. In this case, many new mothers and foreign women said that it is necessary to open their circle. The dynamic of the questions we use is not to give an opinion, but to listen, because it is a space of confinement. We recognize the need for people to tell their stories. Listening to other people’s perspectives can be very healing, because sometimes you see yourself identified in someone else’s story,” Ivannia emphasizes.

For Maite, the point of intentionally expanding the social circle is “because we are less satisfied with what we have. Maybe we already have a group of friends, but we also want other perspectives and other types of conversations. We deserve friends with similar interests.

Gabrielle Salgado (26 years old) is Venezuelan and has lived in Chile for five years. Between her work as administrator of back office From an office, a skincare product saleswoman and her eyelash addition startup, she doesn’t have much free time left to meet new people. She attended the second Hot Girl Walk, which was attended by 80 people. “I was nervous. I feel like my social skills have diminished significantly, because I haven’t talked a lot or spent a lot of time with people in a while. I was scared, we always have this afraid of not being liked. I arrived 15 minutes early and met Ivannia and Maite. Then the other girls arrived, for me it was easier to greet them as they arrived rather than greeting several people at once,” says Gabrielle.

After this meeting, he stayed in touch on Instagram with some of the participants. Since then, she has been on almost every Hot Girl Walk call and on each one she has made good friends: “I try to be the friend I would like them to be with me, so I react to Instagram stories, I respond to their photos to keep in touch. I really liked this initiative because I realized that I am not the only one to experience this desire to meet people, to expand my circle of friends. It’s a space of containment in which we all feel safe to be ourselves.

The Argentine Flor Felizia (31 years old) came to Chile for two months to complete a training course as part of her medical specialization in gynecology and obstetrics. The first week he downloaded Tinder where he met a girl who had discovered Hot Girl Walk through a friend and told her about the walks. So Flor was encouraged to attend a meeting: “I really enjoyed this morning. It helped me meet new people, make friends, listen and share my own experiences. I thank the girls for this initiative, because it is super enriching, especially for those of us who are new to the country. That day, I returned home happy, with new friends who, after this meeting, got together to get to know each other better.