I visited 10 communities in 30 days and got to experience how they operate and why people continue to show up, week after week.
And today, I’m going to run you through each community, why I even started this series, and the big takeaways I learned from this journey.
You’re going to see a constant theme throughout this read, that community is relatively simple, but very untapped and unexplored.
I hope this read not only inspires you to try and join different communities, but maybe just maybe, you start a community from a gap you see in your community.
Watch the series – HERE
Why Do This Series?
Going into 2026, I knew I wanted to do 2 things.
- Experience and learn about communities.
- Get outside my comfort zone.
Lucky for me, I had a conversation with one of my mentors, Austin, early in the year. And out of it came a challenge I never would have taken on without a push.
That challenge was exactly this series, “10 Communities in 30 Days”.
And once it was thrown my way, I was in. Not only would it push me into rooms I’d never walk into on my own, but I’d have to film, script, edit and post the whole journey. Which, if you know me, that part was the real mountain to climb.
Along the way I got to meet some great people, swing foam swords and get the spark for a community I want to build one day.
The 10 Communities
F3
F3 is a free, non-profit men’s workout group with locations all over the world. No coaches, no fees, no excuses.
To kick off the series, I led a 45-minute workout with 8 guys at 5:15 AM in 10-degree weather.
Here’s the honest truth: nobody showed up for the exercise. They showed up because they knew someone else would already be there.
The workout is the vehicle. The brotherhood is why they keep coming back, through moves, hardships, and life stuff well beyond the workout itself. Find yourself a workout location near you.
Watch me visit this community here
Trailside Trotters
Trailside Trotters is a local run club that meets every Tuesday at 6 PM on the Swamp Rabbit Trail. No membership fees, no coaches, just a word-of-mouth group that’s been showing up for 7 years straight.
In the last two years, they’ve never had fewer than 8 runners show up.
One trotter told me, “I know someone’s gonna be here, and I don’t want to leave them hanging.” That’s the thing about this crew, Tuesday became their ritual.
The fastest runners wait at the finish line for the slowest ones before anyone goes inside. That simple act, done by a dedicated few, is what turns a run club into a community.
Watch me visit this community here
Dinner Club
You take a personality test, pay $16, and show up to eat dinner with 5 strangers at a restaurant somewhere in the city.
Dinner runs from 6 to 7:30 PM. Then everyone heads to a secret after-party location.
I walked into that after-party, and there were 50+ people, all rocking name tags and warmed up from a great dinner somewhere across town. That’s when it clicked.
The dinner is why people show up. The after-party is why they keep coming back.
Watch me visit this community here
Community Art Crawl
Every first Friday, art galleries across Greenville stay open late from 5 to 9 PM. Taz (the group leader) didn’t plan the galleries or organize vendors; she just created a Meetup group so people could experience it together.
That’s it. A simple post, and 25 people showed up.
One guy told me he had walked through all the galleries the month before and didn’t enjoy it. He had no one to share it with.
My key lesson – you don’t need to build something from scratch to build community. Sometimes you just need to put a group around something already happening.
Watch me visit this community here
Park Cleanup
The city of Greenville hosts volunteer cleanups throughout the year at different parks. I signed up on a cold Saturday morning to rake grass trimmings and load them into a trailer.
Not glamorous. But a consistent group of people keeps showing up anyway.
One volunteer, Darren, has been coming for years. And what I noticed is that everyone here had the same reason for showing up beyond the task itself.
If you want to find your people, don’t ask what a community does. Ask why they do it.
Watch me visit this community here
LARPing w/ Bryxtons Belegarth
Foam swords, shields, bows and arrows mixed with 24 strangers in a public park.
The second my friend Matthew and I walked up, someone handed us gear and walked us through the rules on the spot. Not one person didn’t come introduce themselves.
One guy had lost 30 pounds this past year doing this. After running around swinging foam swords for a few hours, I completely understood why.
Before I went, almost everyone I told gave me a weird look. After experiencing it myself, they were completely wrong.
Watch me visit this community here
Chess Club
17 people showed up to play chess at a local coffee shop. It was the biggest turnout they’d ever seen, and I proceeded to lose every single game.
I went 0-2. I never really stood a chance against my now chess arch nemesis Roy.
But after each loss, Roy walked me through exactly where I went wrong. No condescension, just genuine care from someone who loves the game and wants others to love it too.
I found that the most serious people in the room were also the most generous with their time.
Watch me visit this community here
GVL Connect
This is a networking group that meets regularly around a different theme each time. I walked in expecting the basics, handshakes and business cards.
Then I was handed a name tag and asked to rate my loyalty from 0 to 100.
After 30 minutes of open networking, everyone sat down and the host opened the floor. What does loyalty mean to you? And immediately the room started sharing.
My big lesson here – you can elevate any gathering by giving it emotional weight. A theme, a question, something that makes people think beyond the handshake.
Watch me visit this community here
Dashunds Walk
35 dachshunds. Different types, different colors, different lengths. All waddling through Unity Park like they owned the place.
When I asked owners why they come every month, most of them said it wasn’t for themselves. A lot of these dachshunds were rescues, still figuring out the world, and their owners were showing up every month to give them what they needed.
Sometimes the reason a community exists has nothing to do with the people in it.
Watch me visit this community here
Pickleball Club
To end off the series, I went to a weekly pickleball meetup. No assigned courts, no one telling you where to go. You walk in, find a game, and you’re immediately part of it.
Something happens when you’re out there. You stop thinking about your to-do list, your inbox, everything. You’re just hitting a ball, talking trash, and trying not to step in the kitchen.
What I noticed is that a lot of the same faces here show up at the Monday run club, too. Greenville has this layer of people who just genuinely want to stay active and be around others doing the same.
You start to recognize them. You start to know who’s going to give you a good game and who’s going to make you laugh the whole time.
Watch me visit this community here
Big Community Takeaways
- The activity is just the vehicle. Every single community, whether it’s running, chess or foam swords, people weren’t there for the activity. They were there for the people around it.
- Consistency builds community more than anything else. Trailside Trotters, F3, Pickleball. No fancy branding, no big events. Just the same people showing up to the same place at the same time.
- Don’t judge a community from the outside. LARPing is the obvious one, but it applies everywhere. You have to walk in before you form an opinion.
- You don’t need to build something from scratch. Taz proved it with the Art Crawl. Find something already happening and put a group around it.
- Ask why people show up, not what they’re doing. The park cleanup people weren’t there to rake grass. The dachshund owners weren’t there for themselves. The reason behind the activity tells you everything about the people you’ll find there.
Conclusion
If you read all the way to the end, it’s clear you’re either passionate about a community you’re in, or trying to find one of your own.
For those still searching, in the next 10 days, this is how you’re going to find your community.
- Who do you want to surround yourself with (Motivated, Scientific, Athletic)? This is the most important question. Find the people first, the activity will follow.
- What do you like to do (puzzles, reading, working out)? The activity is just the vessel, but it still has to be something you enjoy.
- Look at your current circle and identify who you want to become. Reverse engineer from there.
- Research Time:
- Go to Meetup.com and do some scrolling, you will be surprised from what you find.
- Ask ChatGPT, feed it the above answers, and ask it to locate communities in a 20-mile radius of your zipcode.
- Google Search – You will start to see themes and common clubs from the above two, but hopping on Google and searching “Communities near me” will feed you even more the algo doesn’t pick.
- Pick 3, and visit them all in the next 10 days.
- Nothing stuck? Build your own.
Wanna chat about your community journey? Give me a call or an email.
At This Point In Time:
Age: 21
Location: Greenville, South Carolina
Job: Southern Tide