18 year old solo traveler. Would you allow this?

Love how people offer helpful advice without reading the OP and updates.

What do you mean would you allow it, OP?

He is 18 and you don't get any say in anything like this anymore. Deal with it.

Honestly he’ll be fine. Just get insurance and drum it into him about pickpockets and looking after his stuff. My DC went to South America alone at 18. I was cacking it but they had an amazing time and came back so much more mature and confident.

Personally I'd suggest you offer to pay for him to go on an organised group trip to start him off. My DC does these and they're fantastic, an excellent soft launch into travelling where he could meet new people and find his feet. Some of the trips are a month long. When he'd done that he could have a plan A to continue travelling if he enjoyed it, or a plan B to come home.

That looks great.

Let him go! My son took a gap year and travelled for five months and really came out of his shell. The best thing he did was teaching in Thailand for two months through Gotoco. They paid airfare, accommodation and food. We know quite a few people who’ve travelled with them and they all had a great time including young female solo travellers. https://www.go-to.co

As I said before, he's too immature and vulnerable.

You can’t get more civilised than the Scandinavian countries. I think you could say that if he were to initially get a job in the UK and save £x then you would match that sum. I wouldn’t be fully funding it.

Where is he hoping to travel? That is relevant.

I'd let him travel alone. Youth Hostels are great places to meet other people.
Encourage him to spread his wings and fly.

He's not going to be a zillion miles away, so could get back if he needs to. I would probably pay the premium for tickets that can be changed if he wants to stay a bit longer or if he's lonely and wants to come home.

Any sort of organisation tour will be much more expensive and likely to be a much older generation.

Wish him a happy holiday. I do wish I'd traveled more alone when I was young. I either didn't have the confidence or the money to do it.

Getting a job would increase confidence and get some experience of real life before uni.

My mom has anxiety, passed it to me and I’m passing it to my sons despite best efforts not to.

One of the things I am most grateful to my mom for is not letting her anxiety stop me from travelling when I was ready. I took all her cautious thinking with me - I was a very careful traveller - but being all round the world on my own changed the course of my life for the better. I was in Chile, India, China, South Africa. It’s a big world and I was a young woman on her own and I was absolutely fine.

Time to let your boy fly, with your blessing. He will thank you for keeping your anxiety your own to the greatest extent possible as he goes.

Op, I have done it at 18 and I was fine. There isn't really much that can happen if you stick to walking around during the day in areas where there is people and not go walking in the woods at night or something! And anything that goes wrong, like getting lost/getting on the wrong transport or whatever is not the end of the world and is good for character building.

If he is looking for cheap options to travel, I used workaway and trusted housitters.

I also second him doing it with Contiki or similar just the first time. Maybe a 2-3 week one to get used to it and come back and debrief?

Let him research and decide on itinerary, advise rather than insist.

Try and avoid arranging regular times for him to contact you , also, don't pester him to ring you rather than text. He's an adult now, having had what sounds like a small and possibly lonely upbringing, he needs to live a bit. Avoid any kind of emotional blackmail such as "I'll never sleep, I'll be crying with worry if you don't ring me every day " etc etc.

I'd also ensure that if, which is v unlikely, anything unpleasant happens, such as money stolen, food poisoning etc etc you don't react in a "i told you the world is dangerous, come home at once" way, but in a " thats awful, how are u sorting it... great, enjoy rest of your holiday" way.

And congratulations to you, it's a great experience for him to have before moving away to university.

He may then make friends that he can travel further with 😊

Could you look at some overseas summer schools which might be a bit more structured and offer support / friends? https://www.summerschoolsineurope.eu/

He’s 18 so you can’t really tell him what to do but if sounds like you’re paying? So perhaps you agree to pay for an organised element of the trip. You’ll have to trust him though, and it sounds like he needs the life experience.

How about an internship with a charity?

How about an internship with a charity?

Good for him - and good for you for enabling him to.

All very out of your comfort zone, ofc, but watch him fly.

18's young ofc, and you'll need to guide him about his street smarts and general awareness of how to do things etc, but we all live and learn.

Solo travelling is a fairly big thing tbh...and there are apps that will get people together...he'll find them.

i.e. solo poeple can chat on line before they arrive in a certain destination on a certain date and then maybe arrange to stay in the same place, or meet up to explore/socialise - all very doable these days.

He's young, so just be sensible and make sure he's aware and watches his safety ofc, but It'll be good for both of you, I'd say.

Again, props to you for encouraging and advising.

For "allow" read "fund" - the OP obviously can yay or nay whatever she likes as she is paying for it.

Going interrailing or going on a Contiki tour is a really good way to get started if you've never travelled before. I did a Contiki tour from the west to east coast of America and loved it.