What is reasonable. DS 25 going solo travelling.

I think once a week should be enough - he’s 25 !

It really isn't

I think at 25 you can't really expect or enforce much.

I travelled Asia for best part of a year when I was 18/19 on my own. Didn't have a phone and couldn't never find the @ sign on computers so didn't bother sending emails from internet cafes.

I was ok. And I think my mum was ok too.

My son is 26 and went travelling in SE Asia for 8 months. He then met a girl from NZ, fell in love & they are living together in Melbourne (going to visit them at Xmas!) We have a family WhatsApp group & also I speak to him on our private one regularly. While he was travelling around he would check in every couple of days or so to send pics & tell us his adventures. I guess all families are different but we are very close & as long I knew he was safe I was fine with not hearing from him for a few days. Your son will have an amazing experience so chill - just ask him to keep you up to date as he moves around so you know roughly where he is… or if he is happy letting you add him to location tracker on your iPhone that helps…

It’s an extended holiday. It’s not going to ruined by send in your mother a good morning text.

Caring for someone doesn't equate to worrying about them.

It's not more caring to assume bad things are happening to someone because you are not in touch with them. When my adult children don't contact me for a while, I assume they are having too good a time to be calling home.

Well no, he really shouldn't be "hitting his parents up" for money for a holiday.

I wouldn't have even considered asking my Mum to fund my holidays at 25.

He probably should be looking seriously at moving out but presumably he's not working if he can just take off for several weeks and that's also not OK at 25.

He's living like a 18 yo on a gap year and you're treating him as such, but he's 7 years too late!

Not a chance.

If my mum had asked me to do this when I was 18, I would have laughed at her. Never mind 25.

You can’t really set out how often he contacts you and you shouldn’t. You can remind him to keep in touch, and if you haven’t heard from him for a while (7 days maybe), fire off a quick ‘been having fun?’ WhatsApp. Just brief.
Do not set a routine, i.e. every Saturday because you will worry unnecessarily if he forgets.
This is an exciting adventure he’s going on. Big part of travelling is immersing yourself in the countries and really forgetting about ‘real life’ for a bit. I know it’s hard but he won’t want mundane chat, if he does he’ll let you know.
He’ll know you’ll be worrying about him so hopefully he’ll keep in touch a few times over the 6 weeks to put your mind at rest.

You're being ridiculous now.

They live at home at 25 now because the housing market has been destroyed by previous (your) generation and they can't afford to buy or even rent, not because they have suddenly became less able to mature.

I like how after your earlier denial of being patronising, you post this reply

OP, I haven't RTFT, but have read your responses. My godson did something similar (Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam etc solo at 22) and we - family/friends had a WhatsApp group, as has been mentioned before. If this is something he would consider, it's a great way of him contacting lots of people at once, and sharing photos.
He and his parents had an agreement that he would respond to their call/text within 48 hours, but that they would only call/text if it was an emergency, or there'd been no contact from him in 48 hours. That gave him 4 days, with a 'nudge' halfway through.
As it happens, there were far more messages from him than we expected, and he let us know in advance if he was going 'off radar' for a few days, so people didn't worry. He is a very personable extrovert though, so loved sharing his adventures and receiving jealous responses!

@DizzyDucklings at his age I was off on mountaineering trips and would send my DDad a text every couple of days as I knew otherwise he would think I'd fallen down a crevasse.

I ask mine to send a picture regularly and then I see the sights and know they are ok

I'd been living abroad for 2 years by the time I was 25, and I phoned home about every 2 weeks (this was last century, and I guess the world was a different place, but you know...)

Not unreasonable to get a tracker on his phone……..useful if he loses it too as well as you being able see where he is. Agree on a timetable for FaceTiming too…….this might sound a bit overbearing but believe me, when you’ve had an AC go missing abroad it scares you to the core until you hear from them.

He knows all that though. Do you realistically think you repeating it is going to make a difference? You’re just telling him to make yourself feel better! (And I do exactly the same tbh - but I recognise it’s for my benefit not theirs!)

I wouldn’t impose any sort of schedule - but I guess in my mind I’d be worrying if there’d been no response to a ‘How’s it going?’ WhatsApp after a week, or it had been unread for more than a few days.

Remember it may not always be easy to charge a phone, and signal may be patchy.

I went to South America at 24 and I spoke to my mother every day. She didn’t ask me to, she would just send me messages and I’d reply. I can’t see anything wrong with sending him a WhatsApp every day asking what he’s up to. Even if he doesn’t reply immediately you’ll see he’s seen it. I wouldn’t make a big deal of it, just casually message him as you would if he was in the UK.

With my son's consent we installed Life 360, a tracker. It gave us peace of mind and removed any expectations [hopes!] of regular communication from him. I did of course contact him regularly but didn't [tried not to] stress about the lack of reciprocal communication.

Surely you can’t ask for any contact. He’s an adult.

25??? 25?? I'm struggling here...I was married with 2 kids at 25 (I'm now 38 for context). Time to cut the apron strings...!

I'd ask him to try and check in every week if he's able, but tell him not to worry if he can't.

Same, I went travelling in SE Asia for a few months at that age and I think I sent my mum one or two emails from an internet cafe, I didn’t take a mobile phone.