Daughter travelling from Oz to Europe solo!

[wawawawawa]

My daughter 21 is heading to London for her big adventure this year. She’s going on her own and is starting off with a contiki highlights tour of Europe. I’m trying to encourage her to stay for an extra 6 weeks or so and try out the whole backpacking experience but she’s nervous because she doesn’t know if she will make friends to travel around with while she’s there.
Does anyone have any advice or tips I can give her to encourage her to take the plunge?
Her return date could always be changed if she wants to come home early and I would happily pay for it if needed.
Also are there websites that sell off last minute tours cheap that I could put her onto?
She will have saved around the equivalent of £4000 to spend for the last month or so that she goes it alone. Would that be enough?
Any absolute must do places for her to add to the list would be great too!
She’s travelling to London, a week in London, 16 day contiki tour and then she has a tentative return date for 9th September.
Ta

Oh mine did that too! she’s 21 now and did it just after she turned 18. Travelled from Brisbane by herself, is a shy and quiet, doesn’t drink heaps so the contiki was a bit of an eye opener for her, some drunk a LOT! However all the others on the tour were really good and considered her a “baby”, she made friends with a Korean girl with a similar personality and they are in touch to this day.

Mine started contiki the day after she flew into Vienna, it went for about 3-4 weeks I think. Then she spent a week alone in London after it. That was a good way of doing it as the contiki gave her confidence to do London alone afterwards. She stayed in contiki budget accommodation in London, they have lots of helpful info about where to go etc. if you can swap it so she does contiki first that might be better. Mine did London alone but she likes her own company and is slow to bond with strangers, and her contiki friend had to return to Korea.

Mine was so so so upset to come home and would be back there now except for covid. She also did wish she had planned a longer trip but for various reasons could only go for 5 weeks at that time.

If you want to know where she stayed in London I can check with her, let me know.

@NightLight2 Your daughter sounds so much like mine! My girl is quiet and shy until she gets to know you and then is a friend for life.

I would love to know where she stayed in London! It’s great to hear she made a friend to hang out with on the contiki, that’s what I’m hoping for for my DD. Did your DD and her Korean friend share together?

She booked the extra week before just in case of covid quarantine changes.

All her friends in Australia have boyfriends and aren’t great at saving so she’s just decided what the hell it’s now or never and decided to go on her own.

Sure, I’ll check with her re London accommodation name. She did end up sharing with her South Korean friend, they just bonded on the trip so it worked out well. Also, she’s stayed in the odd youth hostel here (Sydney kings cross was the worst example) and I remember her saying the contiki accommodation thru Europe was heaps better, all budget obviously but nice places unlike Sydney.

@wawawawawa ok she can’t recall the name of the hotel but she said it was a 5 min walk to green square station, and was the contiki base hotel there, if your daughter checks with contiki they’d probably know which one that is. 😁

She’ll meet loads of people on the contiki tour and will probably make plans with them. Those tours seem quite the bonding experience. I was working in London when a friend from home did one and then visited me in London and frankly she was unbearable she was so obsessed with her contiki friends 🤣 But on the plus side, I didn’t have to worry about her being in London on her own - she made loads of friends and kept in touch with them for years.

I did the same at 18 (am 33 now). Contiki and worked in London for 6 months made some amazing friends and now there are so many more social supports to make friends etc

@tcjotm - I am so hoping that she will make a Contiki friend group! She has really come out of her shell since leaving high school.

Should she apply for the young person working visa in case she wants to stay even longer or is it something she can do from the uk if she decides to stay on?

Open top bus tour is a good way of seeing Central London, also makes you realise how close everything is in a way that taking the tube doesn't. If she wanted to stay on a bit longer and work for 6 months, au pairs are in great demand since Brexit and that would give her a place to stay and some spending money. Hospitality are also crying out for staff but the pay is so low it wouldn't fund much fun stuff.

I planned to do something similar, but my contiki tour got cancelled due to lack of numbers so I just went straight to London and got a job to fund weekend trips to Europe (much harder/impossible to do now with covid testing and isolating requirements). Anyway just be aware that everything could be in place and then conitiki could cancel so be ready to be flexible (and get great travel insurance with good covid cover!)

Ah, sorry, I’m not sure about the visa situation as I am a British citizen. But I’m sure there’s loads of information online.

Also just to say that was nearly 20 years ago and I'm still in London so be careful what you wish for

@Kingstonmumof1 she will be totally devastated if her contiki gets cancelled. I hadn’t thought about au pair work - she doesn’t have experience working with children so it might be worthwhile seeking some employment in childcare before she heads over. She currently works in retail but has worked in a sports club (didn’t like it though) and of course McDonalds as a teenager.
I am secretly terrified that she will want to stay forever or fall in love and not come back but on the other hand it’s an experience that I never got to do and I know she will have an amazing, life changing time. She’s my best friend as well as my daughter so I would miss her so terribly much if she doesn’t come home to Australia again.
The open bus tour sounds great. Definitely added to the must do list!

@tcjotm she’s lucky that my Dad is British so she can get an ancestry visa and future permanent residency if she wanted it. I hope she doesn’t though because I’d miss her too much!