What’s Victoria Coach station like? Can a reasonably savvy 14 year old manage a coach change there without getting overwhelmed/lost/abducted by aliens?

[TheBramley]

I’ve never been there so I don’t know what it’s like, but how difficult can it be to get off one coach and onto another? She’s a bright kid but nervous about ‘getting something wrong’ and hasn’t really had to navigate anything other than local buses thus far. I could do the first half if she insists, but it seems a bit daft.

When DH was at boarding school, he used to catch the train from his school into Charing Cross. He then caught the tube to Victoria and walked to the coach station to catch a coach to Heathrow. He then checked in and caught a plane home.

Family members of mine did similar - public coach from school town to Gatwick, plane home. I think the oldest was older than eleven when they started doing it independently, but he had younger siblings with him.

When my mother was 14 onwards she regularly was put on a train in London to Dover, got on a ferry, then got on the night train to Lyon, where she was picked up by her French exchange’s family.

From aged 13 I was taken to Heathrow to get on a plane to Brittany to stay with mine.

I had no idea this was in any way remarkable until MN.

I use it all the time to travel on the overnight bus between Glasgow and London, I just got home this morning and I've never had a problem there, or the area between there and Victoria Tube.
I honestly didn't know until now it was considered confusing or unsafe!

I could tell you all about a journey my mum did in wartime when she was no more than 15. (Think along the lines of the chorus to the song Oh Mr Porter.)

Yeah, there's very strict rules on driver's hours and breaks. They're monitored electronically by equipment on board the coach, and if the rules are broken, the consequences are very serious.

Some people are incredibly scared of doing normal everyday stuff, which is now arguably easier and safer than it ever was. When I was a kid, trains sometimes had individual compartments with no corridors - a few of these survived until the early 90s - and people got murdered in them.

There's now a lot more security, much better information provision, and if you run into trouble, it's far easier to get help.

Agreed.

But you don't see many unaccompanied 14 year olds at Victoria Coach Station. At 14 I went on the tube on my own, but navigating an international bus station where some buses depart outside, whilst having luggage etc might be unnecessarily daunting, unless you've done a dummy run with an adult.

There's pretty much always unaccompanied teens on the megabus I use, and that's 8 hour overnight buses.
It's not that big a station, there's a big board detailing all of the departure gates and then screens at each gate, and there's always plenty of people around.

Yes but this is about navigating the bus station as opposed to travelling on the bus.
OP's daughter is only 14.

How do you think the teens I see manage to get on the bus?
It's one big board at the main entrance, it's honestly not difficult, and it's smaller than all of the London train stations.

I believe OP would "put" her on the bus but that the teen would travel alone

It's possible that the teens you see are "put" on the bus/have done a "dummy" run/are Londoners/are possibly older than 14

Only OP can decide

In the daytime if she is sensible and reasonably street smart she will cope fine.
She should be aware of phone snatching.

I know OP has decided their plan of action, but I have a FLIXBUS ticket Victoria-Bristol airport with clear indications and walking instructions as to bay number, journey times, any changes to make etc.
We then looked on YouTube and somebody had posted their same journey.
18yo DD (not London) feels confident about doing it alone in the daylight.
All for £6.50.
You wouldn’t get that price on the train!

I do think teenagers are getting less capable.

I don’t think they’re getting less capable they’re just getting more helicopter parented.

True.

When I was 12 in the 1980s I was put in a taxi at boarding school in my uniform.. At Bristol Parkway I got on the train and changed out of uniform. At Paddington I used my taxi money to buy magazines. I then got tube to Liverpool Street and train to Ipswich where my parents picked me up.

A lot of parents seem to think it's necessary to terrifying their kids into thinking that everyday tasks are horrifically unsafe, which is, of course, nonsense.

Bad things happen, sure, but they happen incredibly rarely, and Britain is generally a very safe country with low crime levels. The past isn't generally better than the present for personal safety - as I mentioned earlier, people used to get murdered in closed compartments on trains, one of those murders from the late 80s remaining unsolved. Modern trains are far more secure, with CCTV, and more visible staff on board, communication systems, and are generally busier than they were in the past at most times of day. We also all have phones, providing much more accurate information, travel advice, and an ability to communicate with family etc when we're held up. All of these things make it perfectly possible for any kid of secondary school age to undertake public transport journeys safely.

One of my mum's classmates was murdered by a paedophile in 1949, so the rose-tinted view we have of the past is frequently a fantasy.

I don't think it's dangerous, but potentially very stressful if you don't know the area.