Kirstie Allsop's 15 Year Old Son

[ImAFemaleVersionOfRoyKeane]

Kirstie Allsop has just posted on X (Twitter) that her 15 year old son has just returned from inter-railing around Europe.

He was accompanied by his 16 year old friend.

AIBU to think this is too young?

These situations may seem OK but at that age they think they are invincible, so they can be impulsive and not make the best decisions, especially when something goes wrong!

Unnecessarily bitchy.

Unless meeting family who would be responsible for them it would be a firm 'no' from me. I don't know the rules where they are travelling but if something went wrong in the UK for a 15 year old unaccompanied traveller it would be quite complex, eg, if they lost their passport, needed medical treatment, had to deal with police, needed accommodation etc how would this be managed?

I went inter-railing just after my 16th birthday with a 17 year old German friend. ( my exchange) . We had a great time, spent time researching places to stay, budgeted our money. No issue.

Oh yes, let's make massive nasty judgemental assumptions about someone and their life just because you are jealous

It’s fine. Maybe he is very mature for his age.

God no- we’ve actually just been interrailing with our kids for a month and there’s no way our 16 year old is ready to do it on his own!

Better than being at home vaping Spice.

Some kids can cope with travel at 15 (and he could actually be practically 16), some can’t. I am sure Kirstie and her partner are best placed to make this call.

What a fantastic experience! If you know enough people, and Kirstie is definitely a woman with connections, then accommodation becomes less of an issue - you stay with Aunty Whoever at her place in Paris, then dad's old pal in Cologne, then nip down to St Tropez and spend a week with the rest of the immediate family in a villa, head off to Italy to stay with your travelling companion's cousin in Milan, then off to the Greek Islands for a few nights at the villa being stayed in by the travelling companion's family, then off to Seville to spend a few nights with another school friend's family....it would be easy enough to do, I would think, given a wide enough network of family and friends.

What a brilliant parent you are to encourage and support her doing this!
Aren't you envious- I'm jealous of her!!

I'm a lot older than you all and really at the age of 13/14 I was going to all sorts of places by myself, or with a friend of the same age. I think in the years since then parents have become very unwilling to allow their children to 'grow up', to take risks which are often quite small and develop resilience. It wasn't that our parents were uncaring but many of my friends left school at 16 and the following Monday were at work with no allowances made for their youth. They were grown up.
He probably had a great time and learnt new stuff.

What a wonderful piece of family history!

Poor lad, still being babied. A lot of students will be starting Uni in the next few weeks and I hear some horror stories about their inability to cope with living away from Mummy, some parents do their offspring no favours.

She’s having the most amazing life and I’m pleased for her. Slightly sad as the guy she met in Vienna is Canadian and they’ve been to a year now and she’s looking at moving to Canada. I was a bit adventurous when I was younger, went backpacking round Asia in my own, I’ve hitchhiked across a few African countries with a friend. But she has worse itchy feet than me. And I’ve turned into an anxiety ridden middle aged person who’s nervous about going to Cornwall 🤷‍♀️😆🙈

Again, another post by the terminally envious of other people's money. You make nasty assumptions are are not ashamed to share them.
From your post, I could make many assumptions about you and your family, none of which may be true, but once they are in the public forum, someone will believe them
No need to be so bloody nasty about a stranger

Great! It's a nice change from people infantilising 25 year olds.

Will you be my mum?!!🙂🙂😀😀😃

That's an unnecessarily spiteful sounding comment.

WTF? You know literally nothing about me or my kids.

I can’t afford another one after bankrolling this one so much 😁.

She does pay for her own trips now but the summer after she finished uni cost me dear as she convinced me she needed to go on some architecture course in Florence for a month. The course was expensive and accommodation in Florence in August was horrendous 🙈

But she got one of a very limited number of part one Architect jobs when she got back and she reckoned the course helped. Her now employers said it was the confidence in her job interview which made them give her the job. They wanted someone who could stand up to clients if needed.

shes on about doing a similar course in Sri Lanka next year but will be paying for that herself!

Assuming he's young for the year and about to be 16, I did this when I was a year older than him. It was amazing!

This. Maybe he's very mature? I would have seen it as a huge adventure at that age.

He must be one of the youngest in his class, some of his friends would be coming up to 17 so I think it's ok. As others have said, clearly he would have loads of cash!!

Why do you think I'm being nasty?! I'm just saying how it could be done with a network of friends. Calm yourself. You're making yourself look foolish.

I don’t think it was nasty. It’s probably true you could stay with friends and family all over the place if you knew people. I spent weeks at 16 after GCSE backpacking round Germany and stayed with people who organised school exchanges with my mums school & my grandparents friend who moved there in the 60s as well as a few youth hostels. If my mum hadn’t had her network I maybe couldn’t have done it and I was lucky she knew so many families in Germany willing to host me. I’m sure someone in media & with a partner in property development (& an interest in it themselves) will have a decent network of friends and that it likely includes people who will either have homes abroad or know people who do and would be happy to have the kids stay for a night or two.