Travelling for young people

[Deborahpotts]

Hi. My 19 year old daughter is so lost. She isn't academic and doesn't want to go to uni. She wants to travel but the girl she was going with let her down and she is too anxious to go on her own. Does anyone know of any travelling programmes for young people where you go as a group and have a bit of structure?

Why is she looking to travel and for how long?

Would she go to a different country and work as an aupair etc?

I did a late gap year in my kid 20s so a bit older but was till worried I wouldn't meet people.

I started my trip using intrepid adventures so that I wasn't on my own at the start and met a few people that although our plans weren't exactly the same - we still met up in different countries.

Once she is on the circuit she will meet people: there are tonnes of people at hostels on there own.

Some of people I travelled the longest with - I met on buses going between places.

Lastly - depends where she is going. Oz and NZ experience were full of 18 year old gap year people.

Thanks. I did loads of travelling so know that once she gets going she'll probably be fine and meet people but its that initial getting going that I think is really hard as she doesn't have the confidence to do this.

Has she thought about volunteering abroad for while? Once she gets some support and meets a few people, it could give her confidence to carry on.

These should be reputable organisations -
https://www.princes-trust.org.uk/how-we-can-help/who-else/volunteering/overseas

@Deborahpotts My DD was like this at 19. She took an unplanned gap year and ended up doing 'Workaway'.

She went out to Germany for 4 months and au-paired. There was 3 teenagers and a 3 year old. She walked the dog, took the three year old to nursery and helped the teenagers with homework/played games. She was basically part of the family for 4 months (going paddle boarding at the lake, to medieval markets and doing some language assistant work in the teenagers' school). The family paid for German classes, so although it was her worst GCSE, she came home speaking German really well and she ended up doing German as part of her degree!

She has done two other workaway placements since. Last week, now 22, she returned from Germany after doing the grape harvest for 3 weeks. She had a blast working outside with other young people, stopping for a delicious lunch, wine and a chat round a table everyday at noon, learning about wine and spirit making and then enjoying an evening and weekend discovering the local area with the other young people... all for the price of a plane ticket (£84 rtn).

https://www.workaway.info/en/hostlist