Convincing Parents to Let You Go

[canadiangirl90]

Hello, Im 17 and I want to go on a trip by myself to another country for a week next march (around my birthday). I have the money to pay for it myself, but im afraid my parents wont let me go. Although Im responsible, independant and perfectly fine on my own, my parents are rather overprotective. They'd let me go with freinds but Id rather go alone this time. How can I convince them to let me go to another country by myself?

Thanks for any ideas you might have

[pinknic38]

hey, welcome to the boards! I think that if you do your research and have everything planned out and have all the questions answered before they even ask, that's a good start. I went to Spain on my own when I was 17, and it took some convincing for my mom, but she saw that I planned everything out, was able to answer her transportation questions, and whatever else, and she thought that made me pretty responsible. Even if it doesn't wind up being the itenerary you sticking with, showing that you have a "plan" is always a plus.

where areyou thinking of going?

[Maineartist]

Hello Canadiangirl90. Welcome to T-Punk ,
My sister was in that situation in high school and she just kept talking about doing it and saving her money until the time came. I guess my dad with all the time to get used to the idea let her go.

[Canadian Bacon]

Hey canadiangirl...

First off... WELCOME TO THE BOARDS!!!!!!! YAAYYYYYY!!! MORE CANADIANS!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo

Okay, sorry, I just like doing that.

Now to the question at hand, maybe this thread might help you out. I started it in the summer when I was trying to convince my parents to "let" me go on my first solo trip http://travelpunk.com/boards/showthread.php?t=13812

Of course, the trip was to the Middle East and I am 25, so my circumstances are different from yours... but I just wanna stress that its best to understand where they're coming from, that they just want you to be safe. As long as you can demonstrate that you'll be same... they may be fine.

But there's no doubt about it... going it alone is infinitely more dangerous than going it with a buddy. You chance of being scammed or robbed in much greater, and if you break your leg while riding your vespa in the middle of a greek island... guess what... you're fucked.

BUT... no guts no glory, eh?

So, here are some things you can say and do which will decrease the risk:
-Western europe is relatively safe
-You're staying in hostels, and you'll meet lots of people, including other solo-backpackers... and then you will band together and form like Voltron
-You'll have contact details of all Canadian embassies
-You'll have numbers and addreses of nearby hospitals and police stationns
-You'll know basic phrases for emergencies and help
-You'll know the safe and unsafe areas..

If worse come to worse... agree to sticking to local tours.

As long as you show your parents you have the mental capacity to acknowledge the risk, and then act to lessen the risk... then I think it will change their minds.

And there's a lot of wisdom here on the boards... so you're not alone in this!

Good luck!!!

[maracle]

Simply_Angelic and Juliagulia both went on their trips alone at 17, I think....hopefully they'll have some advice. I don't know if their parents were too happy about it or not.

Not having ever been through this, I can think of a few suggestions. Have you mentioned this to them at all yet to get a feel for their reaction? You probably need to try to put together a story that will make them want to say yes. So I'd say pick a "safe" sounding country or region (maybe pick France and not Iran), offer to call/email ever other day, etc. If you have any relatives or friends that did something like this as a kid maybe they can back you up. I also wonder if there's a place you want to visit that your parents have been to in the past. That would give them some idea of what its like there and hopefully they'll think it wasn't a bad place.

Good luck, keep us updated, and welcome to tpunk!

[Canadian Bacon]

Oh and one more thing:

The worst thing to do with concerned parents is to be like "Don't worryyyyy, it'll be finnneeeeee. You overprotective bastards. It's my life!!"

You get the picture. We all tend to do that.

And it doesn't address their fears at all. So best to avoid that sort of talk!

[freespiritz]

I went on my first solo trip at 20! and even then my parents were none too happy about it. To allay their fears, I started out on a relatively short (2-week) trip, somewhere close to home, had a detailed itinerary, booked everything beforehand and even had emergency contacts. But I also told them that I was going regardless of whether they liked it or not. And once away, I did keep in regular contact via email/text messages, just for them to keep their sanity.

Once you've gotten past that first bit, you can always push a bit more for future trips. Now I just buy plane tickets and go wherever, but it helps that I'm normally far far away from home to begin with. Good luck, and welcome to the boards!

[joe7f]

Originally Posted by Canadian Bacon

Oh and one more thing:

The worst thing to do with concerned parents is to be like "Don't worryyyyy, it'll be finnneeeeee. You overprotective bastards. It's my life!!"

You get the picture. We all tend to do that.

And it doesn't address their fears at all. So best to avoid that sort of talk!

That's a good point. And not just with parents, friends you are potentially talking into coming with also. The idea of a hostel is apparently quite repulsive to most people

So anyway, my mom being the worrywart that she is, was nervous about the crime in Japan. Ummmm...huh? Yeah so I pulled up the stats. Turned out I was 10x more likely to be murdered in Florida than in Japan, 15x more likely to be robbed and 400x more likely to be raped. So the safest thing for me to do is to get my ass (and with that 400:1 ratio I do mean my ass) to Japan post haste.

It pretty well cured her of worry

Picking a safe country like Japan, Singapore (<- research the laws, they are megastrict and you could find yourself in trouble with the cops if you chew gum) or Iceland would help

Oh and welcome to Tpunk

--Joey

[freespiritz]

Yeah, continuing on Joe's point, I've been all over the place solo in Central America and South East Asia, and the one country I had all my stuff stolen in was...Canada! So there you go, Canadiangirl!

[afterlife3]

I agree, show that your are doing research, which you are by being involved in this forum. When I first told my parents about my plan to travel by myself for two months they were not very happy. I settled down their fears by showing that I had done my research, you can find a lot of information here on the boards and we can help you out with any questions you may have.

[Elizabeth]

hey CG im 18 and just took my first solo trip earlier this year. my parents were not that happy with me going either

i threw the stats thing at my mom and she just rebutted with "well if you're here mommy can keep an eye on you"

what really convinced my parents was that whatever question they had i could answer it, showing i was well researched and this was not something i woke up one day and decided to just hop on a plane

my mom says next time she will worry less about me because she knows i know what im doing

in the end if they still dont support you id get on the plane anyway unless when you come back they'd kick you out of the house lol

[Canadian Bacon]

Originally Posted by joe7f

So anyway, my mom being the worrywart that she is, was nervous about the crime in Japan. Ummmm...huh? Yeah so I pulled up the stats. Turned out I was 10x more likely to be murdered in Florida than in Japan, 15x more likely to be robbed and 400x more likely to be raped. So the safest thing for me to do is to get my ass (and with that 400:1 ratio I do mean my ass) to Japan post haste.

--Joey

Exactly Joe. Actually in Aleppo, Syria (the big northern city), I was sketched out while walking the streets at night, looking for a net cafe. And I asked his pipe street salesmen for directions... he was a total local, but he spoke perfect English... with a Miami accent. Turns out he is Syrian-American, but he was living there now.

Anyway he was like... "This is Syria... this ain't New York. You can walk the streets anywhere, and no one will even come up to you. I know New York, you gotta be CAREFUL there!"

[simply_angelic]

Hey Canadian girl!

As was already mentioned, I backpacked Europe for 2 months solo after I graduated highschool (and as my birthdays in Dec I was 17 as well). One of the best decisions of my life, really got me rolling on the whole travel thing.

My parents were NOT for my idea at all, but as I had the money to pay for my trip, they kind of didn't really have a choice in my mind (haha I can be a bit bull-headed sometimes). I'd pretty much thought about doing something like this all throughout hihschool and then finally in my senior year I told my parents that this was what I planned on doing. They were 100% against me. My mom cried and yelled at me occasionally whenever I brought it up, my dad put off me talking about it.
I was pretty determined though. I didn't really give them a choice in the matter. Whenever I talked about it, it was like "when I go to Europe this summer I'm going to..." or "I can't go to the cottage with you mom, I'll be in Europe remember?"

Eventually I'd convinced my dad to help me get the ticket and once that was done, there was no turning back. My mom was very upset.

The only way I could ease her worry was to promise to call/email practically everyday (boy did that promise fall through the water~ I'm not really a phone person....and writing emails takes so loooong) and to give them a detailed map of where I was going and for approximately how long. (I knew I wasn't going to stick 100% to it and I told them I wanted to be able to fly a bit through the seat of my pants but it eased their worry). They wanted to be able to know where to look in case anything happened. I showed them emergency numbers for each country in my guidebook and bought pepperspray to take with me just in case.

My mom cried a lot. But in the end, I went. (and had a blast). Oh and PS going at 17 is also awesome because you can get into a lot of sites for free or cheap in Europe

Edited to add: Oh, and the more you talk about it, the better. They'll be able to get used to the idea a little more before you go and you know, come to terms with the fact