Adventures abroad.

Havent read them all yet but this is a great thread Kircubbin.

My parents were very protective of me and sisters so we were not allowed to travel without parents. I have travelled a lot since being married though and have a house in France which we use as a base for all over Europe. That is adventurous for me ?.

Adventures overseas were quite safe as I was extra mindful not being able to speak the language and knowing it was a different culture. However adventures in England, where I obviously let down my guard, had sometimes left me thinking how lucky I was getting out of that situation where I thought someone was just trying to be nice/kind or helpful!

I frequently ask myself 'what ever were you thinking' when casting my mind back to the life I lived in my younger days..Did I really do that without given thought to what might happen? was I that fearless ?what ever possessed me to take such chances?Would I do it again?

Such adventurous young women you all were! I would have loved to have such experiences hitching in Europe but my parents were so protective that I never even thought of broaching the matter. Five years later, my sister and a friend hitched through the Balkans and Israel without my parents turning a hair! Of course, they never heard some of the stories she told me many years later. I had my fun when I spent five years teaching in Kenya.

Spent a year travelling in India when I was 18/19 - came back on a bus through Iran and Afghanistan just before everything went pear shaped there! It was a wonderful memorable time and I loved nearly every minute. It felt far more dangerous hitch-hiking through France a year later! I’ve travelled a lot but nothing comes close to that time. Apart from an escapade in Morocco a few years later ..... . I don’t fly now for environmental reasons - haven’t done for 10 years and had plenty of fun! My daughter went by bus to spend a year studying in Egypt, hitched and busked around Mexico, cycled great trails in America ... also now not flying so cycling around Europe! It’s hard to stop once you start but I have had as much pleasure climbing a snowy mountain in Scotland or watching the sunset over Skye as I had travelling. The people were lovely though, almost without exception, and I do miss that contact with other cultures, ways of life and thinking.

The only adventures I had (gap years weren't a 'thing' in my youth!) were with my now DH. Our first holiday was hitchhiking in Spain - we met some interesting people including a retired bullfighter. On another hitching trip a lovely Iranian couple actually turned round to come back to give us a lift. They had fled the fall of the Shah and even gave us a bed for the night, we stayed in touch for quite a while after that but no longer

Sorry, should have checked it first .
Know one .

On one went on gap years, where I came from. We left school at 16 and got a job.
But I did go on holidays abroad with one of my friends. The first time I wanted to go, my mom said I couldn’t go, because she knew what went on. So we went with my friends mom and dad. They didn’t stop us doing anything, we had a great time, drinking, dancing until the early hours and of course boys. ???

When did 'gap years' start? We'd never heard of them, back then, in the UK.

I spent a summer hitch-hiking around Europe at 16, with a friend. We were so naive! We met dodgy characters, got into tricky situations, but (luckily) survived, unscathed, to tell the tale!

No gap year but when I left school at 18 I went with a couple of girlfriends to Amsterdam, we slept in sleeping bags in an old factory - it was known as the 'Sleep In' - there were some strange types there and I remember waking up to find some lad trying to unzip my sleeping bag! No harm came to us but think it was all a bit of an eye-opener for all of us. In fact living in a flat in London seemed a bit tame after that. Often hitch hiked in the UK but not abroad. I have an old diary that belonged to my Mum's older half sister - she motored around Europe with a friend in about 1923, had many adventures in Italy! She seemed to have a lot of fun!

I had a few hair-raising experiences in the UK too!

Yes, I worked all over Italy and Sardinia. In Bellagio, Como I worked in two hotels, one in the morning and the other in the afternoon as Chambermaid. Then I worked as an au pair in Rome looking after a baby. After that I was very fortunate to work for a French Film Star and his Vogue Magazine model wife in Sardinia. Then I worked in San Felice Circeo, Latina, Italy in a restaurant and hotel, and finished by working as a Ski Resort Rep in Trafoi, Bolzano, near the Brenner Pass. Best time of my life. I DID have a near escape from the Police the year after when I left Austria and went hitch hiking with two male friends. We thumbed a lift through from Austria to Germany, but didn't realise when we got in the car the driver was on LSD. The Police pulled us up twice at the border, but fortunately never found the drugs!!!!

I find this thread fascinating! Yes British girls were (are) very popular with foreign men, and indeed quite a few went on to marry the various Manuel Mario and Pierre, moving to the Med to live.

Jenni123. How brave of you !

The film Mama Mia reminds me of when I was 20 and took a flight to Athens. Slept on the roof of a youth hostel that night and in the morning went to the ferry port and with no plans got on a boat. Got off at an island and rented a cheap rooftop with only a canvass roof looking out to sea. I had only a change of clothes not much money but spent 6 blissful weeks. Met a boy and went on his scooter and sailed in his dads boat. Very carefree and not all all worried of danger. No mobile phones in those days! Travelled back to London by Magic Bus. That was an experience in itself! They don’t operate now. People of a certain age will remember them!! Wish I had stayed longer. I made friends from London on the island who had done just that! The world seems a more dangerous place now.

I went to Spain with my school friend and her family. First time abroad and on a plane. We were both 13. When her parents went to bed we pretended to as well but then met up with one of the Spanish waiters and his friends. We got in their car and drove to a stadium, not sure what the game was. Anyway they brought us back to our hotel safe and sound. My Mum would have had kittens if she knew.

'Those were the days, my friend'.....
Crete, 1971. 2 student couples 'doing' Greece and the islands, tho I only showed my parents the cultural photos, like Knossus!
Budget of ten bob a day, learned to love Greek (Turkish?) coffee at 1 drach a cup, ten times cheaper than 'Nescafe'.
Slept on the roof tops of Youth Hostels (cheaper than rooms) and lived on the beach at Vai for two weeks, when the money was running out.
Best times!
NB Note obligatory tourist shoulder bag from the Plaka, Athens?

Didnt have a gap year and the only travelling before I got married was to France with three other student girlfriends. We thought we were very daring and trendy. We took a ferry and train to Paris where we shared the carriage with four hippie type French lads with guitars. We were in seventh heaven passing round bottles of cheap wine and singing all the way at the tops of our voices. They offered to show us Paris and arranged to pick us up at our cheap hotel the following day, but we never saw them again. Mildly dodgy adventures were hitchhiking in the UK. One guy picked up us three girls and immediately started touching up the one sitting in the front passenger seat. Instead of being alarmed we all dissolved in fits of laughter. The chap was mortally offended and chucked us out of his car at the next roundabout. Another time a couple of guys picked us up late at night in their Ford Escort van and shoved us in the back doors where we discovered a stained double mattress and a leering mate waiting to welcome us. The doors were slammed shut and had no way of opening from the inside. We sat silent and afraid on the mattress, but apart from a bit of groping and a lot of teasing no harm came to any of us.

I lived for a couple of years in Malta and then a couple in Cyprus. Both work related and nothing untoward happened but remember both times with huge happiness.

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I didn't have adventures when I was young, I had 3 children by the time I was 21. however when I was 59 I just upped and went to live in Egypt after falling in love with the place while on a weeks holiday. Ended up living there for 13 years before returning to UK do to ill health and crap medical services in Egypt.

I couldn’t wait to leave school but had no idea what I wanted to do so at 16 I went to spend a year in Canada as an au pair.

I was scared of my own shadow so don’t know what possessed me, but it was a great experience and I got to know many of my relatives on my Canadian father’s side. He had died when I was 9 so I had always wanted to see where he grew up.

I didn’t have any dodgy things happen to me, thankfully.

I left home at seventeen to study music in another country.

No gap year as such, but five months between being accepted by the Academy of Music and the start of term.

After fixing up my accomodation for the coming term, I took the train to Hamburg to visit a school-friend who was studying there. Parents horrified at the very thoutht, but that didn't stop me.

Never had any scarey adventures, when I was young I was quite good at sizing people up and tended to err on the side of caution.

When I was 19 my friend and I hitched around France. We had great fun and lots of adventures, some of which horrify me looking back. One man invited us to stay in his flat in Nice. He was very odd and talked about his dead mother a lot (reminded us of Psycho!) But he obviously had a thing for my friend and we’d wake up to find him sitting by the side of the bed watching her sleep ? We moved out the day he walked in when she was showering and wanted to wash her “like a baby sister”!
We had men ask us to go to a hotel with them and when we demurred offered to pay us, as if being a prostitute would be better!
In Corsica we arrived at the airport the day before our flight home, to find the airport was closed at night. We set up camp in a bench outside but we’re approached by airport security who said we couldn’t sleep there. They then took pity on us and invited us to wait inside, only to try and sexually assault us. I mentioned my policeman boyfriend (a lie) and they backed off.

I’m so grateful my daughters didn’t want to do the same.

Nipsmum shame you didn’t get to NZ! Some things are best done when young, before life’s responsibilities descend upon us!