Traveling Abroad With Teens
by Sandra Scalise Juneau
As all parents (and grandparents) know, traveling anywhere with teenagers is mentally challenging—and the mere thought of traveling outside the United States with teens can be positively mind boggling! When considering international travel with teens, the key to success is in the planning. It takes extra effort, but the reward of shared memories spread over a lifetime cannot be calculated.
As a gift to our twin granddaughters for their high school graduation, my husband, our granddaughters and I embarked on a tour of Italy during the last two weeks of May 2007. Planning began nearly a full year in advance and continued up until our travel date. Our first step was to determine our individual particular interests for places to visit and things to do, see and experience.
With everyone’s busy schedules, particularly our teens’ in the midst of their senior year, our best method for keeping everyone in the loop was e-mail. We began with an e-mail series for top ten travel choices, such as “Top 10 to Visit,” “Top 10 to Do” and “Top 10 to Eat.” Amazingly, both granddaughters gave consistent replies. For “Top 10 to Do,” their reply was “shop, shop, shop…shop” and for “Top 10 to Eat” they said “pizza, pizza, pizza…pizza.” Armed with this valuable information, we could move forward in narrowing down the what, where and when of our two-week journey.
Our next step was nailing down reservations. Untold hours of sifting through the endless choices offered by countless on-line resources for available rates, schedules and special travel “deals” convinced us to enlist the aid of a travel professional. Our agent, having traveled extensively in Italy and already familiar with the places we wanted to visit, was invaluable in finalizing our reservations for air and train travel, van and boat transport, hotel accommodations, arranging for bi-lingual guides and purchasing advance tickets for special tours and museum visits.
With our reservations secured, we set out to make connections in each of the regions and cities to be visited. Convinced of the wisdom of the “Six Degrees of Separation” theory, which states that anyone on the planet can be connected to any other person on the planet through a chain of acquaintances, we began a blitz-campaign of e-mails and telephone calls to our friends, family, business associates and organizations. Just by asking for suggestions or introductions, we were amazingly successful in having doors opened that otherwise would never have been available to us. The key here is, “Don’t be afraid to ask!”
In most of Europe’s major cities, you can easily get by speaking only English, but being fluent in the native language will always make your travels easier and certainly more enjoyable. In smaller towns and villages, you need either a bi-lingual guide or a working knowledge of the language. The next best approach is to learn key words and phrases in the language and dialects of the countries you plan to visit.
For our granddaughters, whose schedules were totally booked, we tackled the language issue with a series of e-mails that began with “The word for today is ‘ciao,’ pronounced ‘chow.’ It means ‘goodbye’ and ‘hello’.” These tutorials progressed to include phrases and simple sentences. We even added famous art photos, such as Michelangelo’s statue of David with the caption, “Do you know this man?” or famous landmarks, such as Bernini’s Fountain of Trevi with the caption, “Bring three coins.”
By the time we were ready to travel, our granddaughters had acquired a working command of tourist talk and a very limited familiarity with the cultural treasures that awaited them!
Packing was another challenge. As identical twins, our granddaughters were used to doubles of everything, but had to be convinced to make do with sharing such essentials as a hairdryer (which each hotel already had), hair irons (which hotels do not have) and their full supply of multi-shaded, multi-product makeup. We succeeded in convincing them that schlepping too much luggage in and out of airports and on and off trains and boats was not going to be fun. We confined them to one wheeled piece and one shoulder bag each, which worked out well. The hardest thing is to convince your teens (and yourself) that no more than two pairs of walking shoes and three basic changes of outer clothes with mix/match sweaters/shirts/jackets should suffice for traveling when you will be in each city for no more than three days. Packing for traveling abroad is definitely a case of less is more, and the best advice on packing is to assemble your clothes and only pack half.
Before traveling out of the United States with a teenager, it is imperative to have all documentation in order. Required documents include a valid United States passport, and a signed and notarized Letter of Consent to Travel. The Letter of Consent to Travel is required whenever a minor is traveling outside of the United States with anyone other than both of their parents. It is required even if they will be traveling with just one of their parents. With the overload of summertime travel, the logjam of passports to be processed can cause delays in travel plans. Worst-case scenario occurred last year when passports were not received by scheduled travel dates, which caused cancellation of some travel plans. If you do not already have passports for yourself or your teens, start the application process immediately!
As an added precaution, if teens are traveling with anyone who is not their parent, it is a good idea to have an Emergency Medical Consent signed by both parents and notarized. This allows consent for all medical and/or surgical treatment and/or other medical procedures during and through the end of the trip. The Emergency Medical Consent should include all contact information with name, address and telephone numbers for assigned travel caregiver, family physician and insurance carrier, and should include the insurance policy number. The child’s information should include a listing (if any) of chronic or existing medical conditions, blood type, known allergies, current daily medications and a history of recent shots and vaccines.
With all of these documents to keep track of, along with our itinerary, airline and train tickets, confirmations of hotel reservations and tickets for pre-paid tours, we found it helpful to group papers in clear plastic document holders. All of these were secured in one small briefcase, which we dubbed “the black box.” We guarded it with our lives. For added security, we kept duplicate copies of all documents in another suitcase and left additional copies with our family at home.
While most teens feel the need to stay connected electronically via cell phones, text messaging and e-mail, we convinced our teens to turn off and tune in. They agreed to leave their cell phones, iPods and laptops at home; sans these distractions, they were able to absorb so much more of the passing parade. Having our two cell phones for safety should we became separated or in case one malfunctioned was a definite plus and proved to be more than adequate for keeping us connected.
Somewhere between the ages of fifteen and eighteen, most teens develop an innate sense of invulnerability. Because of this affliction of teenage daring, take the time to make your teens aware of possible hazards while traveling abroad. It is better to be safe than sorry and always safest to err on the side of caution. Make sure an adult is with your teens at all times, even, and especially, while using public restrooms. Also, make sure your teens know not to break the rules of the country they are visiting and know their rights as U.S. citizens. A wealth of information is available on international travel for U.S. citizens through www.travel.state.gov. Listed are travel alerts, safety issues and regional information that includes the locations of U.S. Consulates and contact telephone numbers in specific cities.
With all of our pre-travel planning, our efforts for making connections certainly paid off. In Vercelli, just outside Milan, we were guests for lunch and dinner and stayed at the private golf club of Italian friends. In Florence, we were greeted by business associates who directed us to a tiny family-owned restaurant across the Arno River in the Palazzo Santo Spirito. Through friends of family, we arranged for a luncheon wine tasting at the Verrazzano Winery in the Chianti region of Tuscany. While in Venice, we had a private boat ride and glassblowers’ tour on Murano Island, hosted by the tourism department of Venice. In Palermo, after coordinating our schedules with cousins from Australia who were planning a visit to Sicily, we were treated to a memorable family reunion, filled with fabulous food and copious hugs and kisses from dozens of Sicilian and Australian cousins. We were even taken on a private tour of a pasta factory, made possible by family-friend connections.
Our teens discovered that their delight in eating pizza, pizza, pizza in dozens of different pizzerias was exceeded only by the myriad flavors of gelato they savored. They learned that no amount of planning could surpass the joy of spontaneity, such as leaving a scheduled tour headed to the Sistine Chapel to be met by a Vatican official named Massimo, who spirited us away through Vatican barricades to our reserved seating for the Papal Audience held at Saint Peter’s Square.
Traveling abroad with your teens is a very special privilege for you and for them, so revel in the adventure—and take loads of pictures!
