In Reply to: advice and opinions wanted posted by ella_oz on Friday, 27. January 2006 at 17:25 Bali Time:
with our son who is now 22.He fell in love with a Belgian girl - deferred uni and has been living in Belgium with her. He studied French during the week - coz she is at Uni, and worked in an Italian restaurant on weekends.He has just come home after 18 months and is really hungry to get into his studies :)
On the way home from Europe he spent 6 weeks in SE Asia travelling mostly by himself. He met lots of others on the road - plenty of single girls travelling alone. I gather they all meet up and do lots togehter so Im sure there would always be someone around to look after her :)
We have taken our 3 kids with us on many holidays - mostly to Asia and now they all have the travel bug. Our son has had the most amazing experiences - seen incrdible sights - met people who will be lifelong friends - lived the high life in Europe (his girlfriend's family are very wealthy)slept in filthy huts in Laos - you name it he has done it.
He sometimes regrets not getting his degree out of the way - coz his friends are nearly finished theirs, but as someone just pointed out - it is just a couple of years out of a whole lifetime !!!
I personally can't see anything but positives - our son has matured incredibly, has a wonderful and positive outlook on life and has learnt tolerance. He also speaks fluent French which will be a great asset to him as a journalist......yep I guess that is telling me that he plans to keep on travelling when he gets out of uni :)
Good luck with your daughter and don't worry too much
Cheers
Victoria