> I'm 18. I turn to my parents and say, "I want to go to America to see some people I met online." They lock me in a cupboard for a few weeks, but eventually they agree. On the way back from the event, disaster strikes and I'm left stranded in one state with my bags in another, at night and with only a few hours to go until my plane to London. I speak to a nice airline person and end up in New York. Further speakages to further people get me on a plane to Blighty, and yet more hand waving in front of confused tea ladies eventually returns to me my once-missing luggage. Besides being a moderately interesting story, this does relate to the topic of this post. My parents still can't believe that a lone 18-year-old managed to sort himself out in the Big Wide World. Expectations, it seems, are low.
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> I just wonder at what age the *next* generation is going to mature...
>
> Matthew

Matthew,
Personally, I think 18 is old enough to travel alone. When I was 14, I hitch-hiked all over eastern Kentucky. It was wild and wooly in those days, but I never had a problem.

This past summer, my niece from California decided that she was old enough to get on a plane and fly from LAX to Chicago and then to Atlanta. Then she planned for us to pick her up after a week in Atlanta and bring her to our house in Tennessee. (She was to stay with our daughter in Atlanta.) After a week here, she planned to get on a plane in Knoxville and fly to Washington D.C. and then back to Los Angeles where her mother would pick her up. The trip went off without a hitch. She's 15.
Howard