I drove him Saturday to get to the passport agency. As the web page suggested, they DO expedite it if you’re travelling soon - they gave him a pickup time of 11:30 this morning. He’s taking the Metro to do that right now. I opted to drive him Saturday just to avoid the risk of Metro delays - as time was especially critical that day.
We finally got him to disgorge his detailed schedule. He’s actually allowing relatively little time in each city, and had a very unrealistic view of the timing for his return flight - e.g. he was planning on taking a Eurostar train from Paris, arriving in London 2 hours before his flight back. We finally persuaded him that THAT was a recipe for disaster. I’ve offered to set him up with a place to stay in London if need be - we have a couple of friends in the greater London area who might put him up.
So his itinerary actually involves more train travel than anything else. From memory : Dulles to Detroit to Heathrow, then the train to Paris, then a train to Milan (same day I think), then from Milan to Zurich (day train, to see the Alps)… then I think Belgrade / Bar (Montenegro; I’d never heard of the city either), then Zagreb (or maybe the other way around), then Bucharest, then Galati for a couple days - maybe he’ll do a jaunt to the Black Sea while there… then back via Bucharest to Budapest for a couple days, then to Munich, then Paris (for a couple days) then London and home.
I did get him the Euros, and $100 US. Quite a few of his countries don’t use Euros (basically once he leaves Italy, no Euros until he hits Germany) - but I’m hoping that if he needs to raid his stash they’ll be familiar enough with Euros that exchanging won’t be an issue.
It looks like a 15 day Eurail pass would just be 360 dollars (a bit more if he went for first class). That might be the right thing to do for him given how much train travel he plans - it looks like it covers every country except maybe Montenegro. Though it looks like he should have ordered THAT in advance as well - you can’t buy them electronically online without having it shipped and there’s no time for that. Oh well.
First of all, given your son’s autism, I’m with you on the worry. My daughter’s not as high-functioning as your son - definitely would not be able to spend a year living away from me like your son did and fortunately has no desire to go solo travelling - so my perspective is different, but still, it’s not like being the parent of an average young adult. Partly because - and this sounds bad - if something did go wrong people would be clamouring to say “why did his mother let him do this?” So you are right in taking extra precautions.
That includes the Eurail pass. While it might not work out better financially, it could pay for itself in the decrease in admin. Not as much queuing to buy tickets or choose the type of ticket, as in fixed time of travel or not, and whether a return can sometimes actually be cheaper, and should he get the ticket a few days in advance to save money… feh, spend a little more and don’t waste vacation time in line, especially if you have issues with personal organisation.
Did he manage to get a contactless bank card? If he did, then he should be able to use it to travel within London (you use it on busses, tubes etc), which makes life easier.
If he has any problems in the UK and your friends can’t help then post on here and I’d step in as I’m sure would several others.
I couldn’t tell whether he does have travel insurance or not; if not, it’s definitely worth getting and can be done online even today. Far better than travelling without insurance. Paying for a minor injury can be a small amount but paying for a medevac home or long term care can cost your whole house.
Thanks for the reminder on travel insurance - I’ll see if I can purchase it for him now He’s actually already left - I dropped him at Dulles about 10:40 for his 1:00 flight I figured that would be plenty of time to check in - we couldn’t manage online checkin for whatever reason.
He actually did listen to me on a few things:
he HAD notified the bank about travelling internationally so hopefully no surprises
He’s got his emergency cash in a travel wallet around his neck
He DID take a jacket - I think he was just nervous enough that he was about to walk out the door without it!
He set up Apple Pay on his phone - some places in Europe, that might work where a non-PIN card might not
He took his external power bank for his phone (he thought he wouldn’t want it but I reminded him that the phone would help a lot on the flight)
Eurail is annoying - I contacted them to find out where he might buy passes in person and their reply was “Some places, we don’t know where, but hey, we can ship it to his hostel!” - which is not useful as he won’t HAVE a hostel or anything for a few days. Hopefully he’ll be able to get one at St. Pancras Station.
I guess really the biggest issues for me are
he will NOT ask for help when he needs it, e.g. the mess with not getting his ticket and not figuring out the issue.
he might be clueless and miss cues and do the wrong thing / wander the wrong way / panic if approached - on that last, I do give him credit for one time when he was at the zoo on a school day. A policeman actually asked him, and instead of panicking he was able to explain that his school had a teacher workday. Had he panicked and the officer escalated, it could have gone very, very badly.
Urgh - just realized: he got a prescription for a new Epi Pen - and did not pick it up. Well, here’s hoping he doesn’t run into peanuts lurking in the alleys waiting to mug him. My husband actually found a web page / app that will show the phrase “I’m allergic to nuts” in about 40 different languages.
I’m glad you reminded me - that slipped by me before departure. I just plunked down 180 bucks for a medical evacuation policy. Cheaper ones were available but not for trips already started. Oh well.
As you noted, the real cost is in getting him home if something bad happens. If he dies overseas, we’d manage. If he gets sick, well medical costs are something we’d manage as well (I think our health insurance would help but we’d have to front the money, I expect). Trip interruption / luggage lost and so on, all comparatively minor expenses as well.
Hmmm. Yeah, I imagine shipping would be pricy, though I suppose cremation there would work.
Anyway: He made it to Heathrow OK. Slight snag in the communications there as
I’d set his international plan to start on the 6th, not the 5th (quickly dealt with by an online chat with Verizon at 2 AM), and
Turns out there are configuration changes you’re supposed to make - THAT WERE NOT DISCLOSED WHEN I MADE THE PLAN CHANGE
So there he was, with a phone that probably wouldn’t work, and no way to tell him how to get it to work.
Fortunately he must have connected to wi-fi right off the flight so he got my frantic message (via email, google hangouts, and Facebook message) and sorted it out. He sent me a successful text message then.
The last we heard from him was a Facebook photo on the express train from Heathrow to Paddington, from which he had to get a kilometer or two over to St. Pancras to catch the EuroStar. He should be in Paris by now (though, lack of photo updates is surprising). From there he has to get from Gare de Lyon over to Gare du Nord (I think) to catch the TGV to Milan.
Reading the itinerary you posted upthread makes this sound like the trip of a lifetime for a railfan, not one for someone who actually wants to see the sights of Europe. Who knows, though? Perhaps he’ll enjoy it and want to return to Europe on a more leisurely trip.
That’s exactly what this is - the lad has loved trains since he was old enough to say “twain”. A lot of kids with autism have something they obsess over, and trains are a common fixation. Plus it’s genetic - I love trains as did my father.
He just posted a photo of Buckingham Palace, and another from the window of the EuroStar to Paris, so I guess he took a later one than I’d thought he planned. I assume he’ll take a night train to Milan then.
Well, in that case, I think there’s a train journey that goes across Canada that’s supposed to be quite scenic. And more exotic perhaps, but he might enjoy a trip to India, where trains are still extensively used, both downmarket (where people ride on top of the traincars/bogies) and upscale.
Well when my mother started working after she got her PhD some male who didn’t like sharing rank with a female asked her snidely if she preferred to be addressed as Mrs. or Ms. To which she replied, actually I prefer “doctor.” Which pissed him off no end seeing as he only had an MA.
But that was 40 years ago and I imagine most female graduates don’t find themselves in that position any more.
High functioning autistic 22 year old who could not handle the basic issues of passport or credit cards (even when prodded to do so) is now roaming Europe for 3 months.
He’s traveling for two weeks. It’s not that he couldn’t handle the passport and credit card issues, it’s that he wouldn’t. :rolleyes: He took care of other banking stuff before he left. Anyway, he’s in Europe, and has a place to stay the night. He’s had at least one meal (on the plane). He’s probably had more meals, but he didn’t post pictures of them. (ANd he calls himself a Millennial, not taking pictures of his food … ) He’ll be OK.
everything he accomplished was at the prodding of his mother. Even with the prodding he didn’t accomplish minor tasks. So whether it’s “wouldn’t” or “couldn’t” the result was the same.
If his peanut allergy is serious I hope he brought an epipen and carries a medical alert because it’s going to be hard to communicate a reaction to it if he doesn’t speak the language.
If I were to bum my way across Europe it would be after exhaustive research. I truly hope things go well and he runs into nothing but nice people who make his journey something memorable.
Latest: He’s in Munich for the night. We hadn’t heard from him in 24 hours (no photos or status updates) so I actually logged onto his iCloud account (we have the password in our vault) and located his phone. Yeah, I cyber-stalked my own kid :D. There looked to be several hostels right near where his phone showed up.
He did post on FB a little while ago - there was some timing issue where he couldn’t get on the train to Milan in time to catch the one to Zurich, so he’d have had to spend an extra day in Milan. I’da done it but I’m not him. The mishmash of different rail system web pages proved to be pretty difficult to deal with, also.
So he is going to Budapest tomorrow, then directly to Bucharest and on to Galati, and returning the same way. He’s planning on spending a few days in Budapest on the return trip which will be cool.
Oh yeah: I imagine that the timing issues he’s run into so far will encourage him to go back to England at least the day before his return flight (he’d been talking about taking the EuroStar which arrives at St Pancras a whole 2 hours before his flight :smack:). We actually have friends who live not that far from Heathrow and can provide him a place to sleep if he needs it. Hopefully he’ll take them up on it.
