Love finding out several of us have the “find cheap scuba sites for certification(s)” kids. D23 bubbled about how good and cheap the scuba dives were around the Red Sea - smile and nod.
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Oh gosh S is one of the cheapest people I’ve met! Hence, choosing Egypt, Morocco, Bulgaria and now Turkey to visit. He hasn’t done scuba diving yet (that’s what his college best friend did this summer after graduation - traveled solo through southeast Asia and did a lot of scuba diving in Thailand), but he did sleep one night in a park in Milan rather than pay for a hostel. 
He’s also obsessed with Aldi in Italy because he can feed himself vegan food for very little money. How he could spend a month in Florence without mozzarella on his pizza is beyond me!
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D23 planned/plans all her travel by price. Wherever she could find the cheapest flight/train + hostel combination was where she went exploring. Made for some interesting choices to be sure 
…but she knows how to stretch a dollar/euro/dirham/yuan/real.
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S likes to see what deals he can get flying to choose his destinations. One weekend, he got a great deal to Arab Emirates so he went there. One of the reasons he’s in Taiwan was he got a great deal on airfare and free lodging with a friend. He’s fine with hostels or nicer hotels or campsites.
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If I can scuba dive, it’s not that adventurous, ha.
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I will say that life insurance companies don’t look favorably on scuba diving.
Hmm, I haven’t been dinged for that.
There’s that time my 19year old daughter called me from Buenos Aires (study abroad) and said she and some of the other students were going to take an overnight bus 13 hours to Mendoza for some wine tasting the next weekend. They had a great time. That weekend I got photos from her from the foothills of the Andes and my other daughter sent photos from the Alps. I was stressed and jealous at the same time.
And there’s the time the same kid called me from Budapest (also study abroad) to chat while she walked home from a bar where she had been ditched by her friends who went to hook up with guys. It was 2am in Budapest and she didn’t know exactly where she was and her phone wouldn’t load any maps.
Funny thing is, I wouldn’t call her that much of a risk taker.
My other kid is a structural engineer and regularly works on swing stages on high rise buildings. I prefer not to know when she’s actually on one. We recently stayed on the 18th floor of a hotel and a couple of the buildings across the street were having balcony work done from swing stages. It made my daughter’s job a little too real for me in that moment. She also likes to solo camp and backpack.
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S studied abroad in Ecuador, flying to Santiago, Chile and then making his way north by bus to Quito along the Andes. Though he loved S America, being held up in Quito during that semester put him off the continent due to safety. Though he went to Columbia with a friend when no one was going to Columbia. He lived and taught in China for 3 years post undergrad and traveled extensively elsewhere in Asia. Being up by the N Korean border, he could see how easy it would be to slip in from China, but of course did not!
D1 did field work in Mongolia for a Geology degree, lived in Israel, and scares me the most on her long drives from point A to point B in the US, often at night. But I more remember her calling me from the Golan Heights overlooking Syria and describing little clouds of explosion in the distance from the war. Turns out she was perfectly safe.
D2 has lived in multiple places in France, did Rotary Exchanges x2 in the Czech Republic and Peru. She scared me most walking through Paris alone at night amid catcalls, sleeping in a doorway prior to getting to Orly airport for an early flight. And there was the time she was traveling alone in Peru with a friend and was told to get out of a market pronto by a local woman as not safe for gringos. Her friend’s necklace was ripped off her neck before they got out.
Both girls hiked part of the Lycian way on the coast with a friend and adored Turkey.
I was always thankful to my parents for tolerating my travels in Asia alone in my 20s, and never giving me a hard time. I try to extend to my kids the same consideration.
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My SIL lived in Baghdad during Desert Storm. Hearing his family’s experiences put a lot of my worries about my kids into perspective.
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S2 spent a summer in Russia (pre-Crimea invasion), then moved to Ukraine in early 2018. Was supposed to be for one year; he still lives there. Left Kyiv a month and headed to western Ukraine before the war began because he had studied this part of the world in UG and knew the warning signs. Was not wrong. Fiancee had a pretty harrowing story of escaping Kyiv the first day of the war. She had gone back to Kyiv to try to convince her mom to flee.
S2 and fiancee are still in western Ukraine, working on humanitarian medical projects in addition to their remote jobs. Both worked with refugees and medical folks when evacuees were fleeing the east. Many of the veterans he used to tutor in English have gone to war.
He has demonstrated consistent, reasoned judgment about the political and logistical situation over there. Though it’s not quite the way we might have expected, he is making extraordinarily good use of his education. I could spend my energy worrying, but it wouldn’t do me any good. We traveled a lot with our sons as they were growing up, it doesn’t surprise me that S2 continues to do so. He became a self-supporting, emotionally mature man over there. Best decision he has ever made.
We’re going to Ukraine for their wedding shortly.
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Did you know it only costs a couple of dollars to bunji jump off a bridge in Ecuador? That’s right, you go to a crazy high bridge in the jungle over a ravine, and you find a guy with a rope (no company, no waivers, so easy!). Well my son can tell you where to find this magical place. 
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It seems my daughter found the same guy!
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Oldest son had a co-op at one of the major airlines. If you like to travel that’s the way to go while you’re in college. Both sons like to travel but the past year it’s been another level.
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My kids are fairly adventurous, but we never pushed them to be a certain way. They are who they are.
That said, there are places or adventures that I wouldn’t pay for, so they’d have to do it on their own…
I grew up in Ukraine, so it was heartwarming to read about your son and his fiancee. 
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My D had two semesters abroad in UG. The first was to Costa Rica as a sophomore. She’d had 4.5 years of Spanish in 8th grade/high school and maybe one course in UG. She eventually had more Spanish coursework, though was not what I considered fluent at that time.
The semester ended early for some reason and she had an extra week at the end before her flight home. She decided to fly to Columbia to see a Columbian friend that she had met during high school. It was not in a major city and she had to use a small airport. The staff at the small airport did not speak English. When she arrived at the airport to fly back to Costa Rica they took her passport and refused to give it back, asking for a bribe. She had enough wits about her to convince them to give her the passport back without handing over any money. She may or may not have shown empty pockets and an empty wallet.
She made her flight and got home safely. (she had less than 5 minutes to get the passport back in a language she understood better than I thought she did and board the plane).
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My D studied abroad in Italy this year- and took many, many weekend trips - Morocco, Paris, Amsterdam, and more. After Italy she traveled to Switzerland and I got a video of her paragliding through the Alps.
Like others have mentioned - she is a level-headed, resourceful traveler now. I keep repeating that to myself when she texts me in the middle of some adventure!
I can say that this thread has made me feel better about her plans to travel more. She is also now interested in living abroad and seeking a job they might allow for that (liberal arts degree).
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S just flew in from Sydney after spending some days there, on his way back from visiting a friend in Taipei. He will be going back to NYC sooner or later. His fiancée is fine with his adventures.
I’m glad you got so many stories of adventurous kids to help you know your son is in good company. But of course as a mom, the solo hiking trip through the mountains of Turkey makes you anxious. I agree it would be less stressful to you if he went with a friend. This will clearly be an unforgettable experience for him, and if I’m adding up the timing correctly (he left over a week before your post, and you posted 4+ days ago), he might be almost halfway through!! Just wondering if he has been able to get any messages through to you. I imagine cell service isn’t great there. But an occasional message that he’s loving it accompanied by gorgeous photos will surely help you feel better! Keep us posted, I’m eager to hear of his triumphant return, complete with a million amazing stories to last him a lifetime!
And, to be honest, now that my son is newly in the working world, unlikely to have more than 1-2 contiguous weeks off at a time for the foreseeable future, I’m really glad he had so many unforgettable adventures. He’ll always love to travel, but with time constraints I bet most of his travel will be more conventional going forward (it’s also likely to include his girlfriend which may also mean nicer accommodations required ). It’s great these young kids get to explore in such a free way! Best of luck to YOU and your son, getting through this amazing adventure!
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