leungy18

In all seriousness -- OP's daughter will be fine.

The three most important things to always keep are the three Ps: passport, phone, plastic.

I'm 16. I've flown dozens of TPACs alone for the past 3-4 years. I stayed in Cleveland myself for a couple weeks, which probably has 30x the homicide rate of Paris. I managed to survive LAX, NYC, Boston, and Chicago without calling my parents more than once a week.

When I was 11 I got lost with roughly $20 usd worth of cash, no phone nor plastic, 30 miles from the hotel in Taipei where my family was staying. So I walked into an electronics store and pulled up google maps. I figured out where I was and took the subway back. Any kid can probably do the same thing in most urban centers in many developed countries. A 26-year-old will be fine.

I wasn't beaten, shot, robbed, stabbed, blown up, run over by an truck, or whatever insane fear that people have when they visit a foreign country. Vacations in a foreign country is a bogeyman to so many infrequent travelers. It really is a shame.

Statistically, Europe is fine. Your daughter should be fine. And if she isn't, well, .... happens. Nothing will happen in Europe that can't happen in the U.S.

Scrooge McDuck

Your daughter is indeed in severe danger, so better watch out:

So, you really risk that your daughter falls in love in this strange and dangerous continent and she easily might be interested in one of those strange and alien Europeans. She might even decide to move to Europe!

Aside, from that - she'll be perfeclty fine and she will most likely have the best time of her life.

GUWonder

You forgot to warn her explicitly about cute European police officers and one possibly detaining her with consent.

Isn't the real danger in returning to the US for a more risky (and less healthy) lifestyle?

stut

All, please can I remind you to keep this discussion on topic. We don't permit discussion of moderator actions on threads - do, however, feel free to PM any of us if you have any comments/queries.

stut
Moderator
Europe

theSaladDays

Worth mentioning also that with regards to mobile phones, roaming charges within the EU were abolished in June, so the network becomes irrelevant, your daughter can just buy a sim based on the best deal once she's there are she'll be able to use the minutes/SMS/data wherever she goes (though I think the minutes apply to numbers in the network's home-country?). You can always call via Whatsapp or similar VoIP avenues.

SchokoLate

Be aware that there are also sometimes 'national' plans now which don't cover the free roaming, so insist on the 'EU' or 'international' plan.

C W

This is exactly what the EU regulation eliminated. Now any national cellphone plan from any EU member state can be used in all EU member states with no roaming charges.

No EU or international plan required.

GUWonder

That is unfortunately not how it has turned out. Some EU countries' phone companies got creative and came up with domestic-only/no roaming plans. So that cheapest Danish pre-paid SIM card and related plan may only work in Denmark. And then it may not even work 10 minutes away from Copenhagen airport, assuming the Danish SIM card user is in Sweden at that point. So no international roaming = no roaming charges.

KLouis

Guys and gals,

Your interesting discussion points get completely lost in this thread. Even if somebody searches in an intelligent way and gets the thread in the output, (s)he will quitting reading being overwhelmed by the many posts on the different topic in the threads title!

GUWonder

A 22 year old American was beaten to death on a Greek island by a group of Greek and other European guys. I wouldn't rule out it being a terrorist attack of sort, one with a racist angle directed at the American victim.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.nydai...icle-1.3309469

If a person is a young guy and looks non-European ethnically, the risks are different and higher in Europe than for a fellow citizen who is of a different sex and ethnic background. Add in a lot of people with a lack of moral inhibition due to alcohol use and the risks only rise.

UKtravelbear

And a German was beaten up and assaulted in NYC

http://nypost.com/2017/05/05/tourist...icious-attack/


Viilence happens EVERYWHERE.

GUWonder

Indeed, that assault and mugging of the tourist was old news to me. The victim in that NYC case was targeted for reasons that appear far more independent of any political dynamic and thus not attributable to terrorism.

nrr

For posts #115 and #116 , those were isolated events and not indicative of any "trend".
For the OP, who wants to know if his daughter will be safe, based on the general concensus and actual facts, the answer is still YES.

UKtravelbear

And that the point.

There is no real trend and yes the OPs (if he ever reposts) daughter will generally be safe. But it's ludricous to say A happened in B and that's some how bad when C and D is equally possible.

KLouis

This was a really awful story, and particularly sad for the victim and his family. Still, nothing to do with terrorism. A "typical" fight between young, intoxicated guys: The victim American, the first culprit British of Serbian descent, the second one Greek (the bar tender!) and the remaining ones who came to "help" also from Serbia and the UK. The fight supposedly started after the victim put his empty glas on the killers' table. Interestingly, a few hours earlier on that same day there was a meeting between the mayor and the police trying to find ways to reduce fights and other problems resulting from intoxicated youth at that area of Zakynthos...

There are three places in Greece (Laganas in Zakynthos, Faliraki in Rhodes and Mallia in Crete) that since many years "suffer" from hordes of -mostly- British youngsters getting drunk every single night, leading to a number fights and accidental deaths. As a matter of fact, specialized travel agencies have dedicated tours offered to youngsters in the UK for those areas, explicitly mentioning the cheap booze. Interestingly, in previous years the Greek police had organised joint patrols with uniformed British policemen in order to reduce the problem. I have no idea whether this was a successful idea and whether they still do it.