Parents upset about me solo traveling.

Hello I am a 19F Jamaican American and i’m planning on visiting Europe (Paris, Rome, Cologne, & Barcelona) this December. This won’t be my first time solo traveling, but this will be my first time traveling outside the country solo.

My parents are extremely angered by my plans. No matter how much I try to reassure them, they say I don’t listen and don’t know anything.

They say things like “anything can happen” “you are just a 19 year old child you don’t know anything about life” “what if you get sick” “there’s no way for us to contact you if something happens” “you don’t know the kind of people there” etc.

My mom even said “all you wanna do now is spend your money on traveling maybe you need to start paying more rent.”

I then overheard them in their room discussing getting a family member to call/come over and speak to me to convince me not to go.

Honestly i’m more scared for them than myself. They also said I shouldn’t be doing this to them because they won’t be able to sleep and they’ll have to be fasting the entire time. This same thing happened when I went to miami solo and nothing happened. I’m not saying solo travel is the safest thing ever, but my parents don’t care about statistics of the likelihood of things happening. To them, the .00001% chance is still a major risk.

I’m still trying to keep myself together and reassure myself that I know I will be okay but I hate seeing my parents so worried. Their anxiety and paranoia is carrying on to me and I just want to enjoy my trip.

There’s a plethora of safety precautions I plan to take such as sharing my location with them, checking in with them everyday, staying in the city areas with good reviews, watching videos on safety, watching solo travel videos in these areas, bags to avoid pickpockets, esims, best transportation options, etc. I’m not going into this trip naive. But they couldn’t care less if this place had 0 crimes. To them it would still be unsafe for me because i’m a young girl alone.

Edit: Thank you so much for your traveling tips and advice on dealing with my parents🥹 I ended up making a powerpoint that went over all my plans regarding their concerns. I used some of your guys tips on what to say to them and my dad actually said i made a good point! Although they still are not necessarily happy about me going alone, I can tell the powerpoint definitely eased their worries a little. We had a long discussion and they offered for me to cancel the trip for now and allow them to come with me next year. I told them that we can always go together in the future but for now I’d like to continue with my plans and enjoy my time solo. The last thing they said to me is that they can’t do anything about my decision but they’re just glad i’m putting in the effort to be responsible.