The Teen -Age Invasion
of Europe Is On!
Touring the Continent was
once reserved for the wealthy, but
this summer thousands of
youth will travel abroad; here's why
and how they're doing it
By THEODORE IRWIN
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Each year, chaperoned groups of youngsters learn about the world by touring it.
Young America is avidly exploring the world
beyond Main Street. The shiploads of young
sters scheduled to cross the Atlantic this summer
reflect a new travel phenomenon: teens-on-tours.
According to travel agencies, the number of ado
lescents tripping abroad has quadrupled in the past
three years. Today they represent 10 percent of
all U.S. travel to Europe.
Among our younger set and their parents, the
foreign fever has spread throughout the nation.
Symptomatic was the recent remark of a gas
station owner in Pendleton, Iowa. "I don't want
my boy to be any different than his friends," he
said. "I'm sending him to Europe."
The trend is marked by two significant facts:
the tender age at which children are journeying
without their parents and the democratization of
European touring. Even 13-year-olds in junior
high school are being signed up. And travel that
for so long used to be reserved exclusively for
wealthy families is now practiced by a cross
section of the middle class.
What's behind the going-abroad epidemic?
"Basically," says Justin J. Cline, executive di
rector of American Youth Hostels, "it's our high
standard of living there's more money to spend.
The grand tour of Europe is now within reach of
the average teen-ager. Everywhere he looks, he
sees enticing ads about faraway places. Many, be
come sophisticated at an earlier age, and this, too,
sparks a desire for travel."
Other adult observers contend they find in our
gadding youth "a marked cultural renascence"
and a more educationally rounded individual.
These adolescents want to see what they've been
reading about in school Buckingham Palace, St.
Peter's Basilica, the Louvre, Stratford-on-Avon,
the Left Bank.
The many parents who have taken European
jaunts also infect their offspring with .the travel
4 Family Wetkly. May 21, 1M0
virus. Many have revived the idea of years ago
that a young person's education is incomplete until
he has made the grand tour. Some consider their
daughters more marriageable with such a broad
ened background. Others bear in mind that deans
of admission at top-flight colleges seem to prefer
travel-stained high-school graduates. Radcliffe,
Smith, and Vassar specifically ask applicants to
indicate where they've been and their general re
actions to foreign journeys.
Generally, the teen-agers go in organized groups
of 20 or 25, accompanied by mature high
school or college teachers. Relatively few students
nowadays go off on lone-wolf vagabonding ram
bles; and parents want a fixed itinerary so that
Junior can be reached if necessary.
Most of the chaperoned groups travel by ship,
where the unfledged can quickly get to know one
another, melt their shyness, and enjoy shipboard
dances and sports. On the seven student ships un
der the auspices of the nonprofit Council on Stu
dent Travel, a "TRIP" routine (Travelers Recreation-Information
Program) includes language
refresher courses, art lectures, talks on the history
and politics of areas to be visited, international
song and dance festivals, and travel-tip sessions.
Shipboard lectures are not always strictly cul
tural. Last summer, after a college professor con
cluded his talk on France and opened the floor for
questions, a Seattle lad asked, "Where is Harry's
Bar?" After another lecture, a girl piped up with,
"Are Italian men as handsome as they say?"
Wherever they're headed, there's fun and a cer
tain amount of education inevitably to be absorbed.
Among the 25 different trips sponsored by the
U.S. National Student Association are ones spe
cializing in medicine, journalism, and sports; on
the latter, you can play cricket in England, water
ski in Italy, and climb in the Alps.
Bike tours appeal to the more adventurous teen
agers. Using youth hostels, they can get by on $3
a day for shelter and simple meals. House parents
are in charge at hostels set up in schools, camps,
churches, farm homes, and community centers. No
alcoholic beverages are permitted, and generally
there's no smoking. On these strenuous tours, par
ticipants must be good cyclists.
Swelling the summer invasion of Europe are young
Americans lured by international work camps, an
inexpensive way of spending a vacation abroad,
though most require the payment of transportation
and personal expenses. Many organizations, such
as the American Friends Service Committee, en
able students to work on some manual-labor proj
ect and carry on a program of discussion and study.
The American Student Information Service is a
clearing house for students who'd like to work
abroad on farms, in forestry, construction, resorts,
hospitals, child care, and the like. Wages are about
$40 a month with room and board; some pay
merely pocket money.
Cost op the teen-age trips ranges widely.
Much depends on the itinerary, mode of
travel, and type of accommodation. Youth Hostel
trips average $700 for the summer, while a typical
55-day conducted teen holiday runs to about
$1,300, and a round-the-world ramble can be ar
ranged for about $2,000.
During their stay abroad, our teen-agers are
wide-eyed, eager to absorb all they can, and ad
venturous enough to taste all sorts of foreign con
coctions. Usually the itinerary is so jammed
they haven't a chance to be bored or homesick.
"The trick," confides a veteran tour leader, "is to
wear them out so they won't get into mischief."
Meeting foreign students on their own level, they
talk gravely about educational systems, politics,
social problems. Like their parents, they're in
(Conttnued on page 13)