How I convinced my parents to let me and my sister travel to Vietnam
I love traveling. My sister loves traveling. (She is going to go to tourism school, actually). My family loves traveling.
We like adventures once in a while (except my mom).
We don’t bathe on luxurious trips.
We crave new experiences.
For a 22-year-old Indonesian, I’ve gone to more places than average Indonesians have gone in their lives. I’ve been very lucky and blessed to have parents with that same mindset, that the world is out there to be discovered and experienced by us. Each place we haven’t been is a gem for us.
But as a 22-year-old Indonesian, I have never traveled alone. I’ve always traveled with my family.
So for starters, I asked my sister to go on a trip with me.
To a country we’ve never been to before.
To Vietnam.
Why Vietnam?
It’s not too far from Indonesia. It’s cheap. It’s relatively safe (from what I read on the Internet).
And it’s unique.
Actually, every place is always unique. So I consider this first country as the opening of a long journey I will embark on in my life.
We know from the start that it will be hard to convince our parents. Firstly, they are Asian(!) parents. Vietnam is relatively near to Indonesia, but it’s also separated by the ocean, of course, they will worry. Second, we rarely walk in our neighborhood, we usually use cars, just because it’s more convenient and it’s more common here.
So we do the next logical thing we can do.
We do research every weekend.
Find the cost of the flight, the accommodation (I love searching airbnbs), the places of interest, activities, and the general cost of living there. We decided to go from north to south in 10 days.
Then we propose the plan to our parents.
After some discussions, they finally let us. We will cover half of our expenses, and the rest will be paid by them.
I can’t wait! We will actually go to Vietnam in a few months.
So stay tuned for the ‘travel blogs’ and updates!
