Book Cheap Flight Tickets to Make Your Children Travel Alone by Taking Precautions
The decision to let your child travel alone without taking any assistance is a sensitive personal decision which only you can decide. Well, if you have decided then the team of Trip Reserver is trying to help you to take some precautionary steps. However, you must take care of the security issues by yourself. Let’s discuss in detail:
Travel without You:
Instead of a straightaway independent trip over a long distance, you may plan many occasions where you can prepare your child to travel alone and stay without you. There are a number of trips that kids of varying ages regularly take on their own, including:
- Traveling to visit to grandparents
- Studying abroad
- Traveling with other families as a child’s friend
- Traveling as part of an educational group
- Traveling with their grandparents
In this post, we are discussing some ways to protect your children during journey.
Awareness of Details
The airlines don’t allow the kids under 5 to travel without assistance, 5–11 can travel as an ‘unaccompanied minor’ and more than 11 can travel alone. But more than age, the child’s independence, and awareness are the main criteria which can vary from child to child. Moreover, it is mandatory that air dropping and departure will be permitted with the adult only. Most airlines will escort minors under a certain age, but there’s a fee for the service.
Respect the need for documentation
Whenever a child is traveling alone, the airport authorities are likely to get serious and they pay more attention towards the child. In this case, it is the parent’s duty to provide each and every required detail of the child properly in a file folder and the child must be aware of it. In a case of any small injury or some other situation like a child losing something, the staff inside plane requires the details but if the child does not cooperate, the situation becomes panic and the child too will feel embarrassed. To avoid such a situation, respect the documentation procedure. The parent must not forget to send the consent form along with the child. This a very common mistake done by the parents.
Pay attention to passport requirements
Many countries require outside visitors to have a passport that’s valid for at least six months after the date of entry or a certain number of months after the passport holder leaves the country. Every country makes its own rules, so it’s important to know before you go. If your child is headed abroad, check the passport requirements by personally visiting the airport. Get an updated passport if it’s even close to the expiration requirements.
Understand how travel insurance helps if your child is sick or injured
If your child is traveling with another family or with an educational tour, look into the insurance before they leave. The coverage that the school or guide will have is all about their own liability and it isn’t to cover your child’s medical bills or bring you to their side if they need you. Study abroad insurance plans offered by the school is usually inadequate if your child is participating in sports or has a pre-existing medical condition for example. Again, they’re covering their liability and not necessarily your child’s health.
The same is true of travel insurance when your child is traveling with another family. No matter whether that family has a travel insurance plan or not, your child won’t be covered by their plan because you’re not related. There are family travel insurance plans that cover kids traveling with family members, however.
If your own health insurance plan doesn’t extend to where your child is going, most domestic health insurance plans don’t cover medical care abroad, then it’s important to get travel medical. It will protect you from a huge medical bill if your child meets with an accident or gets the stick, most plans also include coverage to fly one person to the insured’s bedside if they’re hospitalized. Travel medical insurance is extremely cost-effective, especially for younger people, so there’s really no excuse.
Conclusion
Air traveling is comfortable but one should follow the rules and regulations given by the airport authorities and airlines especially as we have discussed the case of a child traveling alone. A report says that many children (approx. 49%) travel alone safely. Trip Reserver’s team wishes Happy Journey to all the kids traveling alone.