Italy like a Native?
 

This is such a long shot but....my 16 y/o is going to Italy with her grandparents in June. While they get along great, they vacation very differently. My daughter would like to avoid the big attractions and find places to meet locals. Any suggestions of tour companies that might specialize in more local venues, places she may be able meet kids her age? I think if they can split up the time between the touristy things and more native fun, they'll all have fun.

Does your daughter speak Italian? That would really help in trying to hang out with local kids her age. I don't think I've ever heard of european tours aimed at 16 year old group, other than school tours. Maybe somehow thru schools?

Also they can do things like going to street markets, local festivals, just in general doing less 'touristy' things. You can find local events calendars on the internet (www.whatsonwhen.com is one) when you know their general itinerary.

Does your daughter speak Italian?

She doesn't speak Italian fluently. But is taking it in school...I think part of her motivation is that she feels like shes not learning it "organically". Plus doesn't want to be stuck with my 60ish parents.

Can't she plan some things to do on her own, that are her own interest an ideas? As far as not being stuck with the grandparents all the time.

I keep focusing on wanting to - avoiding big attractions and spending time with locals - which is certainly a worthwhile idea, but I'm not sure how you'd accomplish it. Maybe making a connection thru a language or other school for her to be able to meet kids her own age. I just don't think that's going to happen on the streets without some kind of specific plan.

totally agree. shes pretty chatty, and i think at local resturants with communal tables, or markets or such she would do well meeting people I just don't know where those are. Is there somewhere I can find out when destivals are happening, soccer games, or some other place where mingling is not awkward.

Perhaps your daughter should join SERVAS. It is an organization that promotes friendship and world peace through understanding. Travelers who join the organization get lists of hosts in the countries where they will travel. These hosts may offer a free place to stay or just to meet and show you around their town. Some areas also have gatherings and dinners. This might be a safe way for her to connect with locals.

http://www.usservas.org/

If they are staying anywhere for a few days or a week, how about her taking some Italian classes? She could do say 3 hours a day and likely meet other people her own age, while allowing the 60-somethings to pursue their own agenda. Language schools generally have tours and cultural outings too, and the students are often young.

Where exactly will they be traveling? I ask because most towns have individual online sites that offer information on upcoming festivals, sports events, etc etc. If you give us a list of those places, we can try to find the appropriate links.

For example, if they are going to Siena:

http://www.comune.siena.it/main.asp?id=0

Given the way your daughter feels regarding traveling with her grandparents, maybe she shouldn't go.

If your daughter gets hold of a couple of Let's Go or Rough guides they will list the student hangouts - either areas or specific cafes etc - and she can head to them to meet kids her own age.

My first recommendation is that your parents and daughter not to go with a tour group. Perhaps they could stay in a series of short-term rental apartments (check out VRBO.com), and they can be in residential neighborhoods. I agree with nytraveler that "Let's Go" guides are great for finding out about places that teens will be hanging out. Not to get you paranoid or anything, but the drinking age in Italy is 16, so there will likely be drinking at a lot of the places recommended... though probably much less drunkenness than one would find among teens hanging out in Northern Europe.

I traveled in France and Italy with my daughter several times when she was about the same age as your daughter, and she was interested in the same things as your daughter, and she had no trouble meeting up with other young people.

She spoke French well but had just a smattering of Italian. Made no difference as most young people in the cities we visited spoke English to one degree or another, having studied it in school and grown up watching a lot of American television. And they wanted to speak 'American' with her, not their own language.

She met other young people while sitting in cafes over her morning coffee, while riding buses and trains, while watching a few boys kick a ball around in an empty piazza, while out during the evening passeggiata before dinner. They were anywhere and everywhere, she is friendly, attractive and out-going, it was easy and fun and a great growing experience for her.

Reading a good guidebook, or doing some research online, is a great idea to prepare her for some of the cultural differences she may encounter, as well as to ensure she has the personal safety information she needs. But I wouldn't worry about that too much - if she has some street-smarts, and some clear restrictions from you and her grandparents regarding where she mustn't go and what time she must return, Italy is a much safer place for her to try her wings than most American cities.

Those trips ignited a fire for adventure in my daughter's heart and she has traveled often and widely since finishing her schooling, along the way becoming an interesting, accomplished and almost-fearless woman. Now she is expecting her first child, at the age of 36, and has no intention of letting that slow her down for more than a few years. What memories she will have to entertain her when she's old and grey, her eye-site gone, friends long buried! Just like her mother and grandmother!

If your daughter wants to go local in Italy, the first thing she should grasp is that in Italian culture, people do not segregate themselves by age as strictly as they do in America and some other places, nor do they segregate others by age. It is not strange in the slightest to see teens and people in the 60s talking to each other in a piazza or on a bus, or in a cafe. It is considered normal for teens to spend considerable time with their grandparents -- and both generations enjoying it.

Of course it is understood that young people will want to have independence, their own friends, and private space. But if she is imagining it will be uncool to be seen with her grandparents, that is certainly not the case. And if she goes to a piazza with her grandparents, she'll find Italians of all ages of there. She may find that Italian grandmothers, or children younger than she is, take a lot of interest in talking to American teenager.

So I'm suggesting she switch off her very American 'age-consciousness' for her trip to Italy and go native. I suggest she ask her grandparents to make time everyday in the early evening to go to the local passeggiata and the non-touristy piazze to hang out and socialize so she can practice her Italian. In the mea time, she might take an interest in learning the language of the things that typically interest young Italians -- football, music, clothes and computer and cell phone devices, so she can strike up conversations with Italians her own age. Most Italians consider all conversation an enjoyable activity all by itself, and they don't go special places to do it, other than the piazza or the walkways, or the modest cafes.

She is not at all concerned about not looking "cool", what she is concerned about is spending her days touring churches, and art musuems and historical sites. I guess I'm asking for something urealistic...its like making friends anywhere it needs to be organic.

I think you need a vehicle to make the connection. Same as adults who want to "meet locals". Like thru a cooking class, walking tour, attending a local event, something that brings people together.

The only time I have met the locals is when I was visiting a friend who lived in the location. Then I got invited to dinner parties, school pagents, or her friends & their families.

I don't think you're going to meet locals in a cooking class or on a walking tour, IMHO. I would think a local restaurant/hangout or a piazza would be the best spots.

But just a personal warning: I wouldn't let a 16-year-old venture out in a strange area in search of new "friends."

Why would a local start talking to tourists when they are eating dinner in a local restaurant?

That's the problem with the entire scenario of "meeting locals" whether we're talking teens or adults. Why would a person going about their every-day life start chatting with strangers, who do not even speak their language?

In taking a class or a tour, your guide at least would be local. That is a place to start.

Please read my comments above, if you haven't already. I am writing from personal experience and experience of my daughter who was about the same age as yours at the time. What you are asking is not unrealistic at all.

Suze writes <i>"The only time I have met the locals is when I was visiting a friend who lived in the location."</i> and <i>"Why would a local start talking to tourists when they are eating dinner in a local restaurant?"</i> I believe she is writing about her experience as an adult, and it says more about her own style of travel than it does about all the <i>'locals'</i> she didn't meet. Young people are different from adults, teens in particular. Many are curious, outgoing, helpful, friendly in a tentative-but-open way.

And please read what zeppole has to say above also. She's right on about the Italian culture and she suggests just exactly the scenarios that worked for my daughter: hanging out in cafes with a coffee, non-touristy piazze, evening passeggiata, etc.

She should also practice her 'friendly' look, and perhaps a few ploys such as asking for help with directions, with using her mobile, with the menu, with 'I love your jeans, where did you get them.' These have worked in Italy, just as they worked in Iran, Morocco, Turkey and any of the other places we've traveled together over the years.

I wasn't trying to meet locals.

I do agree that teenagers will have an easier time.