Have you already bought the ticket? If not, you might want to figure what you would spend for the ticket and ask him if there is anywhere else he would want to go instead. With the money from the ticket he may be able to find something closer that a friend could afford to come along and have money left for lodging. My son is 23 and a grad student and I think he would probably like to travel with a friend as well. He even thought of traveling around Europe last summer camping with his college roommate, but they couldn't get their schedules to meet. When you are that age, I think you want to experience these things with someone else and would rather have cheaper accommodations shared with with a friend than try it on your own.

<<When you are that age, I think you want to experience these things with someone else>>


I'll kindly disagree. I don't think the preference is age-related necessarily. Plenty of young people like to go off backpacking solo (see Lonely Planet's website if you don't believe me).

Same like people in their 30's, 40's... some like to go only with a friend, spouse, family members, and some enjoy traveling solo.

Solo travel means different things. It can mean being all alone every minute of every day of your trip, or it can mean hooking up with interesting companions you find at the airport, at a hostel, eating lunch or just hanging out at a museum, and spending an afternoon with them, or a week-end jaunt, or the entire trip or just sharing a meal. If you are open to the concept of "solo travel", it doesn't necessarily mean you will be "alone" but that you will have your options open, a great place to be to meet new friends.

When DD graduated from college she and a friend planned a trip to Europe. Friend backed out, but DD was determined to go so she went on her own for a month and then joined DH and me in Italy for a month. She met a lot of great people in hostels, restaurants, etc. and was amazed at how often she ran into the same people over the course of the month. She was, however, grateful to see us and have familiar companions for the second half.

I wonder if the thought of coping by himself with the language(s) might bother your son. I know I (and DD) can sound out in Spanish, Italian, German, etc. and figure out a lot more because there's a certain familiarity but the Asian languages do intimidate me (and I confess to not having tried, yet).

If he wants to go back to New Zealand, maybe he should just plan a great trip there.

Update-
My son decided to go it alone and planned a 3 month itinerary beginning with 3 nights in Tokyo and moving on to 3 weeks in China. He's made reservations in hostels taking care to book the largest rooms available in the hopes of meeting people.
He quit his job, sold most of his stuff and put the rest in storage and moved home for 4 weeks in anticipation of the trip.
And then came down with a first time, raging case of psoriasis on the palms of his hands. I've never seen anything like it.
The dermatologist recommends he not travel. He's trying his third course of steroid cream and, in the mean time, contracted bronchitis. He's supposed to leave in less than 2 weeks. Sigh.....

Gosh, Welch, how awful! I hope he can recover in time to go ahead with his plans.