Youth might not be wasted on the young, but for the longest time I thought Interrailing was. When I was a student, as the 1980s became the 1990s, many of my friends took the opportunity to discover Europe by train and they all returned with amazing stories of discovery. But for long-forgotten reasons, it was something I was always going to do but never actually got round to. And then suddenly I was in my late 20s and reluctantly resigned myself to never doing it, having been reliably informed by so many people that it was an opportunity only open to those under the age of 26.
Fast forward a few decades to spring 2023 and I’m trying to decide where to take my teenage children for our first holiday in five years – a gap caused largely, but not wholly, by the pandemic. My most memorable childhood holiday had come in 1981 when, over the course of a few days, my dad drove my family and our caravan from Nottingham to Pisa. I still remember the incredible feeling of my horizons broadening overnight. I’d love to give my children a similar experience, except I don’t drive.
