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Making Friends As A Traveling Kid

I can drop into any bar on the planet and make friends … but for kids this is a different story.

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RHODES, Greece- Petra is digging holes all over the front yard of the house we’re staying in on Rhodes. She’s pretending to be an archaeologist. I told her that I used to do that for fun when I was a kid, and she knows of the eight seasons that I worked as a field archaeologist in my twenties.

Then the two neighbor girls — the daughters of the woman whose dog I saved – came up to our fence and peered inside. Petra took this as a sign that they may have been interested in playing with her, so she dropped the shovel and tore out of the gate and went after them.

Around ten minutes later she returned. She didn’t necessarily look dejected — she’s been through this before — but I could tell that the outcome was not optimal.

“It didn’t go so well,” she told me with a shrug.

Apparently, the girls had no interest playing with some foreign kid who doesn’t even speak Greek.

It’s kind of sad. The only thing in the world that Petra wants is a friend.

I can drop into any bar on the planet and make friends, but for kids it’s really not so easy.


Read what Petra has to say about this on Petras.World:

Traveling Kids

Filed under: Greece, Petra Hendele Adara Shepard, Travel Diary

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3694 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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VBJ is currently in: New York City

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