>By the time I was 10 I was allowed to be unsupervised and to get on a bus to a railway station, purchase a ticket for an intercity train that took me the bette

>By the time I was 10 I was allowed to be unsupervised and to get on a bus to a railway station, purchase a ticket for an intercity train that took me the better part of 100 miles away to another city then alight there at a major railway junction with many platforms and from there catch a suburban train to my final destination where my grandmother lived. Pfff, when I was 7 or 8 I took the local bus to the intercity bus station and then took that 200km to get to my grandparents. I had to figure out what bus to get on to and when to get off. I remember nobody even asked me for ticket money, just asked me where I was going. I was super happy because I got to pocket the money - but then I lost somewhere on my way there :( But I was one of 4 children in a poor family (at the time, eventually we got up to 6). I can't see myself risking my son on something as stupid, the amount of near death experiences I've had as a child, it freaks me out when I think about my son doing something like that, and I can't really say I'm better off for it either - I was just bored, poor and didn't have anything better to do.