Hilary Bradt: Staying with a German pen pal

When I was 15 I went to stay with my pen friend in north Germany. It was my first trip abroad and the first without my parents and I hated every minute of it. From the moment we met, Christina and I disliked each other and, in hindsight, I can only feel sorry for this normal teenager who liked boys and pop music. I only liked horses and was shamefully retarded on the emotional front.

It's hard to pick out the low point from a trough of tearful gloom but it was probably when I was alone in the house and there was a persistent ringing at the bell which I ignored. Then, to my alarm, I could see the visitor walking around the house looking through the windows. I hid under the dining room table. That afternoon Dr Schmidt, Christina's very frightening mother, came home from work and told me she'd left her key behind and had needed to pick up some papers from the house. "But you didn't hear me," she said. "Oh, I must have been in my room. Sorry!" I said, blushing crimson, with the awful knowledge that she'd seen me.
Hilary Bradt is the co-founder of Bradt Travel Guides

Josh Howie: Sambucas in Mallorca

Deia, Mallorcan mountain village retreat of the rich and famous and hippy and poor, beckoned to this post-GSCE 16-year-old and his best friend. On our first night out, eager to ingratiate ourselves with the glamorous offspring of the beautiful people, we aped their consumption of something called a "sambuca shot". Sambuca is to tequila what Thatcher is to Cameron, and sizewise it was less a shot and more a cannonball. All was going to plan though, with snogging possibilities kindled.

With my friend having turned possibility into reality, I found myself at about two o'clock in the morning chatting alone with a backpacking hippy in his late-30s. Suddenly I became overwhelmed with the need to retreat home, a 20-minute walk outside the village. I mumbled excuses and lurched away down the main road. As the village ended, I got the idea that the hippy might be following me. I deduced that he was going to attack me and started to panic. Loss of motor control meant every urgent step took me closer to the ground, until I was literally crawling on the road. He must be getting closer. I had a plan. I'd roll into the ditch and he'd walk past.

I woke to sharp rays of sun and various insects making friends with my face. At the exact moment I rose from the dirt like a hungover Lazarus, two beautiful girls that I'd met the night before came around the corner on their moped. They stopped to check if I was OK and rode on. The rest of that summer I was known as "the ditch boy".
See comedian Josh Howie perform Gran Slam at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the Pleasance courtyard – The Hut, 4–29 August. For tickets see edfringe.com

Sam Wollaston: Hitchiking to the Lakes

I come from a strange family whose approach to parenting was that we should learn to fend for ourselves from an early age. That included holidays. I remember my poor brother being sent off to canoe down the entire length of the Thames with a cousin, when they were both just 12 years old. They had a miserable time, were almost murdered by some hooligans from Maidenhead, and neither has ever really recovered from the experience.

I was allowed to wait until I was 15 for my first adventure. What are your plans for half term, I was asked. Dunno, I'll probably sit around watching TV and picking my spots, I said. Oh no you're not, you're going to hitchhike to the Lake District with a tent, you're going to camp, up in the mountains, for a week; and then – if you're still alive – you're going to hitchhike back again.

The only consolation was that I too was allowed to take a cousin with me. And that's what we did. We hitchhiked the length of England, we camped (by Stony Tarn, I remember it well), we got cold and wet and scared, and couldn't afford to buy enough food. But, against the odds, we survived.

I don't recommend it at all. If your parents try it, make sure you steal some money from them and at least stay in a Travelodge.
Sam Wollaston is the Guardian's TV critic

Tanya Gold: Stoned (and grounded) in Amsterdam

My first holiday abroad without adults was with my boyfriend Matthew in 1990. We were suburban teenagers who were developing a love of hash. So of course we went to Amsterdam.

When we arrived we jumped straight into a hash cafe. Look – menus! Of different kinds of hash! Three hours later we fell into the street, which now seemed to be upside down.

And we set off for our lodgings, which were, catastrophically, at a friend of my mother's, whom I had known since babyhood.

Aunty Michelle opened the door with her arms outstretched. Big hair. Big smile. Love. "Hello!" she shrieked, "How are you?" We both giggled at the big-haired apparition until tears leaked onto our shoes. Matthew fell over and slid down the wall.

We were put to bed. I could hear Aunty Michelle on the telephone to my mother through the wall. "Yes, they're here. I think they are stoned. Tanya's boyfriend fell over and slid down the wall."

We were allowed out the next day, but we went back to the hash cafe. Look – menus! Of different kinds of hash! Outside, everyone seemed so busy. Matthew kept pulling me out of the way of trams and bicycles. We tried to go to museums, but it is hard to sightsee when the floor is on the ceiling. When I got home, I was grounded indefinitely.
Tanya Gold is a writer for the Guardian

Emma Kennedy: Campsite japes

My mother, arms folded, had finally agreed to let me go to Cornwall after protracted negotiations during which she warned me that "getting pregnant six months before your A-levels would be really stupid". When I pointed out that I was going away with my best friend (a girl) who couldn't make me pregnant, she relented. But only just. We had taken the train and arrived in Truro only to realise that neither of us was able to take any money out. We had £20 to last four days. Getting our priorities right, we bought three two-litre bottles of cider and concluded we could live on that and possibly chips.

We had arrived quite late at night and simply wandered onto the first campsite we could find. Except it wasn't a campsite, it was a caravan park from which we were turfed off the following morning. We ended up pitching the tent behind some bins in a field. We lived like tramps for the next three days. It wasn't quite the bucolic idyll we'd been hoping for. Still, at least I didn't get pregnant.

In fact, though, my first holiday without my parents was a school trip when I was seven to Cuffley Camp Outdoor Centre, near Potters Bar. I was stuck in a tent with four other girls, one of whom wet herself with anxiety within the first 10 minutes. I was unable to open my suitcase and decided that, rather than ask for help, I would just spend the week in the clothes I was standing in.

With no adults around, the four of us entered into a lengthy discussion about the proper meanings of swear words during which our leader, Jane, proudly announced that a "fuck means doing a poo". We believed her. Later that night, Jane grabbed me and told me to drag a lad called James up to the dreaded Night Toilet. She wanted to lock him in it. Seeing us slope off, a suspicious teacher stopped us and asked what we were doing. I looked up, panicked and said the first thing that came into my head, "We're going to the toilet for a fuck, Miss."
Emma Kennedy is the author of The Tent, The Bucket and Me (Ebury Press, £10.99)

Terry Alderton: The boys in Ibiza

It was 1989, Marrs' Pump up the Volume had changed music and acid house had kicked in. The Essex boys were 17 and on their way to the coolest place in the world, Cafe Del Mar, Ibiza. My friends had booked the holiday weeks before but I was under the thumb or, as my friends would have it, "a love wank". A label that I could never get my head around, but strangely understood its connotations. At 11am on the actual day of the trip I gave in and went down to the travel agent (pre-internet days, you understand) and booked my summer of love.

At the hotel I was sharing with Jeff, the kind of fella that would go out with a fiver in his pocket, get pissed, buy no one a drink, and come back with a tenner. First day in the sun I lay on the beach, surrounded by half-naked girls, believing that we were "the nuts". I drifted off. My friends, knowing I was quite obviously burning, thought it funny to let me sleep. I awoke feeling a little sore. The moment my so-called mates fell about laughing is when I removed the round mirrored sunglasses I had been wearing as they had left two clear white rings around my eyes!

That night I went out in jeans and waistcoat to Pacha and, of course, had to keep wearing the same sunglasses. We went onto Space at 9am to continue the party. At noon I'd had enough and was sober enough to feel my sunburn again. But rather than wait 20 minutes for the next bus from Ibiza Town, I thought, sod that, and walked 17km along busy highways being tooted. When I finally arrived back at the hotel, all my friends were already there, sitting around the pool, even though I had left Space well before them.
See comedian Terry Alderton at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe at the The Pleasance – Ace Dome from 4–29 August

Kevin Rushby: Walking the South West Coast Path

At 16 I hitched down to Cornwall with a friend and walked the path. I'm surprised that no one asked if we were runaways since neither of us looked more than 12. One night we slept rough in Plymouth, but apart from that it was straightforward camping and walking. The weather was superb, the sea aquamarine. We had almost no money and lived on sandwiches and tea. In fact, one of the first things I learned was that a fire and a mug of tea can make the world seem right. Second thing: the amount of money spent does not alter the amount of fun to be had.

What really counted was talking to people. I had to do lots of chatting, negotiating, entertaining, discussing and questioning. Travelling forced me to engage with strangers in a way that I had never done before, and I learnt to be far more self-reliant. Strangers, I discovered, could be very helpful and endlessly fascinating. They could also be dangerous, boring and stupid, or any combination of those three – it was up to me to evaluate and decide. I wrote it all down, which was a very good idea, but subsequently lost the notebook – which was not so clever. My advice is simple: avoid travel agents, tour groups and rabid animals, embrace the unexpected and enjoy the unplanned.
Kevin Rushby is a writer for the Guardian's Travel section

Marcus Sedgewick: Camping in the Ardennes

Having an older brother that I was really close to meant we could drive somewhere when I was about 16. We took a cross-channel ferry and went camping in the Ardennes: a beautiful wooded part of Europe. We cooked badly, but it was then I that realised everything tastes wonderful under canvas, thanks to the fresh air ... and starvation. We walked a bit, but what we mainly did was drive around in circles playing music loudly. We didn't even mind that we were in deeply unexciting Belgium.

Marcus Sedgewick was a judge on last year's Booktrust Teenage Prize, and a past winner with his teen vampire novel My Swordhand is Singing. His latest book Revolver is out now