Holiday Warnings for Teenagers

2 July 2014, 06:00 | Updated: 30 March 2016, 13:50

There are warnings for teenagers heading on holiday without their parents this Summer.

Last year there was a rise in the number of Britons sexually assaulted abroad, while around 4000 holiday makers from the UK ended up in hospital.

Andrew Watkins from the Foreign Consular's office in Spain says drinking too much often plays a part:

"We all want to have a good time, it's a different environment we're there to enjoy ourselves. Inevitibly, sometime alchol is mixed in with that and there are instances of people either trying to jump from one balcony to another or trying to jump from a balcony into a pool."

Dan Jones from Cardiff is about to head off on his first holiday with friends and he can't wait:

"The freedom of going away for the first time with all the lads. Just getting away from the family being able to do what ever I want, go on the pull if I want. It's just amazing."

But every year thousands of youngsters come back with broken bones, or end up in foreign jail cells for drinking, drugs and fighting. That's why parents are being told to ensure their children have travel insurance. Cathy Swabey from Cardiff says she's worried about her daughter's first trip away without the family, but she says she's not sure she wants to know all the details:

"The main thing is having too much to drink, having an accident or getting attacked; drowning; falling off a balcony. All those things are going through my head. Of course I'd like to know all the good things that happen on holiday, but really I think what happend in Ibiza should stay in Ibiza."

So the Foreign Consular Office is reminding youngsters to stay safe while they're in a different country and look after their friends as well as themselves:

"If you do get split up that can be difficult. Sometimes you don't know the way back to the hotel or something can happen on the way back. That's the very scenario where people can be victims of crime, being robbed or worse."