Try not to listen to the negative comments from friend and family, they will only put doubts in your mind and make it more scary for you. As long as you feel comfortable and safe about going there, that is all that matters. I have an extremely negative family, in the end I stopped talking about it and booked my flights without telling them (obviously I did eventually, but with only a couple of weeks to go :P)

I think we all have that fear of them not being there at the airport, I had met my SO in person and I was still scared about going to visiting him for the first time in case he didn't turn up. Unfortunately I am in the minority that mine wasn't there when I landed in Nairobi at 1:30am! I have yet to find another example of this happening to anyone else, so I wouldn't worry about it too much, pretty much everyone gets their airport greeting that they had planned . One bit of advice I would give anyone is to make sure that you have enough money in your bank account to buy a one-way ticket out of the airport you are travelling into, in case of absolute emergencies. I promised my family that if he didn't turn up I would head straight around to departures and be on the next plane back to England, fortunately for me I managed to get through to the boyfriend just before getting into a taxi to departures, but it was nice knowing that financially if I needed to I could get back.

It is perfectly normal to be a bit nervous and scared, but just think about how far you are travelling and the new things you will see and experience, what a wonderful adventure!

at first i want to thank you for your replay. so i checked your profile to find your blog here and it sound like kinda me. i was fighting back to my parents kinda over an week - than they said: do what you need to do. but we have some rules (cause they are afraid of my security in latin america), i can understand it ... something like: Skype calls to see that i am fine.

I think its a good advice to have money for one way ticket. I didn't had it in mind yet.