Could be down to the bus fares.

When I was about 14, I went on a cycling holiday up North. One day I met a nice old couple at a cafe. They invited myself and a friend back to their house that evening for dinner. It was a really good night and they were good people.
When I was at their house their granddaughter was also staying. She was about twenty and had been injured in a horse riding accident a few months earlier. She told us she was currently finding sponsorship to take an 18 month walking trip round Europe promoting her charity. She was going to start from her Grandparents house and walk through as many countries as she could afford. I often wonder how she got on and wish I had been older so I could have given her a better contribution for her trip. The thing that always sticks in my mind about the house was their five pet geese they had in the front garden.