If you were my daughter (who's 22 and beautiful, I think) I'd be worried the whole time. However, if she wanted to go I wouldn't forbid it. Though there would be risk, it would likely be the trip of a lifetime. After all, there's risk when I tour alone, and I continue to do so.

A couple of times on the west coast route I've run into female riders unaccompanied by men, and in both cases, after awhile they fell into impromptu groups, which I'm sure would have made their fathers happier. The first time there were the two "Princeton Girls", who had graduated from Princeton that spring and a bike tour from Portland to San Francisco was their graduation present to themselves. They had never done anything like it before and were pretty unskilled. (In fact, they started out as 3 Princeton Girls, but one had crashed between Portland and Astoria and had broken her collarbone. She panicked on a fast downhill when passed closely by a semi-truck. She wasn't used to riding a loaded bike, lost control, and fell. The other two were completing the tour in her honor.) Anyway, they met up with four men in their 50's who were riding from Portland to Brookings. They all had daughters about the same age, and they felt compelled to take the Princeton Girls under their wings and escort them as far as they were going. I fell in with them and agreed to accompany them the rest of the way to San Francisco.

Maybe I'm in danger of being sexist in acting as if we males were the big protectors of the vulnerable females, but the two girls were very glad to have us with them. In fact, they offered to pay for my motel room for a night in Brookings if I would lay over a day with them instead of riding off.

What does this have to do with you? Well, CrazyGuy journals abound with stories of tourers meeting up with other tourers and riding together for any number of days. If you ride on a well-established route, you'll probably meet some other tourers, and perhaps could ride with someone for awhile. Maybe even a long while. I know in my case, even though I didn't have any sexual designs on the girls I rode with, it was nice, for me anyway, to have some feminine company, as opposed to being solo.

Just some things to consider.

Your dad might like it if you carried some pepper spray.