Fresh tattoos will be a more lasting reminder for some, while others will be mourning drained bank accounts or nursing black eyes.

But for anxious parents the highlight of Schoolies will take place in the arrivals hall, where they hope to reunite with unscathed teenagers.

The rowdy annual party will have all but finished this year after the weekend and it appears to have passed without the tragic accidents that have tainted the event in recent years.

Paul Mergard, the Bali co-ordinator of the Red Frogs organisation, said it was a dream year for the volunteers who packed up their tent in Kuta on Saturday.

The drama they dealt with was fairly routine - vomiting and crying teens, a few brawls, plenty of pickpocketing and handful of cases of dengue fever - and for the most part they were relatively well behaved.

"They've had 13 years of school and it's a good opportunity to celebrate with their friends," Mr Mergard said.

But while many argue Schoolies is an important rite of passage for those transitioning into adult life, others argue the increasingly popular Bali destination has too many elements for disaster at an age where risk-taking peaks.

Strolling along Legian Street last week, the epicentre of Kuta's nightlife, The Sun-Herald was offered an array of drugs from opportunistic locals, including weed, magic mushrooms, Valium, cocaine and ecstasy.

Drunk schoolies were seen riding motorbikes shirtless and without helmets. The danger of methanol poisoning from cheap alcohol is very real.

"Literally every person I told I was going to Bali told me to be careful," Bernadette Clarke from Jervis Bay said. "I got the same speech over and over again, don't do this, don't do that."

It is these risks that have prompted a growing number of parents to join their teenagers in Bali, with most - like Bernadette's mother - staying at separate hotels away from the debauchery.

"She just wanted to make sure I was safe, I suppose," the 18-year-old said.

Karla Sheppard from Wollongong also travelled to Bali with her 17-year-old daughter Chloe and said it was important to give young adults freedom.

"I know that if we don't let them do these things, they'll do them behind our back," she said. "You just hope they don't do silly things when they're drinking because I know I used to do it."

Despite Schoolies often being defended, Professor Jake Najman, a sociologist at the University of Queensland, said it was likely to be "a fairly transient and trivial kind of event in a life that is going to confront many more serious events".

"Having said that, the unfortunate thing is that for some of them there will be things that happen that will affect them for the rest of their lives," he said. "So what should have been a fairly trivial week of mucking around, turns into a disaster of monumental proportions from which they may never recover, either physically or emotionally."

Professor Najman has been involved in research about Schoolies, a period he says allows young people to experiment "relatively free of surveillance".

"They are out of school and they don't have anyone looking over their shoulder, they can do whatever they feel like," he said. "They drink alcohol, they use illicit drugs, they often have sex with a variety of people and essentially demonstrate to the people around them that they're grown up. Just as long as they don't do anything that leaves a permanent mark, we shouldn't be too uncomfortable."

But Dr Arne Rubinstein, the chief executive of the Australian Rites of Passage Institute and an expert on adolescent development, said Schoolies was not the sort of rite of passage he would encourage.

"It can be the defining moment when they become an adult but not for a good reason because it might be when they lose their virginity or get their first STD or really get in trouble and have to grow up," he said. "All rites of passage would involve a challenge that had risks but normally those risks would be facilitated and supervised by the elders rather than the young in our communities creating their own risks."

For Elijah Kaka, an 18-year-old from Geelong who travelled to Bali with a large group of friends, the time away was an opportunity to revel with his mates before their lives veer in different directions.

"Most of us have just turned 18, you've finished school and you've got no worries," he said. "You get to come over here and see the world with your mates and it's time to celebrate. That's the thing most people don't get, it's just a time to celebrate."