Meet This Tourism Lecturer Who’s Living the Dream

[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]ou could say Verushka has always been infatuated with seeing the world. Raised in Durban, South Africa, her parents took her everywhere locally, passing on their own wanderlust to her. She even recalls that her first school holiday was a trip to Swaziland.

Of course, it makes sense that she’d plan for a life related to travel. Even while studying for her teaching degree, she was making plans to make the move to London. Though she delayed her plans for a year when she took a boarding school opportunity in a small town, it wasn’t long before she was antsy for a big city feeling.

While the big expat move was daunting, Verushka wound up calling London home for nearly a decade. Thrown out of a comfort zone that involved living with her parents, she was now fully responsible for her life. This included household expenses, grocery shopping, and navigating the London tube. Not to mention the culture shock that comes along with switching continents.

“The first few months were tough, but I survived and loved every moment of living and working abroad.”

From her own experience, she urges any new expats master budgeting as well as creating a savings fund, throwing yourself into discovering your new home, taking advantage of free opportunities, always trying new things, and making friends.

Living in London also opened up a ton of travel opportunities. Since it was much easier to travel from London than Durban, Verushka took advantage of cheap deals to see Jamaica, Turkey, Tunisia, Belfast, Austria, Barcelona, Brussels, Paris, Switzerland, and Italy. School holidays made scheduling easy, though figuring out visa requirements was always a bit of a hassle.

Many of her trips have been with friends or in a group, but she does enjoy traveling herself and her own company. She recommends always having copies of your documents and finding out what’s happening locally.

Of course, Verushka has since moved back to South Africa, where she’s been for six years now. She worked with a local college as a temp educator. When they introduced a Tourism section, her Hospitality speciality made her the perfect candidate to be a travel and tourism lecturer. She now gets to teach her students a subject called Tourist Destinations, which lets her study and discuss areas around the world.

These days she balances her successful lifestyle blog, SpiceGoddess, with full time teaching. She starts her day at 7am with social media. Then she has some time for breakfast and errands before she heads into teach her classes until 8pm. She dedicates nighttime to reading blogs or writing her own posts before she finally gets to sleep late into the night.

This hard work has paid off as SpiceGoddess has brought Verushka many opportunities both locally and abroad. This last year alone she’s become a Brand Ambassador for Mangwanani African Spa. Additionally, she was part of Kerala Blog Express in India.

With so many adventures under her belt, this is her advice for any female travelers wondering how to start:

“Book that trip and go! If you’re not brave enough to travel on your own, start with something like a Contiki tour. Travel locally!”

Follow Verushka’s adventures on her blog or below:

INSTAGRAM | TWITTER | FACEBOOK

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