I am going start this blog Marks & Spencer style because I feel it is the only way to explain my message I am trying to get across. My adventure in South Africa wasn’t just a surf trip, it was an adrenalin fuelled, eye-opening, personal growth roller coaster that taught me a lot about myself and other cultures, led to me getting an epic job and has given me the direction I needed at the age of 18 to go on and have an epic and unconventional 6 years. It has actually taken a few years for me to realize the level of impact it had on my life and shaped me into the person I am today and forever I will be eternally grateful.
In 2010 an 18-year-old version of myself embarked on the 10-week Surf Instructor course in South Africa with Ticket to Ride. I had decided to do the trip because I had always wanted to learn to surf and with the option of traveling around South Africa and getting qualified as a surf instructor sounded pretty cool and a lot different to what most of my mates were doing on their ‘gap years’. None of us found ourselves and are still trying! To be honest being the naive 18-year old I hadn’t done much research into where we were actually going to be travelling to and the poignant surf places we were going to visit. I was just up for an adventure and enjoying my year off between school and university, very unaware of how much this trip would shape the person I am at present and teach me things that would impact me years after. I look back on that trip now as an older and slightly wiser person and it hits me how much that one decision I made has shaped me and led me to the place I am today. Anyone who has done a Ticket to Ride course has probably had a similar realisation and too keep with the M & S style ‘This is so much more than just a surf trip’.
Make connections
“We don’t meet people by accident. They are meant to cross our path for a reason” – Unknown
You might not know it at the time but there are going to be some very pinnacle people you meet in life who are going to have a major influence on your path. Over the years every opportunity I have been given and experience I have had is from me getting out there and meeting people. It has allowed me to travel all around the world, meet people from all different backgrounds and cultures and I have even got an awesome job out of it. If you want to succeed in life just get yourself out there and be social!
Team at the surf camp I worked at in California – Carlsbad, California 2012/13
My South Africa crew – Plettenberg Bay, South Africa 2010
The best face I have ever seen in my life – Coffee Bay, South Africa 2010
Don’t feel the pressure to follow the path
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Before I went to South Africa I was at that stage in my life that most of us have been in or will be experiencing now of finishing A Levels and deciding yay or nay to university. Having a year between school and university was the best decision I made because not only did I have some epic experiences, it also allowed me to take a step back and ask the big question ‘ What did I want to do with my life?’. To be honest I still don’t know but it made me realise what next step I wanted to take. A lot of my friends rushed into university because they felt it was just the right thing to do, the next step that they had been told by their parents and teachers and a lot ended up doing a degree they didn’t like and has actually not benefitted them to the extent they thought. The trip allowed me to take a step back and evaluate my current situation and also made me realise in myself what type of person I was and what I wanted to do next. Because of that I had an epic 4 years at uni and gained a degree that I enjoyed and has actually benefitted me. What I learnt was not to fall to the pressures of other people, do what you want to do because in the end, you are going to be the one it effects the most.
The moment I completed my skydive – Plettenberg Bay, South Africa 2010
Graduation – Oxford, UK 2015
Instructing at the Ticket to Ride surf school – Newquay, UK 2015/16
Realize what is important
“The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have” Woody Allen
We all have those bad days where everything just seems to go wrong. For me going to South Africa was a huge eye opener because before that trip I had only be surrounded by people like me and hadn’t been exposed to many other cultures. The worst things that were happening to me was a flat tire or a bad exam result. But after having spent some time with a number of charities out in Africa and being immersed in the culture and seeing how some people live and had to deal with the unbelievable amount of poverty and trauma it made me realize how lucky I was and still am. I think what got me the most was that these children who lived in these townships surrounded by all this danger and poverty were carrying on and making the most of what they had. I have never seen bigger smiles than the ones on these kids faces and the excitement and happiness they got out of just playing with a skipping rope. It really brought home to me what is important and it stuck with me when I got back to the UK and went back to my normal life. I would get annoyed with my friends or family when they complained about little things that before I probably would have moaned about too but I was able to put it into perspective at saw things in a different way. Yeah OK I have my moments still but I am able to snap out of it pretty quickly now and it has truly made me realise how lucky I am and also what are the important things in life.
Coffee Bay tribe family – South Africa 2010
Fun times working with Waves for Change charity – Cape Town, South Africa 2010
Township kids heading for a surf – Cape Town, South Africa 2010
Travel, Travel, Travel
‘Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have travelled.’ Mohammed
Before I went to South Africa I had never gone travelling on my own. There is a stigma that travelling is a thing people do to find themselves on their gap year and that the people who travel have no direction and are generally bums. I think actually the opposite. It takes a lot to decide to go to a country you know very little about, on your own and especially on the instructor course you very much have a purpose and goal to gain a qualification. I learned so much from traveling and South Africa gave me the confidence explore more countries over the following years. I think there is a lot to say about traveling and I know that I have become more enriched and skilled from traveling around and meeting people from all different cultures rather than sitting in an office. And actually, now I sit in an office, my experiences from traveling help me every day, be it talking to someone about a trip or just dealing with a whole range of different types of people from all over the world. You learn skills traveling that you could never learn in a classroom and so I say to anyone who hasn’t traveled to go and don’t look back!
Beach clean with the local Township kids – Cape Town, South Africa 2010
Biggest bungee jump in the world – Bloukrans Bridge, South Africa 2010
Local tribes women – East London, South Africa 2010
Tribal dancing – Jeffreys Bay, South Africa 2010
Flotilla life – Croatia 2015
Summer surf – Newquay, Cornwall 2016
Getting to know the locals – Durban, South Africa 2010
Glacier exploring – Alberta, Canada 2016
The most westerly tip of Europe – Sagres, Portugal 2016
I think if I hadn’t done this trip I would have missed out and wasted lot of the years after because people I met and the experiences I had led me to even bigger adventures and opportunities. Because I learnt to surf and got qualified I was able to work in California as a coach for two seasons and then in the UK at our Ticket to Ride surf schools in my university summers. From that I then got a job working for Ticket to Ride in their Head Office as a sales advisor for all our surf trips including the one I went on! I have now been working for Ticket to Ride for two years in an epic job most of my mates are envious of which has allowed me to travel all over the world to places I would never of gone otherwise. I get paid to chat about surfing all day and it is all because I decided to go on a random surf trip 6 years ago.
If I could say one thing to my 18 year old self who was about to embark on this incredible adventure it would be “Live every day like it is your last, meet as many people as you can, surf from dawn till dusk, push yourself to do things you never thought you would and don’t worry so much about the future because everything happens for a reason.”
Check out my trip testimonial to see what I thought about the trip at the time!