The international life of a Slovenian girl

She can be described in many ways. The thing that describes her life the most is that she likes to travel. She has travelled to Namibia with her family when she was nine years old, and she travelled with her sister on a 21-day pilgrimage to "French Route" or Camino Frances at age 16. Nika has visited 38 countries, but she still hasn't caught up to her sister. Who knows, maybe she will someday.

A few years after traveling through the French route she decided to study tourism in Bled, and before that she spent one year in Germany, where she worked as an Au-pair in Paderborn. She was thrown into a different world and she made it. She took care of the children and travelled around Germany and she met new people she is still seeing today. She also made the best of her study internship. She went back to Germany, but this time more to the east, to the national area of Saxony Switzerland into an artistic hostel. She found the internship through the Workaway website. She realized that what looks good in theory, can function poorly in practice, and you must really learn from experience. Sometimes we must simply improvise. During her work, she had time to explore a 112 km long hiking trail in the national park, and she also visited Dresden.

She is a volunteer at Hostelling International Slovenia. She has already written several interesting and informative articles, which you can read on the Hostelling International Slovenia's website. She takes advantage of the discounts she gets as a member of Hostelling International and as a journalist. In exchange for a written article in one of the HI hostels, it is also possible to get a free overnight stay, as she did in Budapest. Or bigger discounts as she got in Scandinavia.

She likes volunteering at HI because she arranges her own working hours and because she always gets the support she needs from the office of the organization. She is a true traveller, who is traveling economically. Many times, she sleeps at the locals' couches, and when she stays at hostels, she mostly also cooks her meals there. She is a social girl, she also likes to get to know new people through mobile applications (MeetUp, Couchsurfing).

She gained knowledge through Erasmus+ projects, where young people gather together at various workshops, in different countries. She went to her first project at the age of 17. She liked it, and she applied for more similar projects. First to the projects that were interesting to her, but then only to those that gave her the useful knowledge for her life. She says that international youth projects are an excellent opportunity offered by the European Union and worthwhile to take advantage of.

All her experiences, contacts and knowledge led her to her job today, where she currently works at the Slovenian Association of Scouts. Somewhere in the middle of her studies, she discovered what she was really interested in. And that's working with the young. Everything she has acquired over the years, she gives back to them. She is the leader of international youth projects at the Student Club Kranj. There she is takes care of registration and implementation of projects and the active involvement of young people. Many contacts of potential partners and experience from the projects that she participated in come very useful to her. She says that good food is extremely important at the projects, as this ensures the well-being of the participants. She is also aware of the importance of music while growing up. This year, she is also organizing international youth exchanges C.H.O.R.D. with her partners, where young people will be included in music workshops based on intercultural learning and inclusion.

Nikita's life gives us a lot of tips and advice. I have already learned a lot by talking to her. She told me how important it is to travel, meet other cultures, and learn foreign languages, because then people look at you differently. Her path teaches us that you must hope, travel and follow your dreams. It is important to take time to figure out what really makes us happy. The most important thing is that we travel through life with a smile.