I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. I finished school, took a gap year, and moved to the UK — not because I had a plan, but because I needed to go find one.
LightieLearning started as a way to document everything I was learning. It turned into something bigger: a real resource for other young people doing the same thing.
When I first started researching what to do before moving to the UK, I was shocked at how bad the information online was. Outdated articles. Vague advice. "It depends" answers that helped nobody. People writing guides who clearly hadn't moved in years.
"I moved countries and realised how much information online is either outdated, overly complicated, or written by people who haven't actually done it."
So I started writing things down as they happened. What worked. What didn't. What I wish I'd known before I landed. LightieLearning is that — a living document of the whole experience, written while I'm in the middle of it.
The name? A "lightie" is South African slang for a young person, a kid, someone still figuring it out. That's exactly who this is for. The people who are brave enough to go, but smart enough to know they don't have all the answers.