'I quit my job to move across the world after a holiday changed my life'
A man quit his job and moved halfway across the world to pursue a hobby after one excellent holiday.
Finn Horne is a testament to the transformative power travelling can have. The 30-year-old tried scuba diving for the first time ever on a holiday to Koh Tao in Thailand.
Having never dived before, it was a totally new experience for the social media manager. He donned the equipment and launched himself into the water under the tutelage of a diving instructor. Soon the dizzying depths of 18m and the colourful array of fish he found down there was swapped for the darker, higher pressure environment found 40m beneath the surface.
The experience captivated Finn who, upon returning to the UK, quit his job and decided to follow his new dream of becoming a diving instructor. He left Birmingham and moved to Thailand, where he has spent the past four and a half years teaching others the art of scuba.
Having played water polo growing up, Finn was accustomed to being in the water. That wouldn't prepare him for the initial fright of a 6m whale shark casually swimming past, although he soon got used to the friendly, plankton feeding aquatic creatures.
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The 30-eary-old immediately fell in love with scuba diving (WTC Productions)Finn told the Mirror: "I was on holiday when I decided to take the plunge and try a new hobby – scuba diving with a friend. We were put into a group with two Swedish girls and our instructor showed us how to put the container of compressed air on your back, connected through the regulator.
"You have a primary breather and secondary breather, and the pressure gauge displays how much air you have left – do you have to keep an eye on it and check it regularly – at first I was checking it every few seconds, but then as you gain confidence, you become more relaxed.
"I learnt to dive to 18m and then got a deep dive speciality where I can go down to 40m. You lose colours the deeper you go – it’s like diving down through a rainbow and by the time you get to 40m you can only see blues and purples.
“The best thing I ever did was try scuba diving on holiday as it totally changed my life and I was able to fulfil a lifelong dream of being a diving instructor."
Finn has spoken of the transformative experience of scuba diving to coincide with a survey launched by holiday company First Choice about how holiday abroad can be the perfect catalyst to finding a new pastime.
Almost half of Brits (45%) have found a new passion abroad such as surfing in Costa Rica or mosaics and tile making in Barcelona. Ghost hunting, stargazing, pottery and crafting are amongst the top ten most popular hobbies for 2024, according to the survey.
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