YOLANDE NEL
He has fond memories of visiting Sardinia, waking up to the smell of fish in a Malaysian village, catching a ferry from one island to the next and taking to the open road in his own country, but when Nthele Motsepe has to choose Limpopo tops the list as most fascinating destination ever.
Motsepe returned to the province after 15 years of studying and working as a high profile journalist on different beats at five mainstream daily and Sunday newspapers while based in Gauteng, a lifestyle and career that contributed to soaring stress levels. 
Since mid-2010 he is in the employ of government and finds Polokwane the ultimate alternative to life in the fast lane.
Back in Limpopo he can take a drive to the mountain retreat of Haenertsburg, where he can switch off his cell phone and explore the surrounds barefoot. Having traded the urban environment for a province with settings like rural villages and small towns that appeal to him, he feels at home in the land that constitutes the soil he hails from. 
Motsepe grew up in a farming community at Zebediela and after school left for the big city to study journalism. He stresses that a person develops an emotional attachment to the geographical features of the area where you are raised. Motsepe always yearned to come home though. Used to the hectic life of the big city, he missed the laid-back and quiet countryside.
“There is no place like home.” Upon his return he found that his peers who stayed behind had accomplished intellectual and material attainment back home.
He finds it a paradox that the grass seems greener elsewhere, but that one has a fulfilling life in Limpopo.
Asked for his definition on the heartbeat of Limpopo, Motsepe says: “Unlike elsewhere one is magnificently humbled by how the people of this province are able to transcend issues of ethno-linguistic sub-cultural cleavages. On the day that I came back to Polokwane I took to bed feeling like I was born anew. The next morning when the last star faded and the sun broke through the grey dawn, I just knew that there is no place I would rather be.”
It took Nthele Motsepe more than a decade to return to his roots, but now that he is home he is hell-bent on staying and sharing the skills and knowledge he accumulated.