My Favourite Holiday: Zara Janjua longs to return to Bermudan paradise

ZARA JANJUA, 32, covers stories from across the North of Scotland for Live at Five, weekdays at 5pm on STV2.

Glasgow-born Zara has spent five years in various roles with STV and is now based in Aberdeen. She’s currently in the midst of planning the station’s Edinburgh Festival coverage.

When she’s not on news and presenting duties, Zara is also becoming a regular on the stand-up comedy circuit.

MY mum travelled a lot and she instilled in me a real desire to do the same.

I think the advice was along the lines of enjoy yourself while you’re young and free as you’re not going to be doing a lot of travelling when you have a husband and kids!

The place I’d most like to go back to is Bermuda.

I did a business management degree and when I finished I didn’t know what I wanted to do – so I went and worked in a rum bar on Bermuda for a year.

The moment the plane came in and I saw the turquoise sea and pink sand I knew I’d made the right call and had found my paradise.

It was a real tropical climate, so, so hot.

But I loved exploring. Coming from a friendly city like Glasgow, it was great to find the locals were really open and welcoming, too.

I’ve done cookery slots on STV and food is always important wherever I go, although the cod fish and potato breakfasts took a bit of getting used to.

As I say, I’d love to go back and one place I’ve had lots of opportunities to return to is Barcelona, where my cousin moved a few years ago.

There are two reasons to love it. It has that perfect mix of city break and nearby beach.

If you wake up and you want culture and the buzz of exploring, then you can do that. But if you wake up and fancy just a lazy day lying on a beach, that’s there, too.

And you can lose yourself for a whole day in the vast market which is filled with such a rainbow of colours.

I’m one of those people who is always planning my next holiday as soon as I’m back from the last one.

My most recent was to Cancun, where you had to get out of the resort to experience the real Mexico.

And Thailand is the place I really must see.