Todd Herzog has taken his fame and financial success from Survivor: China around the money.Since claiming the $1 million grand prize, Herzog has been to France, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Bosnia, Spain, Peru, Columbia, Venezuela, Mexico, Canada, Virgin Islands and the Bahamas, among other places.
"Life has been really great ever since the show ended," said Herzog, 24. "At first, it was like being thrown out into the world with a whole lot of money and not really having a clue what to do."
In addition to traveling, he has bought a condo in his native Utah and a car.
Herzog—the youngest male contestant to win the game and the second openly gay winner ( following initial winner Richard Hatch ) —is now attending cosmetology school, "and love [ s ] it." He is no longer a flight attendant for SkyWest Airlines. He had to quit the airline gig in order to do Survivor, and to have gotten his job back, he would have had to have gone back to flight attendant school, which he chose not to do.
"It's funny, I was hanging out with Jason Siska from Survivor: Micronesia in Las Vegas, and there was a hair convention going at the time," Herzog said. "This lady stopped me and asked, 'Do you do hair?'
"I said, 'No,' and yet she said I looked like I'd be great at it."
Five minutes later, another lady asked him the same question.
By the end of the day, four or five others asked him the same thing.
When he returned home, he received a flyer in the mail about a new hair school opening in his area. And he knew a friend who just graduated from hair school.
"It was like someone telling me, 'You should do hair school, Todd; you will like it,'" Herzog said.
He started cosmetology school in Sept., and will graduate in November.
"It takes a whole lot of my time—five days a week, nine hours a day, with very few breaks," Herzog said. "But, I enjoy it very much; I enjoy every second of it. It's way better then I expected, to be honest. It's so much fun to be creative and social."
Ultimately, he wants a job that is "fun, flexible and free."
After all, Herzog went to Paris for seven days around Thanksgiving and to Toronto after Christmas.
"I hang out with my friends a lot, spend time with my family," he said. "I still keep up with Survivor, of course; I've been a fan since I was 15."
He has watched both seasons since his win, and will be glued to CBS-TV Feb. 12 when the next round of Survivor starts.
"I have a lot of really, really great friends in the Survivor family," he said. "I really cannot complain. Life has really been fair to me."
Are you dating anyone?
"I'm single, but I go on dates," Herzog said. "I find that boys are very intimidated to take me out in Utah. I will go to a bar or club, or even to Wal-Mart, and people will point, stare and whisper—yet I'm just that kid from a reality-TV show a year ago and you see me all the time. Yet people seem to be scared to talk to me."
