Lisa Niver's Blog: We Said Go Travel, page 134

Point Betsie Lighthouse, Michigan, USA

This photo was taken with a Canon Mark IV, and a Tamron 28-75 lens, and the brightness was adjusted in Lightroom.

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Ready to Travel with Rocky Mountaineer? Watch me on KTLA Sunday March 31st!

What is on your bucket list?

Do you want to travel with Rocky Mountaineer?

Watch me Sunday March 31st 9am on KTLA live or on livestream
for your chance to win a Spring into Summer giveaway!
Rocky Mountaineer Train on bridge by Rocky Mountaineer
Discover more about this epic train journey in the Canadian Rockies

 

What will our lucky KTLA winner receive?

Giveaway includes:

First Passage to the West Classic for two people in Rocky Mountaineer’s Goldleaf Service.

Four Day, Three Night Package for two including two days onboard the Rocky Mountaineer train in GoldLeaf Service, along with overnight accommodation in Vancouver, Kamloops, and Lake Louise or Banff. This includes all of the Rail station transfers and luggage handling in Vancouver, Kamloops and Banff.

Flights from LAX for two people to Vancouver and back from Calgary  or vice versa

While riding the train, meals, snacks and beverages are included. There is wine and cheese, cookies as well as made to order breakfast and lunch.

VIDEO:All Aboard the Train! Rocky Mountaineer is leaving Vancouver

First Passage to the West Classic

“Available for guests traveling in 2019 season, blackout dates apply. Guests booking qualifying packages of five days (four nights) or more receive one free hotel night in Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary or Victoria. The free hotel can be applied as a credit within the package (to one of the four nights – however, Victoria is excluded from this), OR it can be applied at the beginning or end of the package to extend the journey by one night. Bookings can be made by contacting Rocky Mountaineer or your local travel agent.”

VIDEO: Rocky Mountaineer Day 2 Kamloops to Banff

Get your Rocky Mountaineer Questions answered here in my post that answers all of my “dumb” questions. Having worked for years on a cruise ship, when I started to think about my first Canadian Rockies train journey, I realized I had many questions.  I thought you might appreciate the answers here and let me know any other questions you have.

Enjoy your journeys!

Lisa Niver

We Said Go Travel

Sunset from Rocky Mountaineer Train by Lisa Niver

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A Single Bicycle in Gamla Stan; Sweden

I took this photo with an Olympus OM-D EM10 Mark II using the M. Zuiko Digital 25 mm f/1.8 lens. I used Adobe Lightroom to edit this photo. I used several presets–Punch, Auto Tone, Direct Positive, and Sharpen Scenic. I then adjusted the shadows, highlights, clarity, shadows, and vibrance to my specifications. No filter used!

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Chasing Waterfalls, Colombia

iPhone 6, lighting adjusted through Snapseed, Lightroom

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March 2019 WSGT News: Spring is Here

March  News  2019 with We Said Go Travel:
Look for me on March 31st at 9:45am on KTLA TV with my 4th segment so far in 2019.
Watch the first three here:


KTLA Oscars: “Countdown to Gold!” Feb 24, 2019


KTLA President’s Day: Visit Historic Philadelphia Feb 18, 2019


KTLA Star Treatment: Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills and Glamsquad

 

For Women’s History Month, I had many new stories!


Thank you to Ms. Magazine for my story on Google International Women’s Day.


Thank you to The Female Quotient for publishing my article about Ruth Bader Ginsburg on her birthday.


Happy 85th Birthday to Gloria Steinem. I wrote about her book, My Life on the Road.


Thank you to Saturday Evening Post for publishing my article about 12 Female Founders and PR Mavens and their bucket lists!

Find me in the news:


I am a SCUBA Dive expert on Mic


I was in the PARK RECORD with Patricia, Wayne and my dad!


I was interviewed on Travel Writer’s Radio about my 50 Things Before 50 Project.


I was Influencer Interview #50 on Intellifluence 


Thank you to Rise Global! In March, We Said Go Travel and I are AGAIN #3 on the top 1000 Travel Blog list! AND I am the TOP FEMALE TRAVEL BLOGGER! Yahoo! #travel1k

I loved being in NYC with my family and going to International Media Marketplace as well as the New York Times Travel Show. Please enjoy the videos of my time at the conferences. I also went to the Los Angeles Travel Show.

VIDEO: Travel Conferences in Los Angeles and New York City

Learn more about my writing and see all my latest outlets with this pdf.

Thank you to everyone who entered our 2018 Travel Photo Award.

I am publishing the fantastic photos once a day! Click here to see the most recently published entries. Once all the entries are published in July 2019, I will announce the finalists. I expect to announce the winners in September 2019.

 

WHERE CAN YOU FIND MY TRAVEL VIDEOS?

Here is the link to my video channel on YouTube where I have 917,691 views on YouTube! Thank you for your support! Are you one of my 2064 subscribers? I hope you will join me and subscribe!

Thank you for watching my videos, reading my stories, following along on social media and asking me about booking your travels!

Where do you want to wander? Find more information about me and my luxury travel advising as an independent affiliate of CRUISE and RESORT, Inc with Virtuoso Luxury Travel Network on my new microsite!

My fortune cookies said:
“Nothing is impossible to a willing heart“
“Courage is not the absence of fear; it is the conquest of it.“
“All things are difficult before they are easy.”

Are you making it happen in 2019? Good luck in taking the next small step to make your 2019 goals come true! Thank you for your all of your support. Lisa

Discover more on my social media accounts:  Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and at LisaNiver.com. My social media following is now over 140,000 and I am verified on both Twitter and Facebook.

Coming SOON my photos and video from Sandals Montego Bay in Jamaica

Jamaica Sandals Montego Bay Sunset by Lisa Niver

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The 50 Most Amazing Travel BlogsThe post appeared firs...

The 50 Most Amazing Travel Blogs

The post appeared first on We Said Go Travel.

Saturday Evening Post: 12 Travel Experts Share Their Bucket List Destinations

Thank you to Saturday Evening Post for publishing
my article for Women’s History Month:

12 Travel Experts Share Their Bucket List Destinations
Some of the most experienced travel PR mavens in the business reveal their travel wish lists.

Lisa Niver

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Machu Picchu. (Dana Rebmann)

Wondering where to wander next? Find inspiration in the bucket lists of one dozen of the top female founders of PR firms whose job is promote travel around the world.

Laura Davidson opened up her firm, LDPR, 28 years ago in New York City and cannot wait to take her family to see Sydney, Australia. She says, “I want to climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge with my teenage boys.” On her personal bucket list is her final continent, Antarctica. She wants to sail on an A&K climate change cruise to really understand what is happening with our environment. “Living in the travel world as travel executives, we are always busy, and I want to go were time stands still. Standing on the end of the earth, just you and the penguins, I think the silence must be amazing.”

Antarctica. (Shutterstock)

Thirty-two years ago, Florence Quinn decided to start Quinn PR. Her goal is “to travel with my 18-year-old son before he won’t travel with me anymore.” Two years ago, she rented an AirBnb with good friends — another mom and son — in London. Next month, the four of them are going to Rome. Quinn says, “I am also somebody who likes to go back to the places I love. Martha’s Vineyard is one of those places where I slip into that sweet feeling of being both at home and exhilarated.”

Born in Kenya, raised in Uganda, and schooled in Britain, Sarah Robarts raised her children in Southern California, where she has learned a new skill every year. Ocean swimming, marathoning, volleyball, surfing and led into a natural progression to triathlons. Sarah has run her own successful international firm, Ballantines PR, for the last 19 years, traveling around the world many times. The top of her list are Bali and Sri Lanka. Her brother designed and built a beautiful home in Sri Lanka recently and she is looking forward to visiting.

Mary Wagstaff founded Wagstaff Worldwide in 1999, in Los Angeles. Her goal is to hike this summer in the Azores. An autonomous region of Portugal, the Azores includes nine volcanic islands in the Atlantic Ocean.

The Azores. (Shutterstock)

Thirty-five years ago, Lou Hammond, a southerner and a fifth generation Texan, founded her firm, Lou Hammond Group, after she working 12 years at Pan American World Airways in public relations and public affairs. She says, “Pan Am was a pioneer in aviation, and I traveled the globe participating in many historic ‘firsts’ including the first press trip to China.” She now has “spread her wings” to Charleston (SC), Miami, Los Angeles and, most recently, to Houston. Her next trip will be back to Beirut: “my home away from home. The culture and history had an impact on my life.” Hammond lived in Lebanon for five years, which has allowed her to bring an international perspective to the travel business.

Karen Murphy O’Brien is celebrating 30 years of Murphy O’Brien, Inc. by opening a new office in New York City this summer. Karen is on the road about 100 days a year and also recently completed her second half-marathon. Karen’s big travel plans? “I am particularly excited to be visiting Japan and Korea in July, along with our youngest son, Christopher, who sings in the prestigious National Children’s Chorus.” He will be performing at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with children’s choruses from both countries.

Twenty-seven years ago, Vicky King started her firm, Vicky King PR, and recently traveled in Europe for a month to see clients with only a carry-on. For her birthday this year, she is taking herself to the Dolomites to ski from hut to hut. Later this year, she will trek in Rwanda, which is one of only three countries in Africa where you can visit Mountain Gorillas in the wild.

Jennifer Hawkins’s love and life in travel started when her dad took her out of 8th grade for a train trip across Europe. Hawkins has been to more than 50 countries. She now runs Hawkins International PR, which she started 17 years ago. Last year, she traveled to Mongolia for eagle hunting and camel trekking in the Gobi desert, to Peru for an Amazon cruise, to Italy for a secret tour of Rome, and to Paris during a snowstorm.  “Whether in a city or a remote location, I always approach my travels with a bit of awe, and I’m always excited about my next trip.”  her other to-do destinations include Egypt, Iceland, and gorilla trekking in Rwanda.

Jody Diamond shifted from working in the film industry to the world of travel and tourism 19 years ago, opening Diamond PR in 2007. Some of her favorite travel memories include The Galapagos Islands, a motorcycle trip through the Dolomites, a cross country trek with her husband on their Harley, and three weeks in Bhutan. Her travel wish is to see the land of Genghis Khan and explore Mongolia, including the Golden Eagle Festival and their caretakers the Kazakh nomads, one of the last nomadic tribes on the globe.

Galapagos tortoise. (Shutterstock)

Susan Bejeckian has focused on the South Pacific during her nearly 30-year career with her own firm. She knew she had made it when she represented an entire country, Fiji. Her travel wish is to see the pink sand of Bermuda and explore the Hamptons and Martha’s Vineyard, the home of the oldest operating platform merry-go-round, Flying Horses Carousel, which was built in 1876.

Joanne Vero has been running J. Vero and Associates for 25 years. Family and relationships are the most important things to her and, while she travels to see clients, family, and friends, the most important place to be for her is home with her children and grandchild creating memories together.

Marian Gerlich found her passion for travel when she sailed for 100 days to 12 countries as the Public Information Officer for the Semester at Sea program. Twenty-nine years ago on April 1, she opened P & G Communications. While she has visited many special and sacred places like Machu Picchu, she says, “The place I have not been yet and is at the top of my bucket list is Antarctica.”

I hope these twelve woman with over 300 years’ experience in the travel industry have whet your appetite for a few destinations, and that wherever you wish to go, you take steps to make it come true this year.

 

 

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Night time on the Nakasendo Trail, Japan.

I used a Panasonic Lumix DMC FZ-1000 bridge camera. I really liked the different shades of blue in the dusk, and focused on the streetlight that you can see in the bottom right corner. I haven’t used any filters, just the manual focus.

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Who was Intellifluence Influencer Interview #50?

Thank you Intellifluence for including me in your
Influencer Interview series as #50 to talk about
my 50 Things Before I am 50 project!
LISA NIVER Influencer Spotlight

Posted on February 15, 2019
in Influencer Spotlight

Lisa Ellen Niver, M.A. Education. is a passionate writer, educator, social media ninja, speaker and global citizen who has traveled to over one hundred countries and six continents. You might find her underwater, talking travel on KTLA TV, exploring an exotic location, at her art studio or writing about issues for Ms. Magazine, Smithsonian, AARP, Saturday Evening Post or one of the airline magazines including American Airlines, United Airlines and Delta Sky. Her latest project is a book called “Brave Rebel: 50 New Adventures Before 50,” about her 50 challenges before she turned 50. Lisa sailed on the high seas for seven years and founded We Said Go Travel, which is read in more than 200 countries. Lisa has been nominated for five Southern California Journalism Awards in the past two years and received 2nd place for her Jewish Journal article. Learn more about Lisa at We Said Go Travel.

Can you tell us what led you to create We Said Go Travel and what were some of the first steps you took to establish the site?

Absolutely. So, I first started We Said Go Travel in 2010 which sometime still shocks me, it has been nine years, and what happened was I’ve always been a traveler, I worked on cruise ships, I worked at Club Med, I lived abroad for school, and I was always teaching in between I was teaching and I was traveling. And once when I left teaching my students were very sad because I was going to be gone for 11 months and I promised that I would write a newsletter.

So, during the time that I was away writing my newsletter blogging kind of magically appear and when I came back, we wrote a book about our trip, and when I came back we were trying to figure out like what do we do with this book that no one really seems that interested in and I learned about this thing that now seems so funny but at the time was a very big deal to find your platform. Hard to imagine there a was a time people didn’t know what that was. Anyway, so I built We Said Go Travel and I built it on BlogSpot because I had two requirements. I wanted to be free and it’s another thing you can’t even imagine wouldn’t matter I didn’t want another password so it was very important to me at the time and I already had Gmail so that’s how I got started.

At what point in your journey did you branch out into influencer marketing?

Oh, you know it actually – well it’s funny because in 2009 obviously no one was talking about Influencer marketing. I actually remember when I joined Twitter. I had the website, of course I had Facebook, and then I was out to dinner with a friend who is Green Power Girl and she says to me “you know, you should be on Twitter” I was like “oh I don’t know what that is”. She was explaining it to me and I said “well it kind of sounds like people are shouting into the random universe” and she said “well why don’t you test it out” so I got Twitter and then on a different trip someone said to me, you know, you should really try this thing, it’s called Instagram.

And so I just kept adding and adding and at one point somebody said to me actually what you should be doing is video. And I was teaching full time and I was writing once a week on the website and I said to her “I would love to do video I have a free slot in my day from two to three in the morning when I’m sleeping I’ll just add that in” so it’s been very slow and organic and I’ve really taken advice anytime somebody said to me you should be on this” like the other day I joined something called Tik Tok. I think I’m too old for Tik Tok but I joined.

As a travel blogger and influencer, you’ve undoubtedly tried out a lot of different products, services and experiences. Do you have a couple favorites that come to mind?

Okay so I’ll tell you I ended up actually fifty experiences. I did a project that came about when I was forty-nine and didn’t want to admit it I met this woman that was thirty-nine forty things before she’s forty and so I was at a destination conference and I started pitching PR people I’m like “well what do you think if I was doing this project fifty things before I’m fifty” and I still wasn’t sure I wanted to admit it. But anyways people were super into it because one of the pieces of it was that I was going to do stuff I had never done or that I was scared of.

And it turns out I was pretty much scared of everything so it wasn’t too hard to give me an experience. So that was the most amazing thing except that people started using it against me. I was like “well I’m not really sure I want to go to a dude ranch. I’m afraid of horses’ But the PR person is saying “but that’s your project you’re supposed to do stuff you’re afraid of” I was like “wait I’m not sure this is work out so well for me” so that’s how I ended up doing a lot of things most people might not find terrifying but I had an eye issue growing up, I had a lot of accidents, and turns out I was scared of everything but I tried. I did mountain biking at North Star at Lake Tahoe, I did cry but I was still good.

Can you tell us a little about your upcoming book, Brave Rebel: 50 New Adventures Before 50, and how you manage to find time to write on top of running We Said Go Travel and well… traveling all over the world?

Yes, yes. Keeping up with any part of it because I feel like in some ways I’ll often be on a trip with content creators and they’ll be like “oh I’m an Instagrammer”. Honestly, I’m so jealous because they’re like that’s what I do I do Instagram and I’m like “woah how did I mess this up. I do Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, I makes a video, I write an article, I pitch my editors, I’m doing something so wrong” but how do I find time is I try to be really organized.

My friends make fun of me that my lists have lists. I write everything down and then at night I will be like “oh which of these one hundred fifty-three should go first” and I tried really hard. I don’t know if you remember the book The Four Hour Work Week so one of his things, I think it was from him, pick two things and get them done before eleven o’clock and so that’s one of my goals. I still have to do my eye exercises so in the morning I do my eye exercises and I try to do something really important and often it’s the writing. So like if I’m writing for – I have a new article that I have to online for MS, so if I’m working on an article for an editor I try to do that in the morning because as the day goes on my interest level in most things gets lower.

On your site, you have a section called Growing Your Travel Blog. What are just a few of the main tips you have for aspiring travel bloggers and influencers?

Absolutely. So, one of the things that I’ve done on We Said Go Travel is I’ve had thirteen contents, travel writing contests, I’ve published about twenty three hundred people through that and we just finished the second travel photo award so the thing that I always tell people is the thing that worked for me is do not spend any money in the beginning.

You know, I meet a lot of people and they are like :oh I’m going to hire someone to make my logo, I’m going to buy, you know, hosting” and all these things and I’m always like, you know what, “it can really start to add up and maybe you don’t even like it” and so what I try to do is share my experiences because I feel like I fell in a lot of pot holes along the way and I always recommend that people start slow. You know, write once a month, write once a week because people who are like “I’m go to write every single day” I’m like nope you’re not, you’re really not. None of us are really that interesting.

In your YouTube intro video, you mention that you want to explore the universal connections which bind us. Throughout your travels, what are some of the notable universal connections you have discovered?

Well that’s such a good question. So, as a teacher one of the things I’m always looking at – when I was traveling and teaching at the same time one I used to bring stuff back to students and one of the things I noticed with the kids is what they would love to see is what other kids are doing. And I’m a little bit like the pied piper that when I travel like kids love me and actually went on my first safari last and was with this really great photographer.

And we were walking around this Masai village and I’m not joking you all the kids are following me around and then we took a picture it’s me and all the kids and then my friend Matt is like get out of the picture I just want the kids, no problem I’ll get out of your picture. He told me later he said “can you come with me on every trip kids will not talk to me. All those kids want to be you” and we’d also gone on that trip to a school. And I was showing the kids my pictures and we saw elephants and we saw this and then I took picture of them so he took a picture of me, I can send it to you, it’s a huge sea of kids faces with me in the middle. But I think the universal connection is that everywhere in the world parents want what’s best for their children and families want to be together and families want to support each other and I’ve seen that every where I’ve been, you know, from Indonesia to Myanmar to anywhere in South America.

You know, people want more for their kids than they had for themselves and they want clean water and good schools and they want to be happy and to be together. I think that’s really important because I feel like a lot of times in the media and the news is about those people or that problem that those people started I’m like “you know what those people want. All those people want is their kids to grow up and be healthy” so I think that’s – in my classroom I never let people talk about first world and third world I think that’s very pejorative. You know everybody lives somewhere and everybody wants the best for their family I think that’s very common. And when you go places and see like what it means to have no resources or you mean like they are stealing your resources you would fight too. Like, you know, sometimes we’re missing some of the basic pieces.

Where do you see influencer marketing headed in the next five years or so?

I hope I’m going to figure out Snapchat and Tik Tok and Lasso but I’m not too sure or the step grandchildren of those. I think for me what’s it’s going to look like is that I’m still going to be doing things authentically that are mine. Like I feel like I try really hard to investigate anything that I choose to do whether it’s a hotel or a destination. I just got pitched for a trip and I’m just not sure the company and I are a match so I will – I do not write about things that I feel those kind of spider sense vibes about I really pay attention to what I pick and I think over the next five years I will only get better at that and saying this is really what fits me.

I’ve been very very fortunate I have an amazing editor at MS magazine and I just today is my sixth story, I think and I have two – no I have four stories coming up so I’ve been very fortunate to tell stories that, you know, I really care about and I have a print story about this incredible women’s economic development project in Africa, I wrote about Jessica Abolo’s book Unfiltered and this is really relevant because social media is not the enemy, loneliness is the enemy and I think we blame social media for a lot of things. And social media is just there it depends what you do with it.

Where can people find out more about you and your travel resource?

Okay. So, if you are looking to find more about me everywhere on We Said Go Travel, my YouTube account I have almost nine hundred thousand views so I’m so excited this year I should hit one million views, so exciting. I still remember when I got it to a thousand views and I was so excited so a million seems a lot more to be excited about than a thousand but still. Nd I’ve been doing some television segments for KTLA in Los Angeles and those you can always find on We Said Go Travel as well.

I’m actually doing one for President’s Day. People could win a two night stay at the Kimpton La Peer Hotel, dinner for two, and you get all glammed up with your hair and makeup by glam squad and then February 23rd – oh no sorry that’s the giveaway for February 23rd and 24th that’s the Oscars giveaway. February 18th is President’s Day and we are doing a giveaway for Philadelphia because that’s where our country started with the founding fathers.

Note: Influencer Spotlights are edited for time and clarity.

Andrew Evans

Andrew is the Head of Client Services for Intellifluence and has a background in communications. He is committed to helping brands get the most out of their campaigns and is the voice behind many of the Intellifluence tutorial videos(for better or worse).

Lisa Niver, creator of @wesaidgotravel, sat down to talk travel, #influencermarketing, writing and much more in our 50th Influencer Spotlight! https://t.co/rr4pPwq9VC #SocialMedia #travel #travelinfluencer #travelblogger

— Intellifluence (@intellifluence) February 15, 2019

 

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Tradiitional Religious Ratha Yatra Festival, Bangladesh

Taken with Nikon D300 with Tamron 17-50 mm /2.8 lens . Color vibrated and adjusted the exposure with Adobe Photoshop CC

The post Tradiitional Religious Ratha Yatra Festival, Bangladesh appeared first on We Said Go Travel.