Insights from the Road: Business Insider and Lisa Niver

 


Thank you Business Insider for featuring me in a second article!

A woman who went backpacking for 11 months explains how to pack light

lisa backpackLisa Niver of We Said Go Travel. Lisa Niver/We Said Go Travel

Lisa Niver started off teaching science to elementary school students. Now, she teaches aspiring adventurers how to make the most of their travels. As the founder and curator of We Said Go Travel, a travel website that hosts 1,600 travel writers in 75 countries, she’s been to over 95 countries herself.

In between working on a cruise ship and taking a teaching job, Niver went backpacking through Southeast Asia for 11 months. She spoke to INSIDER about how she packs.

Ask yourself ‘Will I want this in three months?’

When Niver was packing up her apartment before her long-term trip, she downsized by thinking ahead.

“My theory was ‘What will I be happy to see in three months?'” she said. “And if I won’t be happy to see it, I got rid of it.”

Leave anything you don’t want ruined at home

The rewards of traveling come with plenty of risks. Don’t take something along that you can’t live without, because there’s always a chance you might have to.

“Be prepared for everything to break or get ruined,” she said. “I broke a computer, a hard drive, and several cameras. Being on the road is really hard on electronics.”

lisa climbLisa Niver/We Said Go Travel

Don’t try to prepare for everything

It may sound counter intuitive to be under prepared, but stuffing your backpack full of things you might end up needing isn’t the best way to pack.

“I think one of the confusing things when you first start backpacking is ‘how am I going to prepare for everything,’ and the answer is you simply can’t,” said Niver.

Buy what you need when and where you need it

Unless you’re really going to the middle of nowhere, chances are you can pick up any essentials you’re missing along the way.

“Wherever you go, if there’s something specific you need for that region, they sell it there,” she said. “If I get someplace and I’m cold, I’ll buy a sweater.”

Read the original article on INSIDER. Follow INSIDER on Facebook. Copyright 2016. Follow INSIDER on Twitter.

Read the full interview from Business Insider.

Insights from the Road: Business Insider and Lisa Niver

Lisa Ellen Niver

Lisa Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries on six continents. This University of Pennsylvania graduate sailed across the seas for seven years with Princess Cruises, Royal Caribbean, and Renaissance Cruises and spent three years backpacking across Asia. Discover her articles in publications from AARP: The Magazine and AAA Explorer to WIRED and Wharton Magazine, as well as her site WeSaidGoTravel. On her award nominated global podcast, Make Your Own Map, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors, and as a journalist has been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty-two times. Named a #3 travel influencer for 2023, Niver talks travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, her YouTube channel with over 2 million views, and in her memoir, Brave-ish, One Breakup, Six Continents and Feeling Fearless After Fifty.

One response to “Insights from the Road: Business Insider and Lisa Niver

  1. This is so beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing your experience. It gives hope that those moments of confusion and waiting are actually more beautiful than we could ever imagine…

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