In today’s stressed out world where many people live on deadlines and balance their finances paycheck to paycheck, it can seem challenging to stop and take care of your own self.
Elisabeth Kubler-Ross has said, “There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub.” While this notion may be true, it can be easier to stop thinking about work and the piles of papers on the kitchen table (and filling your inbox) when you are physically separated from the tasks. Sydney J Harris used to say, “The time to relax is when you don’t have time for it.” There are times when you just need to focus on yourself and the best choice for relaxing is just to get away.
One of my favorite characters is Helen Fielding’s Olivia Jules in Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination. I love her “Rules for Living” which include the following: 1. Never panic. Stop, breathe, think. 2. No one is ever thinking about you. They’re thinking about themselves, just like you. 15. Don’t regret anything. Remember there wasn’t anything else that could have happened, given who you were and that state of the world at the moment. The only thing you can change is the present, so learn from the past.
I would love to go to the Spa with Olivia and relax with her for a Spa weekend break in the UK. I love her rules for living and think she would be a great spa day partner. I wonder if she would have joined in with George and my parents when we all tried out a Tai Chi class at a spa day. It was really fun to have a private class but it was definitely challenging!
I always love to take a tour of a spa and see all its great facilities. I like to go in the sauna but do not like a steam room. My favorite treatment is a hot rocks massage or a hot oil massage. If you have not tried them, think about trying something new on your spa weekend. Find out all that is on offer at the spa you select and pick what will make you feel more relaxed.
You have to remember to feel comfortable. Going to the same place but having a new treatment can feel like a real vacation. A friend and I went to a Korean spa and had a body scrub and then a massage. The massage was so rough I actually saw stars like a cartoon character in a movie. My friend said to me, “Why didn’t you tell them it was too much?” I said, “I thought it would feel good later.” She said, “You were making crazy faces!” I did feel great later but would not recommend having a treatment that causes you significant pain or discomfort. Make sure to ask questions and to tell the staff what you want: Do you want softer music? A warmer room? Dimmer lights? This is your time so speak up!
Spa days in Kent are on my to-do list; I plan to meet up with my friend, Nancy, and enjoy some relaxing treatments, and finish with a cup of tea. I cannot wait to stop and smell the roses and to not think about my bulging email inbox.
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Lisa Ellen Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries and six continents. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she worked on cruise ships for seven years and backpacked for three years in Asia. She is the founder of the website WeSaidGoTravel which is read in 235 countries and was named #3 on Rise Global’s top 1,000 Travel Blogs. Niver is a speaker at the Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Dallas Travel and Adventure Shows for 2023. Her podcast, “Make Your Own Map,” has been watched in more than 11 countries on 4 continents. Niver is represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, Inc. Look for her memoir in Fall 2023 from Post Hill Press/Simon and Schuster.
You can find Lisa Niver talking travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, Satellite Media Tours, The Jet Set TV and Orbitz travel webisodes as well as her YouTube channel, where her WeSaidGoTravel videos have nearly 2 million views.
With more than 150,000 followers across social media, she has hosted Facebook Live for USA Today 10best, is verified on Twitter and listed on IMDb, and is the Social Media Manager for the Los Angeles Press Club.
As a journalist, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors and been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. She has been a judge for the Gracie Awards for the Alliance of Women in Media, and has run 15 travel competitions on her website, publishing over 2,500 writers and photographers from 75 countries.
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 times.
Niver has published more than 2000 articles, in more than three dozen magazines and journals
including National Geographic, Wired, Teen Vogue, HuffPost Personal, POPSUGAR, Ms. Magazine, Luxury Magazine, Smithsonian, Sierra Club, Saturday Evening Post, AARP, AAA Explorer Magazine, American Airways, Delta Sky, enRoute (Air Canada), Hemispheres, Jewish Journal, Myanmar Times, BuzzFeed, Robb Report, Scuba Diver Life, Ski Utah, Trivago, Undomesticated, USA Today, TODAY, Wharton Magazine, and Yahoo.
https://bit.ly/m/lisaniver
Awards
National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards
2021 Winner: Book Critic: Ms. Magazine “Untamed: Brave Means Living From the Inside Out”
2019 Winner: Soft News Feature for Film/TV: KTLA TV “Oscars Countdown to Gold with Lisa Niver”
2019 Finalist for: Soft News, Business/Music/Tech/Art
Southern California Journalism Awards
2022 Finalist: Book Criticism
2021 Winner: Technology Reporting
2021 Finalist: Book Criticism
2020 Winner: Print Magazine Feature: Hemispheres Magazine, “Painter by the Numbers, Rembrandt”
2020 Finalist: Online Journalist of the Year, Activism Journalism, Educational Reporting, Broadcast Lifestyle Feature
2019 Finalist: Broadcast Television Lifestyle Segment for “Ogden Ski Getaway”
2018 Finalist: Science/Technology Reporting, Travel Reporting, Personality Profile
2017 Winner: Print Column “A Journey to Freedom over Three Passovers”
Social Media Presence
YouTube Channel: We Said Go Travel (1.7 million views)
Short form video:TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook Reels, YouTube Shorts
Twitter: lisaniver (90,000 followers)
Instagram: lisaniver (24,000 followers)
Pinterest: We Said Go Travel (20,000 followers and over 70,000 monthly views)
Facebook: lisa.niver (5,000 followers); We Said Go Travel (3,000 followers)
LinkedIn: lisaellenniver (9000 contacts)
In today’s stressed out world where many people live on deadlines and balance their finances paycheck to paycheck, it can seem challenging to stop and take care of your own self.
I would love to go to the Spa with Olivia and relax with her for a Spa weekend break in the UK. I love her rules for living and think she would be a great spa day partner. I wonder if she would have joined in with George and my parents when we all tried out a Tai Chi class at a spa day. It was really fun to have a private class but it was definitely challenging!