Thank you to Dave’s Travel Corner for publishing our story on Bountiful Bohol. We are thinking of all the people of the Philippines as they recover from the recent Typhoon.
FROM DAVE:After fifteen months traveling around Asia, George and his wife Lisa were headed back to the United States. But before they left, the earthquake in Bohol, Philippines hit. They want to reassure everyone after the earthquake in Bohol that Panglao Island with the beach resorts are currently open for tourists. Some of the heritage churches were destroyed but most tourist operations including the Loboc River Cruise are back in operation.
In Manila we lodged at the Remington Hotel located conveniently near Manila’s international airport which helped us avoid the hectic traffic and we easily boarded our flight to Tagbilaran, the capital of Bohol Island. Ricky Tio and Rissa Gatdula-Lumontad at Cebu Holiday Tours organized our transfer and stay on the lovely island of Balicasag. Upon arrival, Manila’s big city tension faded into a tranquil island vibe. We circumnavigated the entire island on foot in half an hour; during our stroll, young children enthusiastically waved and said “hello” as we passed by. One fisherman requested that I help him haul a boat to shore and taught me where to properly place myself.
Since no cars are present on Balicasag Island, the only noise we heard at Balicasag Island Dive Resort was wind rustling through the trees and waves lapping at the edge of the pretty white sand coastline. Balicasag Island Dive Resort’s twenty rustic bungalows are spacious and equipped with basic yet sufficient amenities for most travelers. Other than amazing diving, the theme here is to relax, read, and rejuvenate. Both Joy who worked reception and the dive master Raul provided us plenty of information about aquatic life and the village community. At Balicasag Island Dive Resort restaurant, we sampled tasty fish and chicken adobo entrees as well as the signature Philippine dessert, Halo Halo.
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)
