In The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, Thomas H. Greco states:
Money is such a basic feature of our everyday lives that a world without it almost inconceivable. It is a thing as necessary as air, water, food—because, in a developed economy, it is by the process of exchange that we acquire virtually everything we need to live, and money is the instrument that enables that exchange.
Traveling and money have changed in many ways and according to Greco more changes are imminent. I remember in college, before the advent of the ATM, that if I forgot to cash a check on Friday, there would be no money available for weekend meals! I remember when George and I were away for the year in 2008-2009, we traveled with some traveler’s checks and some cash as we expected to be able to use ATMs on the road and not have to carry around Asia limitless quantities of cash.
On that trip, we each had an ATM card from a different bank, an excellent strategy because not every bank took both of our cards, although most took one or the other. I have to admit it was new to my style to travel with no set plans and to use hostels as well as hotels. There were only two nights in the eleven months that we literally had nowhere to stay, but that is another story.
Unsurprisingly, we had to pay cash for our accommodations during the trip. And I was recently surprised in Hawaii to find that hotel credit card processing abilities are far from ubiquitous. I really thought we’d be able to use credit cards everywhere on this latest trip, in a part of America where everyone speaks the same language as us and uses the same money!
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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.
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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”
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In The End of Money and the Future of Civilization, Thomas H. Greco states:
Unsurprisingly, we had to pay cash for our accommodations during the trip. And I was recently surprised in Hawaii to find that hotel credit card processing abilities are far from ubiquitous. I really thought we’d be able to use credit cards everywhere on this latest trip, in a part of America where everyone speaks the same language as us and uses the same money!