View from the terrace at Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge, 9pm June 5, 2022
I spent three summers of my seven years at sea sailing the inside passage of Alaska with Princess Cruises. I heard passengers talk about their pre-cruise adventure in Denali National Park and it has long been on my bucket list!
Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge
I absolutely LOVED my road trip adventure to Denali with Pursuit Alaska. View our Anchorage to Talkeetna experiences in the videos below and look for PART TWO with our stay at Denali Cabins, Denali Backcountry Adventure Tour and Moose sightings!
Base Camp Bistro at Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge
WHERE to STAY and EAT in TALKEETNA?
The views at Talkeetna Alaskan Lodge were beyond belief! I could not believe how great this location is for seeing the mountains. You can have happy hour at Base Camp Bistro outside-and then move inside to Foraker for dinner.
We had lunch at the brand new Homestead Restaurant. Chef Richard Pace is serving hearty dishes with a warm welcome right on Main Street!
Homestead Kitchen on Main Street, Talkeetna, Alaska
After lunch, I walked on to Talkeetna Riverfront Park at the end of Main Street where three wild rivers, the Talkeetna, Susitna, and Chulitna join to form the “Big Susitna River.” I loved the panoramic view of the Alaska Range! I want to stay in the cabins on the trail. In town, I met the Mayor–a cat named Denali.
Seeing Denali from the air was exceptional! Thank you to our pilot Leon & K2 Aviation for an incredible flight seeing tour, the Denali Experience. It was so awesome! Thank you to Colin Dougan for the photos of me in the Cessna.
I loved walking the Anchorage Coastal Trail. It is easy to go through the tunnel at Elderberry Park (5th & N) and I strolled along the water to Westchester Lagoon. Next time, I am going kayaking! I saw the planes taking off from the airport and saw a train go by! I also went to Centennial Rose Garden.
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)
