Explorer, digital content creator, founder of We Said Go Travel
What was your takeaway from the evening? It was wonderful to participate and be encouraged to “own” your age. I did not realize that I was missing out by not being willing to. Now I can take advantage by telling my whole story — with no “gaps.” Extremely helpful.
How do you disrupt aging? Doing! I’m about to turn 49. I want to do 50 new things before I’m 50.”
For my birthday in October, I spent just over three weeks in the Caribbean trying many new and adventurous things. I cannot wait to share all the photos and videos with you. I realized it was much easier to say yes to new things because I have a plan to try fifty new things.
Where normally I would have said NO, I said YES!
I have been reading books to help me get inspired, I highly recommend them to you as well:
I Dare Me: Cahn talks about “how I rebooted and recharged my life by doing something new every day.” After reading her book, I feel inspired to find 50 great new things to do!
Big Magic: As Gilbert tells us: “The central question upon which all creative living hinges is ‘Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you?’” I believe that you do! I will keep hope for you as others kept hope for me when I could not see it. It is crucial that you live “a life that is driven more strongly by curiosity than by fear.”
Year of Yes: In Shonda Rhimes’ book, Year of Yes, where she describes how after her sister told her, “You never say yes to anything,” her entire life changed. Those six words changed her life. She realized that often “if they had asked me I would have said no.” Amazingly “if they had asked me if I wanted to sit in the presidential box with President and Mrs. Obama at Kennedy Center Honors, I would have said no.” Rhimes shares her decision that she announced by text on her birthday to a few friends:“Am going to say yes to anything and everything that scares me. For a whole year. Or until I get scared to death and you have to bury me.”
How will you own your age? Share your story of finding freedom in my Year of Yes. We are waiting to hear how you find the spark to follow your dreams?
I loved Blogher 2016, here are my videos and interviews!
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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)
“Lisa Niver @wesaidgotravel
