Thank you Nina Ruggiero, Travel and Leisure‘s digital editorial director and founder of the “Be A Travel Writer” course, for joining me on my podcast!
Nina told me, “Don’t be afraid to ask to do the things that you truly want to do.“
Learn more about her new “Be a Travel Writer” course- where they teach everything you need to know to get started.
Watch our interview on Spotify, YouTube or your favorite PODCAST platform. Enjoy the transcript here:
Lisa Niver:
Good morning. This is Lisa Niver, from We Said Go Travel and I am beyond excited and honored to be able to interview today, an editor from Travel & Leisure, who I just met in real life in Ireland. Hi, Nina.
Nina:
Hi, Lisa. Thanks so much for having me on. Nice to see you again, since Ireland.
Lisa Niver:
My goodness, that trip was amazing. I love Maren and Travel Classics.
Nina at Ashford Castle for Travel Classics Ireland 2023
Nina:
We met so many great people. Maren’s amazing and Ashford Castle, you really can’t beat that setting for a travel conference.
Lisa Niver:
That place was amazing. But even more amazing than Travel Classics, and Ashford Castle, is YOU! You are an incredible premiere editor at Travel & Leisure. Tell people about what you do now, and how did you become an editor at Travel & Leisure. Congratulations.
Nina:
Thank you so much. I’m the Digital editorial director at Travel & Leisure, which basically, means I oversee the digital team, everything from special packages to day-to-day coverage. We do everything from travel news to features, to SEO and travel guides. It’s a great job. I love it so much. I’ve been at T&L for seven years now.
I started as a senior editor, then deputy and now this. I’ve seen them under three different companies, and it’s been a little bit different each time, but we’re growing and evolving, and the traffic to our website is much higher than it was when I started. We have a really engaged audience.
And in terms of how I got here, it was a long process. I knew I wanted to do it since I was in college. I decided I love traveling so much, it’s my greatest passion. Anytime I’m not in school, I’m traveling. I’m spending all the money I have on traveling, and studying abroad, and all of that. Then I found out, travel writing is a real job.
I wasn’t sure if that was a full-time job. So, to get there, I did so many other types of journalism, first. I did take one travel writing course in college. It was the only one that they offered at the University of Miami. We took a trip to New Orleans and I did my first ever travel reporting from there and I just loved it. But I also needed a job.
When I graduated, I did local news for a while. I was, literally, chasing fire trucks and police cars, and reporting on a town that I was assigned to, sometimes even a house fire in the middle of the night. It was crazy. Then I ended up getting a job covering fashion for a few years, which was fun. I just got a little bored of it after a while. And then, I did all sorts of other things, I covered lifestyle, wellness and politics for a little bit, which I did not enjoy. And then, the main thing that got me to T&L is, while I was doing all of that, I didn’t forget that I wanted to be in travel.
So, wherever I was, even if my job was fashion, I figured I could also contribute to the travel section. When my job was hard news, but no one was contributing to the travel section. I asked, “Can I do it?” So, everyone kept saying, YES! because if you’re getting your actual job done, no one’s ever going to say, “No, don’t do more work.” So, I worked a lot of Sundays and things, but I really built out my travel clips. And by the time the job at T&L came about, I had plenty to show for myself, in terms in the travel world, even though that hadn’t been my job.
That being said, I know we are going to talk about my “Be A Travel Writer” course that I am doing right now, to teach other people, and a part of the reason that I wanted to start that, is because I don’t think everyone’s journey needs to be quite as long as mine. I did all that for about 10 years before starting at T&L, so it’s a lot. It was really rewarding along the way. I took a sabbatical at one point, I moved to Sicily for a few months, and just traveled around Europe, and wrote about it, and was sending stories back to the New York newspaper, I was working at the time. It was very New York centric, the place I worked. I wrote a New Yorker’s guide to Athens calling it “East Village of Athens.” Those stories did really, really well, and gave me momentum when I came back to my normal job to keep doing travel content as well.
Lisa Niver:
I think that is really incredible information for people. A lot of time when people ask me, how do I be a travel writer? How do I go on a trip like you? They want to know, can they go tomorrow? And it sounds like what you’re saying is it took a decade of hustle, and commitment and persistence, that you were acting like an adult, you were paying your bills, while you were working as a journalist. You were improving, and you were also making your side hustle of travel, travel, travel happen. That’s one of the things that people forget is that in journalism, and travel journalism, there’s a lot of hard work and late nights pulling it all together.
Nina:
Journalism has changed so much since I started. There are so many more outlets now. In terms of getting started, having your own site, growing your social media following, using YouTube and all of these things, there’s a bit more of a fast track now.
Stacey Leasca, my partner on Be a Travel Writer, is freelance now. When I first met her, we both worked together full time at a different job, and I watched her transition from full time to freelance travel writer, and something she always says is you need to diversify your income. She does work for Travel & Leisure, for example, but she doesn’t fully depend on Travel & Leisure. And that’s so, so, so important. She does a newsletter for TripAdvisor, and she works on projects for Expedia as well as projects outside of the travel space. Honestly, she’s ended up making way more money than I have having a full-time job.
Lisa Niver:
It’s definitely a hustle. One of the things that’s really important is networking. Like you and Stacey met at a job, you knew each other, you started this project together and created your class. You have to have people who are supporting you and get how challenging it is and understand the life! Can you talk about taking your sabbatical? How did that happen?
Nina:
First of all, to your last point, I love that, because we all talk about that as travel writers amongst ourselves- we can only talk to each other about complaints. But I have to say my mom is funny, because she’s not in this space at all, but she’s so quick to tell people, “Nina is doing this really cool thing at this really nice hotel, but she works so hard. Do you know how hard she works?” We are so lucky to have these experiences. For people who really want to get into it, the main thing you have to understand is it’s a lot of work. And it’s a lot of time away from home. And it’s a lot of juggling of schedules. For me, it’s totally worth it. But I think some people don’t realize how much actually goes into it.
Back to your question about my sabbatical. I was doing travel writing on the side, but I wasn’t really getting those kinds of jobs, and I wanted to be doing it full time. I also always want to be in Europe, especially Italy. At the time, I was living in the East Village in New York, with two roommates in a tiny apartment, and I felt like I could take a break and do something different, and really accelerate the amount of travel clips that I had in my portfolio.
Another thing that I’ve always liked working on, on the side, is my Italian language skills, which are decent, but they get rusty when I’m not there. I do have Italian background, but I didn’t learn at home. I learned in school, and from study abroad, so, it can get rusty. I applied to an Italian school for foreigners in Sicily, in Termini, actually, now so famous because of White Lotus, but I had just gone there once. My aunt took me on a vacation and I fell in love with it. On day one, I made so many friends there, and I wanted to go back. So, I applied to this little school in the middle of Termini. It’s so cute. It’s in this little lemon garden down this cobblestone street. I enrolled in an advanced Italian course there during the week. And when I wasn’t there, I was traveling throughout Europe on weekends and writing about it. It was amazing. And it is incredibly affordable it is to travel throughout Europe once you’re in Europe, which is something I’m so jealous of everyone who’s based, there for that reason.
It was an incredible experience. It really accelerated my, otherwise, very long path in some ways. So, it was taking a leap, right? I was lucky, too, to have a really supportive boss at the time, who said, YES take the sabbatical. Go do it. I had seen in our employee handbook, that this was available if your boss was supportive of it. And I’m so lucky that she was. It was such a worthwhile opportunity for me.
Lisa Niver:
I think that’s a really good point, is that sometimes people, they’re afraid to even ask.
Nina:
Yes. And I’m so guilty of that. I’m the person who’s usually afraid to ask for things. And oh, my gosh, I mean, it was so long ago, now, but I can still remember the anxiety and fear leading up to, am I going to really ask this? That was a real life lesson for me, because looking back, I came out of my comfort zone and just went for it, and everyone was really supportive. Don’t be afraid to ask to do the things that you truly want to do.
Lisa Niver:
I haven’t thought about this in a long time, but when I was teaching in public school in Culver City, I taught eighth grade, and my parents were going with the rabbi for two weeks on a trip to Israel. And I went to my boss in public school and I said, I’m sure the answer’s no, but my parents are going on this trip, and they invited me to go with them to Israel, and I’d love to go. And she said, “Well, then I think you should!” and she went to the school board for me, to get me two weeks unpaid leave, to go do it, in the middle of the school year. She was the best boss I’ve ever had.
Nina:
People like that are such great people to work with and be around, and I aspire to be that person for other people. It can make such a difference in someone’s life. And you just reminded me that when I did bring that up to my boss at the time, she had told me how there was a birthright trip that she missed out on and didn’t get to do, because she didn’t ask to get off of work. It was a potentially life-changing trip and she said– I missed my window, because I just was too afraid to ask. And she didn’t want me to experience that. And I appreciated that so much.
Lisa Niver:
That’s great. And you said you studied abroad? Was that in college? Did you go to Italy again?
Nina:
Yeah, there’s definitely an Italian theme in my travels. In college, I studied abroad in Rome. I went to this tiny little school called LUMSA, which is just around the block from the Vatican, and it was not your typical kind of American study abroad school. There were two Americans, including me, in the school that semester, and classes were in Italian. My Italian, at that point, was okay, I was not fully prepared for that level. They do all their exams orally. In my American schools, in foreign language, we’d have an oral exam, but we didn’t have an oral medieval history exam. They did. So, I had to do things in Italian, which was a real real challenge to me. And of course, a lot of my friends, at the time, were at American University of Rome, doing walking tours of Rome, and simple tests, and not really studying very much at all.
It was a really interesting way to do it, and I made local friends there. I met people who I’m still friends with today, who were took me under their wing and showed me around, and I got to know the city. I saw so much of Rome from a real local’s point of view. I ended up living in this neighborhood that none of my American friends had even ever been to, and it was such a cool way to immerse myself in Rome and Italian college life. And I think that was in my head, too, when I did the sabbatical, I wanted to experience something like that again.
Lisa:
Nina, you are so very interesting. I love this. If people want to learn more, you mentioned that you have this class with Stacey. Tell us about how to get started and what can we learn? And how do we join?
Nina:
The course that Stacy and I launched this year is called Be a Travel Writer. We teach everything you need to know to get started. We’ve had a really great response. You can buy individual classes, or you can do the full master course.
Some people are starting from square one. They want to get into travel writing, and they don’t have any background in it. With the whole course, there are worksheets, and we give feedback. You can take it to as intensive as you want. Some people are already writers, but not in the travel space, or some took a few years off, and want to see what’s going on now, and how important is social media these days, and what’s happening in the world of SEO, and all that.
Some people are taking it as more of a refresher. And then others are taking it as a 101, depending on what they’re looking for. We have a newsletter we send out every week, which highlights the classes or answer questions we’ve been getting. We also send out calls for pitches and job openings within the travel and lifestyle space. That’s been really popular and that’s free.
We have an online community where people are asking questions and sharing about their challenges like “I’ve been struggling to negotiate better freelance rates lately. What do you guys think? Or I’m traveling here. Has anyone ever been? Any inside tips? Or I had this weird press trip situation? What do you guys think about this?”
And it’s been really fun to see. It’s an industry that Stacy and I are both really, really passionate about, so, to be able to share that and to be able to help other people get into that is, is really special. And we both are so fired up on Mondays when we send out the newsletter. We enjoy it so much, and we have a great community going there, and I hope it keeps growing.
Other topics we cover are writing for digital, specifically, travel feature writing. There’s a kitchen sink class, that covers a bit of everything, including the business side and rates and things like that. And in each class, we didn’t want anyone to have to take just my word or just Stacey’s word for anything, so, we have an expert guest on the topic, who we interview, as well, on every class. So, there’s some great people there, as well.
Lisa Niver:
I noticed Rachel Chang, who was with us at Travel Classics in Ireland, is one of your guest speakers.
Nina:
Yes, Rachel Chang’s so great. She writes a ton for Travel & Leisure, and Conde Nast Traveler, and edits so many special edition magazines. Once again, another good example of hustling in this business. She is the expert on our writing a travel feature story course. And she’s so great and honest.
That’s the other thing. It’s not like taking a college course and it’s not super formal. It’s industry insiders, chatting back and forth, and asking the real questions, and talking about the real things that you wouldn’t necessarily learn in school. We also have Jeff Jenkins, who is known on social media as the Chubby Diaries, and he has a brand-new show that’s about to come out for Nat Geo, called Never Say Never, and he’s doing all of these amazing travel challenges, which actually will be interesting to you as another travel challenger.
Lisa Niver:
I actually have an episode with him on my podcast that I’m putting up next month in June, because his show comes out in July. I met him at IMM in New York.
Nina:
We have had many good people, and they know what they’re doing. We talk about things like, when to follow up on a pitch that you haven’t heard back from, and what works. So, I think it’s well rounded to hear from a bunch of different people within the industry.
Lisa Niver:
I think it’s amazing. I will put a link to your class and the article you sent me about your course in Forbes in the show notes for the podcast.
Nina:
Thank you. Yes. Laura Begley Bloom wrote that for her transformative, travel column in Forbes. She’s did a really good job of capturing Stacey’s story and how she got there, and my story and how I got there, and then how we came together and why, and everything that the class offers.
Lisa Niver:
Also in your class, Stacy offers some one-on-one coaching.
Nina:
Yes. Anyone who buys the full course gets one on one coaching with Stacy. I feel like she’s my personal coach and she also feels like I’m her’s. We go back and forth a lot. Stacey is so dynamic. She writes and she also does newsletters, a podcast, and social media. She does sponsored content, and so many different things within this industry that I think she has a lot to teach people. She also deeply enjoys giving this kind of feedback, and she’s recently kicked off one-on-ones with people in our course.
Lisa Niver:
Congratulations again on the new class.
Nina:
Thank you. People are finishing up and taking their one-on-one sessions with her, and they’ve been going great. People are really enjoying them. Stacy’s really enjoying them. And I think they’re learning a lot.
Lisa Niver:
That’s amazing. So, you have a full-time job, your dream job, and your passion of travel. You’ve lived in Italy a few times. What’s on your personal list? If you could do anything or go anywhere, what’s your goal?
Nina:
That’s such a good question. My next travel goals are to do things that are totally different from things I’ve done before. Because yes, I love a European summer trip, but I want to make sure I’m always branching out and having new experiences. I have never been on a safari and I am absolutely dying to go on a safari. Everyone seems to really love Botswana. So, maybe I’ll go to Botswana. But that’s the next big thing on my list.
The next trip that’s actually happening for me is, I’m going to Kauai for the first time next week.. I’ve been to Maui and Honolulu, but I’m excited about Kauai, because I’m a big coastal adventurer water sport-type of person. I’m working on my surfing, and will take some surf lessons. I’m judging a poke contest, which is something fun to add to my resume. I’ve definitely never judged a poke contest before.
Lisa Niver:
Oddly, after Ireland I was in Destin, Florida, judging for a lionfish contest. They prepare lionfish in different ways in the different restaurants. I had never been a judge before either. I’m sure you will enjoy it. It was very fun.
Nina:
That’s so interesting. Had you eaten lionfish before that?
Lisa Niver:
I have eaten lionfish. Lionfish are invasive, and decimating the Caribbean, and so one of the things that we’re working on is helping people understand that they are very good eating. And if we can create consumer demand, they’ll commercial fish more, if that’s possible, or at least figure something out. It’s actually very tasty.
Nina:
I learned about the lionfish when I was visiting St. Croix. There was a diver I met who, was protecting the island from that invasive species. But, I haven’t actually, tried it, and I’m curious.
Lisa Niver:
Well, the next time you’re in the Caribbean, or when you’re in Florida, there are restaurants that serve it as well as a project with one of the culinary schools where they’ve been training chefs to know about it, and prepare it, and put it on the menu.
Nina:
That’s great.
Lisa Niver:
I did a podcast with a guy, Alex Fogg, he’s called The Fish Guy. He did all his research about lionfish. He’s based in in Destin, Fort Walton, Florida.
Nina:
I’ll have to I’ll listen to that one.
Lisa Niver:
Thank you. It has been so much fun to talk to you. You are incredibly knowledgeable. I bet that everyone who takes your class will really learn so much from your passion and your enthusiasm, and your deep knowledge of traveling.
Nina:
Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to me about it.
Lisa Niver:
Oh my gosh. I’m so excited for you. I hope you get to take another Italian sabbatical soon and again, congratulations on the new course for you and Stacey. I will have all the links in the show notes so that people can sign up for your class. Thank you for joining me!
FORBES ARTICLE: The Secret Way To Get Paid To Travel The World, According To Two Industry Pros
“Travel can be an exclusive niche, but we hope to open it up to more people with varying points of view. We believe there’s space for everyone who really wants it and is willing to learn,” says Ruggiero.
BE A TRAVEL WRITER: Individual Class Offerings, Guest Lectures, Master Class
Want to get paid to travel the world and write about it? @SLeasca and I teamed up with other media industry experts to bring you Be A Travel Writer: An 8-class course full of insider tips and simple ways to get started. https://t.co/SaPEOyW5uV (DM me for a discount code!) pic.twitter.com/4qIPW2q5WX
— Nina Ruggiero (@NinaMarieNYC) March 7, 2023
Nina Ruggerio and Lisa Niver filming MAKE YOUR OWN MAP
LISTEN on APPLE PODCAST: MAKE YOUR OWN MAP
Lisa’s book: Brave-ish, One Breakup, Six Continents and Feeling Fearless After Fifty
