Lijit

I never cease to be amazed at what Lijit publishers have accomplished and how cool they seem to be. Take, for instance, today’s profile about Lisa Lubin. She’s a three-time Emmy-award-winning Television writer/producer/editor. But that was before she decided to take a sabbatical to travel and work her way around the world. Lucky for us, she has written about the (mis)adventures that ensued as she traipsed around the globe on her blog, LL World Tour.

In addition to sharing stories from her time abroad, Lisa also posts about subjects closer to home like her love for Chicago and thoughts about her hometown in Jersey, along with tips for those women traveling solo and best practices for booking airline flights.


How long have you been blogging and what made you start?

I have been blogging since the summer of 2006. I had decided to quit my job, chuck all my stuff, and travel around the world for a year (which later turned into 2 1/2 years). I was going to simply send ‘email updates’ to friends and family. But a good friend of mine who worked in the crazy interweb world at what was once a small startup in Chicago called Feedburner (now owned by Google), convinced me to start a blog…and off I went into the blogosphere cringing at the awful name every time.

What has been the greatest thing you’ve received from blogging about your travels?

It truly has been amazing. I have ‘met’ so many new friends this way–some that were also traveling and others that were just living vicariously through my adventures. I truly loved helping inspire others and the feedback I received from total strangers was heartwarming.

In your world tours, what has been your top three destinations and why?

This is always a hard question to answer as what I love about traveling is the interaction with people all over the world and I was lucky enough to meet some damn fine people. But besides that, my favorite places were as follows:

1. Berlin–hands down, a cool, progressive city of now. It’s a young city and Berliners are open and artistic. They look back and acknowledge their history, but at the same time are racing into the future. It’s an edgy city with great architecture and art pushing boundaries everywhere you look. I’d live there in a second and you’d find me at a cafe, drinking a beer in Prenzlauer Berg.
2. The Galapagos Islands–Stunning. This was definitely a once in a lifetime place. Each island you visit is different and unique with its own landscape and flora and fauna. The animal life is amazing and with no predators, they simply could care less that you are walking right up to them. I loved my days there of learning, snorkeling, and drifting around at sea without a care in the world.
3. Turkey–I went there on the recommendation of many saying it was their favorite country. I planned to stay two weeks. I stayed three months. The people are universally warm and generous. So many took me in and in a few weeks I was giving private business English lessons, cat sitting at a great flat near Taksim (the center of all nightlife/restaurants), and had a mobile phone with twenty new friends in Istanbul that I hadn’t even known just a few weeks prior. Besides that…the country has an amazingly diverse landscape-from the beaches of the Aegean and Mediterranean to the jaw-dropping ancient Roman ruins to the mountains, lakes and of course, tasty food-it’s a wonderful place.

What has been the greatest challenge you’ve encountered in your journeys?

The greatest challenge? Probably making time to ‘work’ and keep my blog updated. I tried to dedicate days to just hanging out and working wherever I was, but sometimes it was hard to spend the day on my laptop.

How has Lijit helped you to become a better blogger?

I have just started using Lijit (as recommended by that same cool friend who got me blogging in the first place) and am feeling my way around it. The wijit was easy to install on my sidebar and allowed me to remove a clunky section I’d put together of ‘where to find me on the web’ as Lijit already had this as part of their widget.

In addition to being recognized for her travel blog in various places online (like being a finalist in the 2008 Weblog Awards), her articles and photographs have been published by Sunset Magazine, The Boston Globe, Go Nomad and The Savvy Gal among others. She’s lectured on traveling solo and will be teaming up with Whole Foods, REI and Hostelling International for ‘Travel and Food’ seminars this summer. Keep an eye out for Lisa because if you have any questions about traveling, chances are she has your answers.

I love indulging my wanderlust by reading Lisa’s blog and am honored that she’s chosen Lijit as her blog search tool of choice. Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions Lisa and for inspiring us all with your adventures!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 1:27 pm and is filed under Lijit publishers, fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.