🎙️ The Map Is Alive: 75 Countries, New Voices, and a World Expanding in Real Time
April arrived in motion—across continents, across platforms, and across milestones that feel both expansive and deeply personal.
The biggest headline is one that still feels surreal: Make Your Own Map is now streaming in 75 countries, and what’s unfolding feels bigger than numbers.
🌍 75 Countries. The Map Is Alive.
In the past few weeks alone, the map has expanded across Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and South America, with new listeners joining from:
Just days after welcoming listeners in Iran, Vietnam, and Iraq, the reach continues to grow in real time—each new country a reminder that stories don’t just travel, they connect.
This moment isn’t simply about scale. It is about presence across borders, languages, and lived experience. The map is not just expanding—it is alive.
📺 On Air, In Print, and On Stage
That sense of expansion has carried into every corner of my work this month.
On Jet Set TV, I shared conversations around sailing with Windstar, exploring travel that slows you down just enough to see the world differently. In print, my feature on Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort appears in Pasadena Magazine, highlighting luxury as a gateway to deeper discovery across Central Florida.
https://youtu.be/B920tOemB1s
At the same time, new stories continue to reach audiences through Bored Panda and Deer Valley, extending the conversation across digital platforms in unexpected and exciting ways.
There was also a meaningful moment of recognition with a DotComm Award—earning a Triple Crown—which I celebrated while in Ireland, a place already filled with memory, history, and connection.
🎤 Speaking, Signing, and Showing Up
This month has also been about connection in person and in conversation. From speaking with the Brandeis community in Tucson to signing BRAVE-ish at SXSW, these moments are a reminder that storytelling lives not only online or in print, but in the shared space between people. Each conversation, each book signing, each question asked across a table reinforces why this work matters.
San Jose brought collaboration, reflection, and connection, including time with Carl and witnessing the continued impact of his work.
A special congratulations to Dr. Carl Law, featured in the “Inspirational Black Men and Women in Medicine” series. His leadership through Doctors First Staffing, now celebrating its one-year anniversary, reflects a thoughtful and intentional approach to transforming healthcare staffing with care and purpose.
✈️ Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Italy
The journey continued with the Travel Classics Magazine Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, then on to country #103: Liechtenstein, and time with friends in Italy. I am grateful for the ability to move through the world, to witness, to listen, and to share.
Videos from Travel Classics Ticino are live and more photos, stories and videos coming soon!
💛 Gratitude, Health, and Joy
And yet, the most meaningful update this month has nothing to do with distance traveled. My mom is out of the hospital and was home in time for her birthday. There is no greater milestone than health, and no deeper gratitude than being together. This month, that is the wish—for her and for all of us. More health. More freedom. More joy.
🌎 Looking Ahead
With 75 countries now listening and new voices joining every day, this moment feels both like a milestone and a beginning. The map is alive—and there is so much more to come.
My students are from 13 countries: Australia, Canada, India, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, UK, USA! Join us on the adventure of travel writing!
THANK YOU for watching my award-winning podcast, Make Your Own Map: Are YOU ready to be BRAVE? It has now been seen and heard in 75 countries on 7 continents.
People always ask me where is it best to buy my book. I recommend you go into or call your favorite local book store and ask them to order it for you and pick it up IN THE STORE! You never know what other treasures you will find. Any bookstore can order my book because my publisher is Post Hill Press and it is distributed by Simon and Schuster. My book is now in the library on Quark Ultramarine, Windstar StarBreeze, NCL Escape and in the store at Dubray bookstore on Grafton in Dublin, Ireland! Brave-ish is available all over the globe!
Sukkot emphasizes that which we intrinsically know. We go outside and show the world that no matter the environment, we will express our Judaism with pride and joy.
Liat Cohen-Reeis, director of the Antisemitism Task Force at StandWithUs San Diego, has tried to bring local news media’s attention to antisemitic incidents, but has encountered disinterest.
Furstenberg has been an iconic writer and editor in Israeli and American publications for decades, including for the L.A. Jewish Journal, and her death, even at the age of 90, on the eve of Rosh Hashana, deeply moved Jerusalemites who knew her.
The point of all this isn’t to replace the people who keep our institutions running. It’s to give them back the hours they spend being human copy machines, so they can spend those hours on the work only people can do.
Saudi Arabia’s growing vulnerability presents Israel – and the United States – with an opportunity to deepen the partnership between two of the region’s most important forces against extremism.
Niver’s Spring News 2026: 75 Countries, New Flags, and a Map That Keeps Expanding
Lisa Ellen Niver
🎙️ The Map Is Alive: 75 Countries, New Voices, and a World Expanding in Real Time
April arrived in motion—across continents, across platforms, and across milestones that feel both expansive and deeply personal.
The biggest headline is one that still feels surreal: Make Your Own Map is now streaming in 75 countries, and what’s unfolding feels bigger than numbers.
🌍 75 Countries. The Map Is Alive.
In the past few weeks alone, the map has expanded across Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, and South America, with new listeners joining from:
🇨🇴 Colombia 🇪🇬 Egypt 🇨🇮 Ivory Coast 🇺🇿 Uzbekistan 🇲🇦 Morocco 🇴🇲 Oman
Just days after welcoming listeners in Iran, Vietnam, and Iraq, the reach continues to grow in real time—each new country a reminder that stories don’t just travel, they connect.
This moment isn’t simply about scale. It is about presence across borders, languages, and lived experience. The map is not just expanding—it is alive.
📺 On Air, In Print, and On Stage
That sense of expansion has carried into every corner of my work this month.
On Jet Set TV, I shared conversations around sailing with Windstar, exploring travel that slows you down just enough to see the world differently. In print, my feature on Four Seasons Resort Orlando at Walt Disney World Resort appears in Pasadena Magazine, highlighting luxury as a gateway to deeper discovery across Central Florida.
At the same time, new stories continue to reach audiences through Bored Panda and Deer Valley, extending the conversation across digital platforms in unexpected and exciting ways.
There was also a meaningful moment of recognition with a DotComm Award—earning a Triple Crown—which I celebrated while in Ireland, a place already filled with memory, history, and connection.
🎤 Speaking, Signing, and Showing Up
This month has also been about connection in person and in conversation. From speaking with the Brandeis community in Tucson to signing BRAVE-ish at SXSW, these moments are a reminder that storytelling lives not only online or in print, but in the shared space between people. Each conversation, each book signing, each question asked across a table reinforces why this work matters.
🌴 Stories from the Road: San Jose and Beyond
San Jose brought collaboration, reflection, and connection, including time with Carl and witnessing the continued impact of his work.
A special congratulations to Dr. Carl Law, featured in the “Inspirational Black Men and Women in Medicine” series. His leadership through Doctors First Staffing, now celebrating its one-year anniversary, reflects a thoughtful and intentional approach to transforming healthcare staffing with care and purpose.
✈️ Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Italy
The journey continued with the Travel Classics Magazine Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, then on to country #103: Liechtenstein, and time with friends in Italy. I am grateful for the ability to move through the world, to witness, to listen, and to share.
Videos from Travel Classics Ticino are live and more photos, stories and videos coming soon!
💛 Gratitude, Health, and Joy
And yet, the most meaningful update this month has nothing to do with distance traveled. My mom is out of the hospital and was home in time for her birthday. There is no greater milestone than health, and no deeper gratitude than being together. This month, that is the wish—for her and for all of us. More health. More freedom. More joy.
🌎 Looking Ahead
With 75 countries now listening and new voices joining every day, this moment feels both like a milestone and a beginning. The map is alive—and there is so much more to come.
Learn more about my events: click here and my articles here
Want to travel more? I have a Travel Writer 101 class on Udemy.
My students are from 13 countries: Australia, Canada, India, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, UK, USA! Join us on the adventure of travel writing!
THANK YOU for watching my award-winning podcast, Make Your Own Map: Are YOU ready to be BRAVE? It has now been seen and heard in 75 countries on 7 continents.
Have you heard my recent podcast episodes?
WATCH my podcast, “MAKE YOUR OWN MAP: ” on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Podcast, Google Podcasts, Audacy, Audible, Anchor, Pandora & iHeart Radio
WHERE CAN YOU FIND MY TRAVEL VIDEOS?
Here is the link to my video channel on YouTube where I now have over 2.7 Million views on YouTube! (now at: 2,710,468).
I hope you will join me and subscribe! For more We Said Go Travel articles, TV segments, videos and social media: CLICK HERE
Find me on social media with over 150,000 followers. Please follow me on social @LisaNiver TikTok, X Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, BlueSky and at LisaNiver.com.
Do you LOVE my book BRAVE-ish? PLEASE WRITE A REVIEW!! Click here to go directly to rate or review BRAVE-ish on Amazon (now at 66 reviews. Help me get to 75) You can find my book on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Simon & Schuster, Post Hill Press, Target, Walmart, BookShop, BAM! and wherever you get your audiobooks!
People always ask me where is it best to buy my book. I recommend you go into or call your favorite local book store and ask them to order it for you and pick it up IN THE STORE! You never know what other treasures you will find. Any bookstore can order my book because my publisher is Post Hill Press and it is distributed by Simon and Schuster. My book is now in the library on Quark Ultramarine, Windstar StarBreeze, NCL Escape and in the store at Dubray bookstore on Grafton in Dublin, Ireland! Brave-ish is available all over the globe!
You can also find me now on SUBSTACK!
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