Lisa Francesca Nand - Interview Time
This month Rob Savage has a little chat with freelance travel writer, Lisa Francesca Nand. Lisa is one of the very pretty faces over at Sky Travel and takes her column ‐ Handbags, Heels and a Passport ‐ around the world with her!
Along the way she publishes tip top video diaries, blogs and delicious tit bits of travel information ‐ that you simply won’t find anywhere else. Enjoy kids!
OK ‐ to get warmed up, would you rather eat a Weetabix coated in Vegemite and dusted in cocoa powder, or a deep fried cockroach wrapped in sushi?
Don’t even mention the C word around me. Growing up in Spain I was absolutely terrified of them. If I so much as saw a leaf resembling one I used to run off screaming. This was especially embarrassing once ‐ when around loads of chilled out backpackers in a beach shack off the coast of Thailand, sitting waiting for my pad thai, a cockroach the size of a bat came buzzing into my vicinity and I ran out screaming. I made a right idiot of myself. These days I can pretend to be a bit cooler when I spy one, but inside I’m still screaming. So Weetabix and Vegemite it is. Although I do prefer Marmite …
You’re on a dessert island with a sex starved Boris Johnson and an extremely talkative Esther Rantzen. There’s no hope of rescue. You have a gun and one bullet. Who gets it?
Boris. I met him at a do the other day and although he seems to be doing his fair bit for London I reckon Esther would:
- (A) Scare off any cannibalistic natives.
- (B) Attract rescuers from far and wide with her dulcet tones.
In ten words or less, tell us how you became a full time, freelance travel writer.
Begged, blagged and banged on doors.
Now in as many words as you like, tell us how it happened?
I trained as a broadcast journalist and when co‐presenting a show on talksport national radio, I used to do a regular travel slot with Simon Calder from the Independent. I thought his job sounded somewhat nicer than mine and as I had travelled a lot already, it seems relatively easy to start writing about it. Presenting the videos for Sky.com combines both my broadcasting background and my travel ‐ so that’s a lot of fun.
What’s the most memorable location that you’ve travelled to as part of the job?
I always ask other people that and I never have a good answer myself! Cambodia was pretty special along with Hoi An in Vietnam and Colonia in Uruguay. But going to Fiji for the first time to meet my Dad’s side of the family was epic.
Is maple syrup on bacon sick and wrong or delicious and hearty?
Bacon is sick full stop. It’s a slice of pig for goodness sake. I’m not a meat eater! Maple syrup can be indulged in – in any form but is best when poured straight into your mouth from the fridge! Either that or on hot pancakes ‐ somewhere in California.
If you could spend an afternoon with any celebrity, from any period in time – who would it be and why?
It’s a difficult one because if I had the power to go back in time I would like to use it for more than visiting a celebrity. However as a massive fan of the Beatles (my mum used to hang around with them before they left Liverpool for stardom) I would like to hang out with the Fab Four in their heyday, sing a few songs and having a fab, all night party!
To what extent do you think the recession has impacted upon the pre‐bust mentality of seeing the world – simply because you can?
It hasn’t impacted on it for me so far but I guess when you have a family to take away it’s made it more expensive. The rubbish exchange rate with the Pound against the Euro is stuffing up a lot of us at the moment but you can still get good deals if you look for them. It’s about priorities though ‐ some people have a bank breaking flat screen TV but won’t spend money on a holiday. For me travel is my greatest love. That and food, and wine, and friends ... but not material things!
Name the worst airline you’ve ever flown with and detail the nitty gritty reasons behind the nightmare.
I’ve never been on a uniformly hideous airline but I have looked at some planes and thought ‐ there’s no way on earth I am getting on that. There was one terrifyingly turbulent journey on a 30 seater over the Alps that saw the little old Spanish lady next to me praying wildly into her rosary beads and crossing herself repeatedly. My typical response was to laugh hysterically, all the time thinking: “WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!” We were the last plane into Brussels airport before it got snowed in.
What advice would you give to all the aspiring travel writers out there and what does it really takes to make it as a freelance travel writer in today’s lean and mean media landscape?
Lean is the word. You had to diversify ‐ as well as travel I write and broadcast about health, relationships, the media, music, news … anything I can really. It’s hard to make a living out of just writing about travel but if you write about other subjects too it makes it easier to pay the bills. Also (and I would say this for any field you want to work in) if you find something you really want to do ‐ don’t let anyone put you off doing it. Most things can be achieved with a bit of imagination, a bit of luck and a lot of hard work.
‐ Rob Savage
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