2 minute read
LIVINIA NIXON
THE LIFE OF A TV TRAVEL PRESENTER
Travelling the Globe with Livinia Nixon
If you’re reading this, you’re a travel lover like me. The freedom of travel - away from responsibilities and the grinding routine, is liberating and exciting. Learning about new cultures and having a daily adventure is enticing and creates lifelong memories. But what happens when you travel for work? Is some of the magic lost in rigorous itineraries, work emails, time constraints and high heels? Well, a little.... but just a little. As anyone who travels for work knows, it’s not as glamorous as it looks. Those TV snippets of heaven - a presenter getting a massage or soaking in a hot tub, generally last as long as the filming.... all of about 7 minutes at a time. But they are a glorious 7 minutes and as a working mum, I’ll take that any day of the week.
I’ve had some incredible moments working as a travel presenter. I’ve cuddled baby panda cubs in China, eaten “home delivered” pizza inside the Cheops pyramid, swum with dolphins in NZ, played golf at St Andrews, bottle-fed baby lion cubs in South Africa, played tennis against Pat Rafter and drunk champagne.... in a champagne cave.... in Champagne. People always ask which are my favorite destinations. Well, its easy to fall in love with France - the food, the natural beauty, its history and the accents of the French people... ooh,la,la. I love Japan for it cultural differences, respect for others, cleanliness and simplicity of design. I love Italy (who doesn’t?) for the food, natural beauty, slower pace of life and the accents. I’ve
B clearly got “a thing” for accents. Every country has an adventure waiting for you, but of course, you need to be prepared. It always helps to learn a few local phrases, dress in an appropriate way (shoulders covered in temples/churches for example) and be careful of free public Wi-Fi (never do any banking or enter your passwords on public Wi-Fi). I also carry a collapsible water bottle so I can refill it every day and not have the guilt of adding to landfill. Another tip.... touchscreen gloves for the colder climate cruising (then your pinkies need not suffer for the ultimate selfie) My husband always packs shower caps and plastic bags for shoes -after trekking around the streets of a city, you don’t want that dirt next to your favorite white scarf. C
The best advice is be open to experiences and know that things always go wrong when traveling. You have to be resilient and not sweat the small stuff.... or become a travel presenter and let your producer iron out every issue. Once when filming on a now-defunct travel show, we had an expired shooting permit and every time we pulled out the camera, 25 policemen would come and check our permit and shut us down. We got so frustrated that we decided to film in front of the beautiful Parisian permits office. We shot every single piece of dialogue we needed without being bothered once. Sometime
A B C Coffee plantation, Southern India Mt Fuji, Japan Cooking segment in Kerala, India
you just need to fake it until you make it.
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