Going to Great Links to Tell a Story

by Niall p. Full-time writer and social entrepreneur

“We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” -Chuck Palahniuk

This week I’ve decided that I had better give a recap of our story for those of you who are fresh arrivals to the party. You may have found out about us only recently because of one of our side projects, like raising money to help a dog shelter or photographing jewelry for a designer friend of ours, and not even know the main plot of our story. I’ll try not to overflow too far beyond the boundaries of the internet short attention span parameters (they say most people don’t read more than 2-3 paragraphs before their eyes glaze over and their mouse trigger fingers start twitching) and fill it with links so you can check out more backstory for the parts that tickle your fancy. If you are feeling twitchy or your curiosity is just a mild case, just skip to the last paragraph. I won’t ever know the difference so my storytelling ego won’t be offended.

Seed to Sprout

The Learning Experience story really began when I moved to Costa Rica shortly after graduating from art school and got inspired to create a school for travelers, which I aptly named School of the World (click here for that story). That was back in 1997. School of the World was born at the same time that the mainstream began using the internet to research travel, and as they say, timing is everything. I spent years building a really unique experience, and designed a cool boutique hotel style location for guests to stay in while taking surfing, photography, Spanish, and yoga classes. About three years ago I decided that it would be a great idea to expand upon that passion and write a book about all of the great vacation schools that are out there in the world, since for most people it is still a new concept. I asked a travel writer friend of mine to partner up with me for the project (I would take the pictures, she would write), but the timing was bad because the publishing world was in shambles, suffering the one-two punch of bad economy and digitalization. Being the stubborn person that I am, I decided to press forward with the idea by attending some learning vacations that were on my bucket list, like Learning to Freedive, Advanced Portrait Photography, Sailing School, and Fashion Photography in Paris. I began researching all of the vacation schools and found that there were way more than even I had imagined.

I hate the word blog for some reason, so I just refer to it as blobbing. Maybe it is because blogging is like blabbering a story to a group at a party- but in the dark. You know the audience is there somewhere but you don’t have eye contact so you don’t really know who is listening. But I digress… back to the story for those of you who are still with me…. So, I actually began “blobbing” in the Fall of 2009, as a personal blog attached to my photography portfolio site. I was hesitant, but it also felt good to write and give people the backstory of my photos. The initial audience was probably less than a dozen people (family and friends). My 4th entry got picked up by WordPress for their homepage (It’s a Tough Row to Hoe Selling Nuts and Candy) and all of a sudden I was reaching thousands of people. After that I decided that I would set a personal goal to write once a week for one year, sharing my passion for learning vacations. I called that blog “Paying new arrival costs”, named after a poem I wrote a million years ago. I researched and wrote for a year, and just kept finding more and more cool learning vacations for every passion you could imagine. At the end of that year, I decided to evolve the blog into the Learning Experience read that first blog here. So many people had told me how lucky I was to have the life and business that I have that I decided the best way to show people that there is more to it than luck was to try and make a big dream happen- and narrate the story in realtime so that people would be able to share in my successes and failures along the way…. hopefully encouraging them to pursue their own passions. I declared the goal of trying to make a TV pilot for a travel show about learning vacations. It was bold to declare such a goal considering I had no financial backing, experience, or connections. I had no idea what would happen, but I figured it would make for a good read. I had no idea how the next year would change my life.

Enters the Gypsy Pirate Mermaid Native Princess

The Learning Experience original crew was myself, my younger sister Katie (that had just moved to Costa Rica), my Australian buddy and talented musician Josh, and my friend and photo assistant/ photography instructor from SotW Carlos. We blobbed and planned, gathered equipment, and practiced shooting footage in Costa Rica. Katie was to be the producer, Josh the sound guy, Carlos the DP/ cameraman, and I was the Director/ Host. Pre-production with that crew was a lot of fun, but it was a volunteer crew and it dissolved over time as each person got pulled by the currents of their own lives. Josh had to move back to Australia, Katie started a life and work that kept her busy, and Carlos is still assisting me some in Costa Rica, but I ended up calling on an experienced professional DP/ cameraman when it came time to shoot the show. I also decided that I needed some help in front of the camera, so I put the word out to my friends in LA and NYC that I was looking for a co-host, and I got way more than I bargained for. A make-up and hair artist named Jeanie Jeffries introduced me to my best friend, partner-in-crime, and now wife Natazha (read that blog here). (And just like that an epic love story was also unfolding in the blog). I stacked the deck with the Bahamas trip, taking an actress friend (Bre Blair), a professional cameraman friend (Milan Spasic), Natazha, and myself. That trip went wonderfully and we got some amazing footage. At this point in the story I had great footage in the bag and had met the love of my life, so I was feeling pretty confident. My credit card was maxed out though, and I returned to Costa Rica to find that tourism had slowed to a trickle. I had to put the filming and editing on hold to put energy into my school and take care of business there. The time and money roadblocks in the journey have been humbling, but they have also served their purposes. Diversity forces you to be even more creative. To get the School of the World to continue being successful meant becoming an expert in the new world of marketing, taking a break from filming and focusing on the business of social media and word-of-mouth grassroots marketing. It turns out that those skills are just as important to our future as knowing how to operate the camera. During that time I also came to the realization that no matter how good my concept was for a TV show, the reality is that there is a formula to current TV programming that I don’t like. The formula involves editing to create conflict and drama between contestants that are there vying for their 5 minutes of fame. We realized that our real goal wasn’t to be on TV, but to use the mediums of photography and video to inspire people to pursue their passions and take learning vacations. That brought us to latest chapter, the Learning Vacation Network.

Z+N, LE, and LVN

Natazha and I have 3 project titles that we are working together under, so it can get a little confusing for the casual follower. We are both creative, so the Z+N title is an umbrella that covers all of our joint creative projects. Lately we’ve been doing some photography campaigns together, like the one for Bella Beach Jewels. Our life is such a mix of art and travel that the lines are often blurred, so we “blob” it all together here…. everything from learning vacation reviews to photo shoots to project and life updates. Learning Experience is the name of this blog and also the travel show. The show has been a long time in the works now, but it is by no means dead just because we didn’t pitch the pilot! We have been holding back on the release to let the show live first as a web series hosted on the site that we are building for LVN. LVN, the Learning Vacation Network, is the big project and my all-encompassing dream for uniting all of the best learning vacation schools in the world together as an association. Profiles, reviews, social media streams, deals, discounts, awards, and travel show entertainment will all be there. I’m really excited about the pending launch! I’m seasoned enough now to not promise any exact launch dates, but we are shooting for getting the initial site up in the next couple of months. Natazha and I are both anxious to get on the road and film some more episodes of the Learning Experience show, but there is an order to things and for now that means working on the tedious framework and not-so-fun office part of pre-production and site development. Well, mostly that means me doing the boring work because Natazha has been doing a lot of modeling lately. You’ll read about it all here though, the glamorous and the not-so. It is all part of the ongoing story!

We really appreciate the support from all of you, and hope that the story of us chasing our dreams will inspire you!