The Alexa Show - Jackie Lapin - The Historic Traveler

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Harveryone and welcome back to the Alexa Show. I am
Alexa Servo DiDio your host, and I am so excited
to be here tonight. Tonight's surprise show is just incredible.
It's for people who love history, historic novels, and traveled
historic places. The Historic Traveler is the first place they

(00:21):
can call home. This blog, alongside is associated membership community,
an alliance Historic Traveler international history lovers and readers, a
vast resource information and entertainment. My guest tonight, Jackie Lappin. Jackie,
Welcome to the Alexa Show.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
I'm so delighted to be here. Thank you Alexa.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
This is so amazing. Please tell us a little bit
about how you got started and where did this all begin.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Well, you know, I have always been a closet photographer,
traveling all over the world, shooting photographs on my vacation
and extended business trips, and I really had a passion
to share it with people. But it's been sitting in
carousels and notebooks and you know, my digital stuff. And

(01:12):
I finally had the inspiration too at you know, at
a point in my life where I really wanted to concentrate.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
On sharing all of it. So and I'm a storyteller.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
What I do for a living is right, and so
I'm bringing together the storytelling problem aspects of this my
beautiful photos from all over the world. And then I
also love to absorb my history through historic novels, history books,
and historic mysteries. So what's unique about this blog is

(01:44):
that I actually get to recommend the books that make
you feel as if you live there. So every blog
pairs photos, story and book recommendations, and so I'm bringing
all the things together that I love. I've got over
six hundred books right here in in my place. But
what's more important is we have a database of close

(02:05):
to ten thousand books. Is the Historic Traveler that you
can source by wherever you want to go or where
you like to read about, so you can sort it
by state, country, and or city.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, I think it's so important too and necessary because
so many times people will google or they'll try to
look up or get reviews online about different places they
might want to go to. And here you have pictures.
You're providing them with all the information and recommendation so
they can almost get a real good feel of what
they're going to see, but also what to expect. And say, okay,

(02:41):
is this for me and my family.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
And what they want to plan for Now, you know,
this is not the kind of blog that's going to
give you a lot of food.

Speaker 3 (02:50):
It's going to give you a lot of art.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
It's going to focus on history, and if you love history,
I'm going to tell you in every blog what to
see in each city, what's worthy of seeing. But more
than I'm also going to tell you the context. How
did it get to be this place? What's a little bit.
I'm not going to give you more than a paragraph
or two, but you have to understand what went into
this so that you understand what you're seeing. And then

(03:14):
I'll illuminate each one and then I have pictures of
them as well, so you get a real feel for it.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
You really get a deeper appreciation when you travel somewhere
and you find out the history. Yes, it could be
a beautiful land, beautiful architecture, but to really know the
history of going into it, to really get that personal touch,
which so many times we don't have when we go
on vacation or we pick somewhere to go to have

(03:41):
that history. But I think also amazing to be able
to really speak about where you're going and where you've been,
when you get to know the history and really share
it with others other than just a couple of pictures
of you and your family or doing whatever people usually
do on vacation.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Well, and I really believe that if you if you're
a history lover, you're going to want to read before
you go, and so we've assembled the ways to do that. One,
you can absorb your history basically through historic novels or mysteries.

Speaker 3 (04:11):
But you can also get a really good guide.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
And one of the things we did was we added
a directory of Insight Guides on our pages. There's two
hundred of them, but I chose the Insight guide because
they are the best ones for history lovers. They give
you a really good section on the history, and then
you get all the regular cultural stuff and the food
and the you know, all the other things to see

(04:38):
besides of history too, but they're really ideal. And then
of course in our directory we'll also give you history
books or in the blogs as well, so we give
you a whole spectrum so that you have a real
sense of not just what happened there, but a lot
of times who made the history happen there. Who was
the moving force, who were the leadings, and we'll put

(05:00):
biographies also into our book options at the end of
each blog, so you have a lot of resources to
pull from. But we also want it to be fun.
You know, it's not just about learning mistry.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
It's fun.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
So we're going to recommend walking tours and little bus
tours in those cities with a company called Valator, which
make it really easy. And the other thing that what
I love about the Historic Traveler is as we talk,
you mentioned the membership program and we can talk more
about what the benefits there, but let's say that you
want to plan your trip and you don't want to

(05:37):
go into all the details. One of them member benefits
is that we actually have a travel agent that'll book
the trip for you at no cost to you and
at massive discounts that you're not going to be able
to get on your own. So this system is set
up you can actually do it in a portal where
you can do the discount yourself, or you can get

(05:58):
the travel agent to source it all for you.

Speaker 1 (06:01):
Well, I love how you make it so easy because
sometimes if you're a history buff or not myself, I'm
into some history, but I find sometimes getting the time
to really sit down and enjoy it. I don't have,
but I think having this all at your fingertips and
then having someone being able to plan what you're going
to see or what would be something that would be

(06:21):
of interest really puts that extra personal touch. What type
of feedback do you get back from people who've been
on these trips or who have read through it just
to feel like they were there.

Speaker 2 (06:33):
Well, people just love the fact that this is it's
a community, you know, they have the opportunity to connect
with other people who love history, travel and historic novels.
It gives them a sense of not being alone in
their passion and they really like but they love the
fact that there's so many different resources. So let me

(06:54):
kind of touch on. So on the homepage, you get
access to the blog which are constantly I had two
a week, and you also get the photo gallery, which
there are thirty three different photo galleries in there of
beautiful photos from all different kinds of things. Not only
do you get the locations, we have city scapes and

(07:16):
we have spotlights on a particular location.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
And sometimes it's not just a city.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Sometimes for example, like I've got a blog in there,
on the world's oldest continuing hospital. I've got blogs on
three of my favorite libraries all over the world, so
there's you know, we call those spotlights. Then in the
photo gallery you also get collections of things, so I
love to pick windmills or roses or hot air balloons

(07:44):
or things like that.

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Then you get landscapes a.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Whole area and the landscapes I've taken there. And lastly
animals if you love animals, there's a great section just
on animals from around the world, so that's in the
photo gallery. And then there's the insight directory on the
home page. Well, and then you see my logo. This
logo is really kind of fun, and the logo has
different iconic landmarks built into the words, like the H

(08:13):
is the is the Tower of London, and then there's
Big Ben and then there's you know, the Eiffel Tower
and the leaning towers at Pisa. They all stand for
letters here. So we've got a fun bit of merchandise
that you can get. You know that there's a shop
that's really fun. So that's what you get on the homepage,

(08:36):
which on any cost, and I encourage people to sign
up for the.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
Blog updates at the bottom of that page.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
It's a newsletter and an update and we there's all
kinds of cool stuff that I put in their news
that I'm finding on an ongoing basis, comes out twice
a week.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
So that's homepage.

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Now, let's say you want to go deeper, and it's
the membership program Historic Traveler International. And by the way,
eventually we are are going to be doing travel trips
with people, but we're not there yet, so groups.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
There could be groups people you'll be going along with them.

Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah, but we're not there yet.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
But what they do get right now is a seventy
five to eighty page magazine. The first half the magazine
is dedicated to destinations. The second half of the magazine
is dedicated to the media, books, TV and.

Speaker 3 (09:28):
Films.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Now, what's really cool about this is there's a great
Q and A in each half. And the second Q
and A is always a big time historic traveler, I
mean a big time historic novelist. And I'm really excited
that I've just gotten Tony Rich, one of the top
novelists in the field, to be featured in our second magazine.

(09:52):
And so and the first one, for example, for the Expert,
we featured was the guy that saved most of the
lighthouses in America, and you're going to see all kinds
of fun features there.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
So that's that.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
Then you have the direct the book directory I was
telling you about, where you with thousands of books, where
you can find them by locality. The second part, the
next part is that I've given you TV dramas and
where you can find them online, and we go all
the way back to roots for example. Then there is
a directory of the world's the world's chargers directory of historic.

Speaker 3 (10:29):
Hotels.

Speaker 2 (10:30):
So if you're looking to say, if you if you
like to travel and stay in historic hotels, you can
find it here. In addition to that, you're going to
have uh, you're going to have uh uh localities of
I'm sorry, I just got distracted here a minute. And

(10:53):
so you're going to also have the travel discounts. As
I was told you.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
We have a.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Community meeting once a month that everybody can cut and join,
and you don't have to be a member to join
the first time the second. We also have a book
club that you can come and join and same the
same there.

Speaker 3 (11:09):
We have a book swap. We have a.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Travel matching program with where people you can meet. I'm
going to be offering interviews with a lot of these
experts and these authors, so you really get a ton
of value and the cost is so minimal. It's under
twenty dollars a month. So if you really want to
be engaged and get in and tipped off to great

(11:33):
opportunities for traveling and stuff, this is the place to come.
And you can find it all at Thehistoric Traveler dot Com.
And I want to emphasize that it's tche that you
have to put that in first, So it's Thehistoric Traveler
dot Com. Come and join us, and you know you'll
get an opportunity to really expand your.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
Sense of the world and the sense of history in
the world.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Do I think it's coming from As a mental health expert,
I have a lot of clients that love to travel,
that love to travel internationally, but sometimes can't afford it,
or sometimes can't actually physically go there times. So I
was thinking, one, this is perfect for them to be
able to speak to experts, to speak to people who

(12:18):
have knowledge about it, but also have that feeling of
being there. But then for those who need a community
to travel with or to have people, is there a
group are there people they can connect to to find
out about that, but also to be able to use this,
to use these these photo galleries, all of these different
history localities to really be able to watch, to be

(12:42):
a part of to help you as a relaxation, as
a place of inspiration for them, because I know, especially
during COVID, so many times when no one couldn't leave this.
I know a lot of clients where a lot of
people were looking online to see what all these different
great places were just to help them feel as they
were grounded or had something to look forward to.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Well. And you know, this is the lovely part about
this is you can just be an armchair traveler if
you love books, and you know we've sourced them all
in one place. You could go onto Amazon and wander
and wander and wonder. But one of the things, for example,
on the homepage there's a book of the month, and
then also in the newsletter, every newsletter there's a section

(13:24):
that says, what's Jackie reading now, And I'm going to
give you a new book that might be interested or
the first book in.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
A series that might interest you.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
So you know, your opportunities to travel either physically or
great or in the possibility of just in your home,
sitting with a book, or exploring with your with your colleagues,
or hearing about their trips, or wandering through the photo gallery, which,
by the way, you can buy any of those images,

(13:52):
so you know, you could create a wall of photos
if you wanted to make you feel as if you're traveling.
So we just want to make it feel can give
you the sense of, you know, if you love the
essence of seeing and experience history live, this is it.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
How long did it take you to put this all together?

Speaker 3 (14:14):
About eight months?

Speaker 2 (14:17):
Wow, Because I built the book directory, I digitize forty
thousand photos, we built the website, we built the magazine.
I've written fifty blogs, about twenty are already posted. So
it took me total of ten months to do all
that and get it to this point.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
But it's going forward.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
It'll you know, it'll take less of my time, but
I want to be out traveling more so that'll be.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
It's incredible because people really know what they're getting because
you have put such hard work into this and such passion.
I think that makes all of a difference for someone
wanting to actually travel there, but also to learn about it,
to know someone really took the time and really this
is passion and know what they're talking about, and to
find you know, the windmills, the lighthouses, the animals. Those

(15:07):
are just such small, intricate things that really we don't
people don't think about when going on vacation or traveling
that sometimes we don't have the time to but really
make make the trip or make that place even more
appealable to them.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
And when I'm I'm doing my photography, I'm not just looking.

Speaker 3 (15:25):
At a big building structure.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
I'm looking at the details and the things that you
know are so unique and fun and the you know,
the door knobs and the windows and the uh you know,
the kiddy and the you know in the window, and
you know all the things that make it what it is.

Speaker 3 (15:44):
And so I create the flavor.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
I give you a sense of more than just looking
at a structure, but of absorbing the essence of what
it is so that it makes makes you feel like
you're you're experiencing it yourself.

Speaker 1 (16:00):
At all the different places and places you've been to
and have taken these photographs, do they reach out to you?
Because I bet they'll give you a really big thank you,
Because I mean you really are just showing things I
don't think most people could do well.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
I haven't really hooked up with a lot of those
the you know, civic organizations, tourism organizations, but I plan
to be doing more of that in the future because
you know, I'm going to be looking to focus in
particular markets, and now that I have a blog, people
are going to potentially be interested inviting me to come
and do blogs on those occasions. So that's in the future,

(16:35):
I think. But one of the things that I did do,
which I think is really kind of fun, is because
people are, you know, they're trying to plan their summer
vacations or their future vacations or their bucket list, I
created a guide called twenty International Cities where you could

(16:56):
immerse yourself in history and the books that will make
you feel as if you live that. And so I
want to encourage people to go and grab that e
guide and you can get it at Vhistoric Traveler dot
com Forward slash Guide and that's Thehistoric Traveler dot com
Forward Slash Guide.

Speaker 3 (17:16):
And this is a terrific guide that's.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
Going to really really give you, you know, you an opportunity.

Speaker 1 (17:21):
Would you give us a little not give the whole
book away, but give us a little idea of what
people could expect when they look at it.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
They're going to get one page on each market, each
of those twenty markets, a couple of photographs, and then
again some book recommendations. But those that one page is
again going to go over what a little bit of
the history and what you should see in that market.
So I really encourage people to grab that. Now, let's
also say that you really don't get out of the

(17:49):
internationally and you just want to stay in the in
the US, I have a separate guide just for the US,
and so that guide is the same, but it's eighteen cities,
not which is the US, but in North America. So
I have Canada as well, so it's eighteen cities in
North America. So you can go to Theehistoric Traveler dot com,
Forward slash guide na as in North America guide in

(18:14):
A and you can grab the ones for just this
continent if that's your preference.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
What is if you have one? If you could pick
what would be one of your favorite or most inspirational
shoots or places.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
Oh I love Bruges, Belgium because it's a little mini
Amsterdam with swans in the canals, and you know, with
the tall buildings with the winches on the top, it's
just adorable. But I also love Prague. Prague's an amazing city.

(18:48):
Dubrovnik in Croatia, you know they film parts of a
Game of Thrones there. You know, there are just so
many amazing small towns, little interesting towns. There's one in
check Slovakia called Chesky Crumblaw. It's like walking into a
fairydale and it's all in pinks, in in peaches, and

(19:10):
you know, in green it's just stunning. So but there,
you know, if you take the time to get out
into the world, you're going to find so many of
these amazing not necessarily big towns, but smaller towns as well.
And so I try to capture them so that every
week you're going to find a new an interesting, new
place that you might might want to end to your
bucket list.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
Yes, I win these membership groups and meetings. Once you joined,
what type of things will they would someone expect, you know,
talking about the different places. Would they be learning a
lot of history? What would one would expect?

Speaker 2 (19:44):
Well, in the book club, you're going to talk about
a particular book or author you know. And this next
one coming up is Philippa Gregory, that wonderful series that
she's done on the Tutors then or.

Speaker 3 (19:56):
Ken Filat, you know, Pillars of the of the Earth.
Then for the the.

Speaker 2 (20:02):
The general Conclave as we call it, it's going to
be we're going to talk about uh places to go,
and we're going to talk about travel tips and things
that you should know about. People are going to share
their experiences of maybe a travel agent or a travel
company company that they've loved, or maybe a hidden spot.

(20:23):
They might talk about experiences they've had, like for example,
if you go to a Budapest, you have to go
to the the spa baths you know that have been
there his historically and so you know, I might bring
that up and say, oh, somebody says I've been there
and they have to do this.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
You know, it's going to be a sharing of experiences.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
And then I will have guests, so if I might
have for example, the lighthouse guy.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
I just another another.

Speaker 2 (20:52):
Article we're going to have in the magazine is from
people that renovated it ranches historic Dude ranches. I just
did did an article with somebody on graveyards and ostuaries.
So we're gonna have experts that are going to come
in and talk and share, and so people can ask
questions and get.

Speaker 3 (21:12):
That experience as well.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
So you know, I might have somebody who's a top
uh toward travel agent for destination. I'm also going to
be looking at traveling for your uh, you know, familial connections,
you know where your heritage came from. I mean, just
the myriad topics.

Speaker 1 (21:32):
And there's something for everybody. There's definitely you'll find something.
And I think it sounds like a great community where
you're able to meet these other people, speak with them,
and have that community feeling exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
And I'm going to encourage people as we grow to
even set up little you know, dinner dinner meet and
greets in their towns so that they get to know
each other and better.

Speaker 3 (21:56):
And you know, we're just really starting.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
To grow now, and so but I'm encouraging people to
come and I and I and I opened the doors
for those meetings every time once a month, and you know,
I'm there to also get a feeling for what they want.
What do you want to cover in the next one,
And I'll go out and find the rece you know,
the resource or the subject matter.

Speaker 1 (22:17):
Did you ever think of offering this as a college
course or a course I would think in grade school justly.
I mean, this would sound like this would be history
where people would really enjoy children and adults would not
want to miss this class.

Speaker 3 (22:31):
You know, that's an interesting thought.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
I hadn't really looked it at doing that, but that
that's that is an interesting thought.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
It was actually my fourth grade trip to.

Speaker 2 (22:42):
The California Missions that stimulated my history, like my love
of history, because I can just.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Think of so many people off the top of my
head that would love something like this and to learn
about it. I mean, I think it's just it's really
it's interactive. You have a community. It's hard sometimes to
find people who have similar tastes than you and travel
and finding that. So to now that community, but also
trusted to be able to have a sounding board and
have ideas and recommendation that is really really big.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
As you can tell, I'm passionate about history and and
I love, you know, the fact that you can absorb
real history through historic novels.

Speaker 3 (23:24):
I'm just reading a.

Speaker 2 (23:25):
Series about a woman named Emma of Normandy that I
had never heard of.

Speaker 3 (23:30):
She's real.

Speaker 2 (23:31):
She was a very she was she was married to
two kings. I never heard of her before, and now
I'm knee deep in these books a fascinating life.

Speaker 3 (23:43):
It may be fiction, but it's.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
All completely based around the reality of fictional the fact
factual access.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
Of her life. So for me, when I go on
I travel, you know, I'm.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Pulling from this book, this book, this book, this book
for a whole picture. Now, not just reading one book.
Having read so many books, I understand who this person
was and this person and this person and how they
influenced history together. And that's so if I see a place,
I say, oh, this is where this happened. For example, Mary,

(24:18):
Queen of Scots, you know, I was in the Holyrood
Palace in the very room where her secretary was murdered,
which is a big turning point in her history. And
so here is the or here was another thing. I
went to Chinonsa, which is a chateau in the Loire
Valley which I love in France, and this was and

(24:42):
the story behind this that chateau was that it was
given to the king's mistress for years and when he died,
Catherine de Medici, his wife, basically threw out his mistress
and took over this chatau, and I was in the

(25:02):
very room where it all flapped, and or actually all
of Queen this this, this particular chateau is called the
Chateau of Ladies because there are five women who basically dominated.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
There was no male ruler in this. In this chateau,
it was always a female.

Speaker 1 (25:21):
There's also drama and crime, drama and a little bit
of love and lifetime going on with it too, for
so all different types of people. Well, we're at the
end of the show. How can my viewers find you?
Follow you again to really keep updated and really join
this community.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
So thank you, Alexa.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
The first thing is they can go to Thehistoric Traveler
dot com and sign up for the blog updates.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
That's number one.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
Two, if they're interested in joining the community, they should,
you know, obviously take advantage. There is a button there
for Historic Traveler International. It also states what the all
the you know resources are. Again, by the way, we
also have gift certificates so that if you know people
who love history and you're not the one, they can

(26:11):
take advantage of giving this as a gift. And then lastly,
if you just want to reach out to me. I'm
Jackie atthehistorictraveler dot com, So please, you know, come join us,
take advantage of our resources, get an insight guide if
you're going to be traveling off of our website, so
you know, there's just so many ways that we are

(26:32):
here to serve and support you.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
Wonderful. I can't wait to read all about it again.
Thank you so much for coming on the show. It
was so exciting, and thank you for all the work
that you do.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Thank you, Alexa, it's been a pleasure to be here.
Keep traveling, everybody.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
Yes, and everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. Everyone,
have a good night and God bless