Want to know how to travel in style, just like the pros? We check in with frequent fliers to find out how often they fly, their favorite destinations and what they never leave home without.

Marian Goldberg

Name: Marian Goldberg

Occupation: “Cultural Travel Communicator” – I write about travel, talk about travel, and promote travel destinations, hotels, tours, and technology. I believe in travel’s life changing qualities.

Hometown: I was born in the now defunct “Doctor’s Hospital” on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, but in two days I was whisked off to sleepy “Hauppauge,” smack in the middle of Long Island, where I spent the next 21 years of my life. This was followed by a post-university move to Astoria, Queens that lasted 12 years. Then, I crossed the Hudson River to New Jersey, from where I have been overlooking the lights and skyscrapers of the Big Apple for 15 years.

Residence: Rutherford, NJ

Website: Goldberg on Travel

Twitter: @mariangoldberg

Linkedin: Marian Goldberg

Short Bio: As Principal of Marian Goldberg Marketing Communications: Goldberg On Travel (GOT-MGMC), Marian introduces and markets travel clients including: the “experiential” flight and hotel search engine and content provider, Momondo; the Kyoto Convention Bureau in Japan’s eternal cultural capital; Asia Pacific Travel LTD’s North Korea Tours, Tia Stephanie Tour’s Cultural Journeys to Mexico and Colombia; Hoshino Resorts luxury cultural properties in Japan. Marian is also Asia Correspondent for Jax Fax Travel Marketing Magazine. Prior to forming GOT-MGMC, Marian was the Public Relations Manager, the Americas for the Japan National Tourism Organization for 11 years, 1997-2008. From 1995-96, Marian headed the editorial team at Personal Travel Technologies, a multi-platform electronic travel information service. Before that, she was a Marketing Supervisor at Trans-world Airlines, preceded by her position as a Production Researcher and then a Producer at The Travel Channel, which, during Marian’s tenure, was actually owned by TWA. Overlapping with her TWA and TTC period, Marian was a founding editor of the Educated Traveler newsletter (1988-1998), a contributing editor to Transitions Abroad magazine (1990-2001), and the author of the Americas volume of the World Tourism Directory (1995). Marian Goldberg has been writing and marketing travel since 1987, when, while a graduate student in travel and tourism management, she was editor of the Travel & Tourism Research Association’s New York Chapter newsletter. In 2009, she was a judge of the Seoul Tourism Awards in Seoul, Korea. She has taught travel and tourism at several New York area universities and organizes the travel media panel for the annual Educational Travel Conference.

How often do you fly: 10 round-trips per year

How many countries have you been to: 48

How many continents have you been to: 6

Favorite American city: New York City

Favorite international city: Kyoto, Japan

Least favorite country: I’d rather not say. It was probably just a bad trip.

Favorite World Heritage Site: The historic Buddhist Temple of Kiyomizu-dera (“waterfall Temple”) in Kyoto, founded in the Heian period, 798. There is not a single nail used in the entire structure. Its wooden stage that juts out from the main hall 13 meters above the hillside, offers a breathtaking view of the city of Kyoto and the natural landscape beyond. It takes its name from the waterfall within the complex, which runs off the nearby hills. Kiyomizu means clear water, or pure water

Favorite airline: It was Continental, but that they have been swallowed up by United. I am still deciding on a runner up.

Favorite aircraft type: Boeing 777 – I love the video on demand with 150 movies. I watch 5-6 movies on a flight to or from Asia. I don’t have time to watch movies at home.

Aisle or window: Aisle

Favorite airport lounge: The British Airways Lounge at Newark Liberty had a full dinner buffet – including Chicken Tikka Masala!

Favorite U.S. airport: EWR “Newark Liberty Intl” – It’s so convenient.

Favorite international airport: NGO “Centrair” Nagoya International – What other airport has a hot spring bath on the enclosed roof from which you can watch planes taking off through a floor-to-ceiling window?

Favorite hotel: Sorry, I have three … HOSHINOYA Kyoto, Park Hyatt Tokyo, and Ananda in the Himalayas, India.

Favorite cruise line: I hate cruises.

Favorite island: Antigua in the Caribbean

Favorite fancy restaurant: The New York Grill at the Park Hyatt Tokyo — best steak I ever had.

Favorite hole in the wall: Greek Captain in Astoria, Queens

Favorite fruit: Mango

Favorite food: Indian – especially with fresh spices – so flavorful!

Least favorite food: anything smoky, porky and fatty – bacon and ham are no goes. And I’m not a big fan of raw chicken sushi (at a Kai-ten sushi bar in Osaka) even though it was not smoky, porky or fatty.

Drink of choice (In the air and on the ground): Campari with soda and lime; a good quality Spanish Rioja.

Favorite travel show(s): No Reservations with Anthony Bourdain.

Favorite travel book(s): Confucius Lives Next: What Living in the East Teaches us about Living in the West, by T.R. Reid. You will die laughing, because everything is true.

Right now I am reading: Bangkok Found, by Alex Kerr (His answer to his previous book, Lost Japan)

Five things you bring on a plane: A big roll of plastic tape, in case my luggage arrives with a broken lock or wheel (has happened more than once.), a laptop – fully charged, Chapstick and hand lotion – the airplane air is so dry, an empty water bottle. I fill it up with the drinks they give me in cans or cups, and then I can close the cap without knocking the drink over on to the guy sitting next to me or worse — onto my laptop, a sweatshirt with a draw-string hood. I can then wear it and cover my eyes when I sleep or roll it up and put it behind my neck as a pillow. I used to bring a pillow, but I have lost so many of them, I gave up.

What do you always seem to forget: My phone charger or laptop charge cord.

What do you want your loved one to buy you from an airport duty free store? It depends upon the country: high cocoa content chocolates, mochi, macha green tea, local red wine, a set of little bottles of high-end flavored vodka …

Favorite travel iPhone app(s): I’m an Android gal, but I love … the Momondo booking app, Google Voice, the LED flashlight, voice-activated GPS navigation, even Solitaire.

Most embarrassing/worst travel moment: In 1986, I was on an educational group tour in the Dordogne region in the South of France. The bus let us off to go to “the loo” (meaning the woods). I went a little further than the others, and as I was running back, the bus was leaving without me! The instructor/chaperone had gotten me confused with someone else who left the group that day, and thought I was not coming back. I did not speak French, it was before cell phones, I had no watch. I finally literally had to wait six hours before some stranger who spoke English and had a car drove me to a police station, where they contacted the group back at our hotel, and someone came to get me.

What’s your dream destination: An expedition to Antarctica.

Favorite travel website(s) – besides JohnnyJet.com, of course!: I love Momondo but especially for the travel tips under the section: “Don’t forget your Passport.”

Best travel tip: Carry a smart phone; activate the “World Traveler” call and email plan, and put your hotel’s number into the phone. For the cost of an excess piece of checked luggage — even if you just use it for email. It’s worth it.

Leave a Reply

Required fields are marked *

Recent posts