I grew up on the water. My father served in the Navy and then the Coast Guard until he retired, which meant my childhood was measured in coastlines, small Minnesota lakes, The Great Lakes, the Atlantic, the Pacific. I learned to read water before I learned to read a map. That upbringing shaped how I move through the world and what I notice when I arrive somewhere new. The quality of light on the water at 6AM, the way a working harbor smells different from a tourist one, the particular quiet of a port town before the ships wake it up. A Master’s Degree in Theatre Directing at Case Western Reserve gave me a formal language for what I'd always done instinctively: understand people, see intention in a gesture, find the true moment inside the performed one. Years as Marketing Manager at E.J. Thomas Hall taught me how institutions tell stories that move audiences. Somewhere along the way, I started bringing a camera to the places the work took me. I never stopped.

Shiny Penny Travels is a destination content studio specializing in the cruise and adventure travel industry. Not a travel blog. Not an influencer account. A working creative professional who is already going to the ports, the glaciers, the tender docks, the natural lit port entertainment, shows with theatrical lighting, and the back alleys that tourism boards, cruise lines, and hospitality brands need content from. And who has the storytelling background to bring back something more than a pretty picture. The industry doesn't need more images of the obvious thing. It needs someone who knows how to find the specific, true, unexpected detail that makes a traveler decide to go.

The credential stack is real: Owner of Shiny Penny Studios in Cleveland, NCL Masters agent with multiple back-to-back Alaska sailings including every major Southeast Alaska port visited twice in different light on the same itinerary. A growing Caribbean archive across Grand Cayman, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Aruba, Bonaire, Costa Rica, and the Panama Canal. Iceland and Northern Europe in production for 2027. The multi-season approach is intentional . September Alaska looks nothing like July Alaska, and July Alaska looks nothing like May Alaska. That difference is a library no single trip can build.

If you need destination content and I'm already going there, let's talk.

Keli Schimelpfenig