Cruising With Oprah And A Crazy Cure For Fear Of Flying: Gayle King Reveals All

Oprah Winfrey declared that 2017 is the year of adventure, and she is keeping to her word. Later this month, she will set sail on a cruise to Alaska on Holland America Line with her best friend Gayle King, some of her magazine's staffers and a host of experts offering advice on healthy eating, wellness, meditation and more.

The mission? To kick off a new series of Oprah-inspired "Adventure of Your Life Cruises" across North America that will help travelers live their best life while sailing the high seas. The voyages will be offered on Holland America Line throughout 2017 and 2018.

In advance of the first sailing, I caught up with Gayle King, who is not only an editor-at-large for O, The Oprah Magazine, but also a co-anchor of CBS This Morning. King spilled what it's like to travel with Oprah, some of her own travel fears, what's on her bucket list and some unorthodox career advice. (Hint: Don't ever use the phrase "personal brand" around Gayle King.)

Travels With Oprah: Oprah's a girl who loves a tree. I can't even say she's a water girl. She loves loves loves a tree. But I will tell you this - Holland America was so in synch with our philosophy about women, empowering women, inspiring women and creating inspirational and aspirational things for them. The choices were the Caribbean or Alaska, and Oprah said, "The Caribbean? Been there, done that. But I've never been to Alaska."

On Alaska: Whenever someone says to me, "Have you been to Alaska?" and my answer is no, I say, "Have you been to Alaska?" They go, "No, but it's on my bucket list." It's really funny to me that Alaska is part of the U.S. of A., but a lot of us have never seen it. So we're all looking forward to going. I'm curious about the culture. I'm curious about the glaciers. I don't especially like cold weather, but I do like beautiful things. And I enjoy cruising, so I'm looking forward to that. We're going to do a couple cover shoots that will involve some - I'll just say - snow dogs, and Oprah doing something with them. She has to travel by helicopter; I will not be doing that part of the shoot.

Travel As A Transformation Tool: A lot of women have seen the movie Eat, Pray, Love and gone, "I wish I could do that, I want to go there." There's just something about taking you someplace you've never been and experiencing it for the first time with people who are also experiencing it for the first time. There's something very bonding about that. And travel does that for most people.

Getting Out Of Your Comfort Zone: Oprah is very comfortable in her own skin. She likes to experience and go to different places. But travel can be scary to a lot of people. It's shocking how few Americans have passports. When Oprah took the studio audience to Australia, she had to get passports for 80% of the people. I believe that traveling and taking you out of your comfort zone is important. The anticipation of going someplace new and meeting new people. Seeing things that you haven't seen before.

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