In 1803–1806, Lisyansky as the commanding officer of the Russian-American Company's merchant sloop Neva took part in the first Russian circumnavigation of the Earth.

The expedition was under the command of Count Nikolay Petrovich Rezanov, Plenipotentiary of Alexander I for the Far Eastern and Western colonies of the Russian Empire, and Captain Adam Johann von Krusenstern in Nadezhda.

[1] They started from Kronstadt, but the ships split after visiting Hawaii, and Count Nikolay Rezanov and Lisyansky headed to Russian America (Alaska).

During his stay in Alaska, Lisyansky mapped its coast, the islands of Kodiak and Sitka, and left its geographical and ethnographic descriptions.

He described his own adventures and travels in the book Voyage Round the World with maps and drawings, which he published in Russian and English in 1812–1814.