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Because the host and producer of the Emmy Award-winning PBS journey present Samantha Brown’s Locations to Love, Brown has turn out to be a journey information for hundreds of thousands. Her profession’s goal has been to find the magic of a vacation spot and reveal what makes it value visiting. Whether or not exploring a widely known metropolis by way of a contemporary pair of eyes or exposing a hidden gem, Brown will hunt down a spot, expertise it, and share its folks, tradition, and distinctive historical past with the world.
After touring over 2.5 million miles and visiting 65 international locations, Brown is able to rejoice her 25 years within the journey trade. The 2-time Emmy winner sat down with Journey + Leisure to speak about her unbelievable journeys through the years, the way it took her a while to catch the journey bug, and her thrilling eighth season of Samantha Brown’s Locations to Love, airing now. The collection will characteristic a twenty fifth Anniversary Particular episode that begins rolling out nationwide on Jan. 17.
When she graduated from Syracuse College (from the musical theater division and never the revered journalism faculty), Brown’s authentic plans had been to pursue an appearing profession on Broadway. She moved to New York Metropolis after commencement and waited tables as she tried this very robust path. “I all the time say that while you’re in musical theater, you are thought of a triple risk as a result of you possibly can sing, act, and dance. And after I moved to New York Metropolis, I spotted I wasn’t threatening in any respect,” she stated with amusing.
Courtesy of Samantha Brown
After some business and spokesperson gigs, her foray into journey started with a job internet hosting the Journey Channel’s Nice Trip Houses in 1999. The reception was sturdy, and she or he went on to host many different exhibits, together with Woman Meets Hawaii (2000), Nice Motels (2002), and Passport to Europe (2005), earlier than ultimately internet hosting and producing Samantha Brown’s Locations to Love on PBS in 2018. The next yr, the present gained the Emmy for Excellent Journey/Journey Program and Brown gained the Emmy for Excellent Host. “I by no means dreamed this huge, that this may be my life. I assume simply the brief reply is that it was by no means a part of the plan. And it’s one thing so grand in my life. I nonetheless can not consider this has been my path and I have been capable of get pleasure from it,“ she advised T+L.
Regardless of having the dream job of many, Brown admits it took her some time truly to catch the journey bug. Probably the most touring she had carried out as a child was within the household station wagon, driving from her residence in New Hampshire to Pennsylvania to go to household throughout her summer season trip. Touring the world for greater than 220 days per yr was a significant life shift, and a difficult adjustment. There was a loneliness element to staying in resorts so typically and never seeing family and friends commonly, in addition to a sense of basic vacancy, even when seeing a few of the best websites on the planet.
Courtesy of Samantha Brown
Her perspective began to vary, although, because of the ability of private connections with folks in these extraordinary locations. “What’s that void that we do not see once we’re simply possibly studying an article about it, or seeing stunning photos of a vacation spot? What else is behind that image? That is what I targeted on when the digicam wasn’t rolling,” she defined. “And that is what fulfilled me as a human being to maintain going after which fall in whole love with journey. However at first, I did not have the bug.”
Over her two-decade profession, Brown has noticed important adjustments within the journey trade and, in fact, how she has lined it. When she began, the one factor she traveled with was a thesaurus to assist her write. Even when she had a laptop computer, she couldn’t all the time entry the web in each place. Brown loves how journey has turn out to be democratized in recent times due to social media and the web. “The world is now completely accessible,” she stated.
As for journey traits, Brown takes a extra holistic view. She thinks every part is a pattern just because so many extra folks journey now. She does factors out one factor that is not fleeting, although: the final state of unrest on the planet, which requires vacationers to be extra deliberate when planning. This consciousness additionally helps when they’re choosing one of many locations featured on the present. “We don’t go anyplace we will’t get to inside two flights from the U.S.,” she advised T+L of her and her crew’s vacation spot standards. “We do this due to the climate, the unrest, and since a lot can disrupt journey lately. It’s important to simplify. I simply suppose ease of use may turn out to be this underlying journey pattern. What’s simple to get to? That I haven’t got to overthink, that I haven’t got to fret about it being 102 levels. What’s that vacation spot? That is going to be a journey pattern to look at.”
Courtesy of Samantha Brown
What hasn’t modified, in line with Brown, is that sturdy need to expertise one thing genuine, and which means not simply being a client. “After we perceive folks as a useful resource and their tales and their effort, that is what I contemplate sustainability, and the way will we maintain these small companies going? You are much less of a client that manner. You are extra a part of the group. While you perceive what went into creating that enterprise that you simply now get to stroll into and expertise, that you simply get to simply participate in, so much goes on behind the scenes, and so it is to disclose what’s behind the scenes. That’s the hidden gem. It is not the enterprise itself. It is the trouble to create that enterprise that, to me, is what’s hidden and desires to come back out.”
Her finest recommendation for vacationers to develop these connections is to create a ritual on a visit. “As a substitute of going to new locations each day, I like to search out the cafe that can be my spot, and that is how I start the day,” she stated. “And that places me in a extra relaxed state. I am there, and I turn out to be extra conscious of the ebb and movement of a spot. That additionally makes me extra comfy to show to any individual and say, ‘Hey, are you aware the place I ought to go for the very best this?’ As a result of that is a neighborhood. Simply discuss to folks.”
She finds this tactic can also be an awesome technique for figuring out a few of the “finest locations.” She defined, “We go to the place everybody’s going after which we simply go one or two streets over. Discover the parallel streets as a result of the place everybody’s going is the touristy space, however the parallel streets and the facet streets are the place the locals have their companies. We go to precisely the place everybody’s going after which we simply begin exploring the facet streets to search out these little companies, these little hidden gems, as a result of that is precisely the place they’re.”
As for the Locations to Love that made the lower for 2025, the listing contains New Orleans, Berlin, Leipzig, Traverse Metropolis, Michigan, and Route 66, amongst others (you possibly can try the complete listing of episodes). Brown factors out that, though New Orleans is a significant vacationer vacation spot, her present desires to direct guests to a unique space. She explored neighborhoods outdoors the French Quarter and located a resurrected jazz membership the place Little Richard obtained his begin and Tina Turner was a performer.
That is additionally why the present selected the lesser-known Leipzig, Germany, along with Berlin. She stated a part of their technique is to reply the over-tourism problem, but in addition to point out folks one thing they could have missed in any other case. In her travels in Leipzig, she and the present’s crew found it was the residents of this smaller metropolis who performed a pivotal function in bringing down the Berlin Wall.
Courtesy of Samantha Brown
Brown loves discovering hidden gems overseas, however she additionally immensely enjoys highlighting nice home journeys. She cherished doing everything of Route 66 for season 8, for instance. Her group has now carried out episodes on the long-lasting highway, beginning in Illinois by way of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas. Then, in 2026, to rejoice the one hundredth anniversary of Route 66, they’ll conclude with New Mexico, Arizona, and California. “Street journeys like this enable us to get into these mid-states that journey should showcase extra. We’re a really coast-driven nation. The Midwest will get forgotten.”
In her lengthy profession, she miraculously hasn’t had too many journey mishaps — apart from touchdown in Switzerland together with her total crew of eight folks solely to have their 22 circumstances of bags and gear delayed by unhealthy climate. With that scenario, she discovered the important lesson of all the time having a toothbrush and clear underwear with you even if you’re checking baggage.
Along with the toothbrush hack and utilizing her HSN baggage line she debuted in 2011, her largest piece of journey recommendation is refreshingly easy: Get your self acquainted with the gate you arrive at, particularly when touring internationally. Chances are high, you may be across the similar space while you depart. And in terms of the age-old query of when to reach on the airport, Brown stated, “There is no such factor as attending to the airport too early.” There you’ve gotten it.
As she displays on her 25-year profession, her mission with Samantha Brown’s Locations to Love and her protection of journey on the whole is evident: Present a singular view. “A metropolis or a spot isn’t only one factor. We problem ourselves to point out a larger racial variety and financial make-up, and we need to be sure this story will get advised by the precise folks,” she stated. And regardless that she has seen plenty of the world, Brown stated there are nonetheless components of Africa in addition to magical-sounding locations like Darjeeling, India that stay on her journey want listing, so fortunately we will count on to proceed seeing much more of her.
