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‘It’s everything about that personal connection’: Samantha Brown on 25 years in travel TV

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‘It’s everything about that personal connection’: Samantha Brown on 25 years in travel TV

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  • Samantha Brown’s travel show, “Samantha Brown’s Places to Love,” is returning for its eighth season, marking her 25th year as a travel TV host.
  • Brown reflects on how the internet has democratized travel, making it accessible to a wider range of people.
  • She emphasizes the importance of personal connections in travel, prioritizing interactions with locals over simply visiting landmarks.

Travel expert Samantha Brown’s career has been its own journey.

After going to college for musical theater, Brown moved to New York City to pursue acting. “And so that means I waited on tables for a good eight years and went to auditions,” she told USA TODAY. One of those was for the Travel Channel show “Great Vacation Homes,” which she booked in 1999.

Brown is marking 25 years as a travel TV host with the return of her Emmy-winning series, “Samantha Brown’s Places to Love.” The show’s eighth season, which begins airing Friday on PBS, takes her from German cities like Berlin and Leipzig to Traverse City, Michigan and North Carolina’s Crystal Coast, to name a few.

USA TODAY caught up with Brown ahead of the premiere to talk about how travel has changed over her quarter-century career, what she’s learned about community, and why flyers shouldn’t go straight to baggage claim after landing at an airport.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Question: Over the course of 25 years, how do you feel like the travel industry has changed?

Answer: It’s like night and day. I think, when I started 25 years ago, we, of course, had the internet, but it wasn’t so (much) a part of our travel lives. I didn’t even travel with a laptop. I traveled with a thesaurus because I was the writer of the show. So, I just needed other words to inspire me, so I wouldn’t say “quintessential” all the time or “quaint” all the time.

But, I think, with the internet that really democratized travel in so many ways, even more than just making flights more available. That sort of created where, now people had access to flights, not just travel agents. And it felt like maybe the travel agency world did have a lock on a lot of opportunities where the internet just opened that up to everybody. (That) doesn’t mean it’s any easier planning travel. I think that’s where travel agents are really great at their job, and you can see how much time they do spend because you fall into a rabbit hole now of information. But anyone can travel.

Before, when I started traveling, I thought it was really for the privileged – people privileged with money, time and then confidence. And I think with the internet and YouTube and social media, you see your type of person traveling. Maybe it’s a budget traveler. Maybe it’s someone with a lot more diversity than I represent, and all of a sudden now it becomes more attainable to you, and I think that’s the brilliant way that it’s really changed things.

I know it’s so hard to choose favorite destinations, but I was curious if you have any most memorable trips?

I still, to this day, love China … I went there, I think, in 2007 before the big 2008 Olympics. I mean, with the Great Wall, and the Forbidden Palace, and the Summer Palace, it just knocked my socks off. And I really enjoyed the people, too. I loved getting to know them and our differences.

A lot of us know Europe. We’re brought up with European history. It’s such a part of American history. … And so I found a lot about being in Europe was having to flex what I knew, or if I didn’t know it, then I felt like an ignorant American. But China just opened me up. I felt like I could be like a 5-year-old kid and just enjoy it, and no one was gonna go, “Why don’t you know that?” So, I loved that feeling. 

And then I would say in the United States, to bring it home really close, Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s my absolute favorite city here in the United States. … It’s such a confluence of Native American (and) Spanish influence and cultures. I’ve done four different series there, shows, episodes, and then I brought my mother and my sister on separate trips. So that’s the city I’ve returned to, not just for professional reasons, but for personal ones.

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So much of ‘Places to Love’ focuses on the people that make up a place. What have you learned about people and communities and their role in travel through the show?

I just learned that it’s everything about that personal connection. That’s, to me, travel. I started to care less and less about the monuments and the castles, the cathedrals because they always keep you in the past. But when you’re meeting with people, you are more in the moment – and possibly in the future – because you get to interact with what’s happening now.

And when I first started doing (the Travel Channel show) “Passport to Europe,” it was more like the check-off-the-list, you know, the monuments that you go to, the museums and the artwork that you see. And that left me actually kind of lonely as a traveler, personally. I didn’t feel like I had the travel bug when that was the focus. But then, now, with my own show and me calling the shots, it’s all people-driven because they completely change how a place affects you.

You’ve said that you like to focus on places that aren’t necessarily the big, marquee travel destinations. What makes a good location for an episode of ‘Places to Love’?

Definitely, things going on. We don’t do remote places where there’s nothing happening. So we do, like, small cities.

They have something else going on that maybe people don’t know about on the surface. So maybe there’s a history, like in Huntsville, Alabama, it’s NASA and this incredible base of science and rocket and space exploration. And yet, it’s an affordable place to live, and so artists are there as well. … So there has to be an affordability (and) I would guess a high quality of life for the civilians who live there now. That’s automatically going to make a great travel destination because they support that.

I always say if you’re just looking for yourself, something quick in your own, like, a two-hour sphere to travel to, look for independent bookstores. That’s going to be a magnet for other great shops, cafes, restaurants. If that town or small city supports an independent bookstore, you want to go there.

In these 25 years, I imagine that you have amassed some wisdom in your own travels. If you have any top travel tips, what would they be?

I think people feel most in need of tips when it comes to the airport because that’s still a phenomenally intimidating experience for a lot of people.

One, to alleviate 90% of the stress, get there in plenty of time. And what that means to me is that I base my getting to the airport on the boarding time of a flight, not the departure time. … But if I time it so I’m walking in the door of the airport, whether I need to check in or go right through security, a good two hours before the boarding time, I’ve already built in that time and I know I don’t have to stress. I increase that time depending on the time of year. So if it’s summer travel, I’m going to make that three hours.

Another great tip I have for people that they don’t think about at the airport is when they arrive at the airport and you get off your flight, the first thing everyone does is look for the baggage claim and the exit signs. Slow down and take a look around – kind of plan your return. Airports are pretty cool places these days. So, is there a cool local restaurant that you see, like, “Oh, I’d like to eat there,” or is there a place to get just a quick massage? … Always check out the security line, which you usually have a view of as you’re heading out. Is it chaos? How are they handling it? And all of this goes to inform you of your return.

For traveling with children – I have twins, they’re 11 now, but we traveled extensively since they were 2-months-old. It was a game changer for my husband and I: We never used the pre-board to board our kids. So, we waited at the gate and parent number one or caregiver number one used the pre-board to load in all of the gear. … They load everything in, and then I would wait with the kids until the very last person of the very last zone is called. We would walk on, get the kids settled and we would hopefully depart in 10 minutes. 

People forget that the boarding of the flight is absolutely, by far, the most stressful part of the plane trip, even for adults. We’re so nervous, we’re shoving bags in the overhead bin. You can feel the tension in that cabin, and children just absorb it. And then, when they get to a cruising altitude of 30,000 feet, they release it.

Is there anything you’re particularly excited for people to see in the new season of ‘Places to Love’?

Like all of our seasons, we really do a wide scope of travel options. We did Costa Rica, but we went in July, and that’s the rainy season, and everyone’s like, “Well, why would you go in July?” And it’s actually a phenomenal time. … Prices are lower, and it rains, but so what? It’s 85 degrees out. It doesn’t bother you at all. It actually feels really refreshing.

The one I’m really excited about is that we’re completing Route 66 and we’re in the middle of it now. Route 66 turns 100 in 2026, and so we started in Illinois last year, and we realized, Oh, we should do the whole thing. So, this year, we completed from St. Louis, the (Gateway Arch), all the way to Santa Fe. And then this year – we haven’t shot it yet – we’ll pick up in Albuquerque, New Mexico and make it all the way to California.

So we’re in the middle. And what I love about the middle is it’s Oklahoma and Kansas and the panhandle of Texas. These are places that few people travel to, and the history there and the people are fascinating. … And you really come away with it thinking, Man, what an amazing country we live in.

Nathan Diller is a consumer travel reporter for USA TODAY based in Nashville. You can reach him at ndiller@usatoday.com.

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