Think about female travel hosts for a minute and you'll come up with just one name: Samantha Brown. Sure, there are plenty of incredible women leading food-focused shows that travel (Samin Nosrat is a joy in Netflix's Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat), but travel hosts, eh, not so much. In fact, when the Travel Channel let Brown go in 2010, it took them a whopping seven years to hire another female host—Mysterious Island's Kellee Edwards. Brown has taken her singularity in her stride, pushing for full ownership of her latest show, Places to Love on PBS, and championing for a new, more diverse world of travel hosts.
But if you had asked Brown whether this would be her future 20 years ago, she would have countered with her own question: "What's a travel host?" Then an actress making her way through New York City's audition scene, she hadn't left North America when she was hired for her first show, Great Vacation Homes, and suffered from imposter syndrome (just like the rest of us). Two decades and 10-or-so shows later, it's that lack of travel knowledge that she thinks has brought her such success. "I had never traveled before and I realized I could bring that to the show," she says. "I wasn't a travel expert or a travel journalist. I was just this newbie, figuring out this world."
In this week's episode, we talk to Brown about her origin story and so much more. Tune in to hear her talk about her most memorable trips, how her five-year-old twins have changed the way she travels, why the industry needs a real shake-up to bring new voices on board, and why every meal doesn't have to be the best thing you've ever eaten. (And whatever you do, don't get her started on Yelp.)
A huge thanks to Brown for sharing her thoughts (you can hear even more on our other podcast, Travelogue, where she joined our expert panel on all things family travel), and to Brett Fuchs for engineering and mixing. You can find info on our upcoming Miami meetup here—we'd love to see you—and check back every Monday for the latest installment of Women Who Travel. To keep up with our podcast each week, subscribe to Women Who Travel on the iTunes store or Spotify and if you have a minute to spare, leave a review—we’d love to hear from you.
