Travel expert and television host Samantha Brown is the star of PBS’ Samantha Brown’s Places to Love.

Travel expert and television host Samantha Brown was born in Dallas, Texas and spent her formative years growing up in New Hampshire. After falling in love with the performing arts in high school, Samantha decided to pursue a Bachelor’s Degree in fine Arts from Syracuse University. The week after graduation Samantha moved to New York City, to pursue her dream of being on the stage. Not surprisingly this led to 8 years of waiting tables, auditioning and various roles in off- to off- off- off- Broadway productions.

A producer spotted her work in a commercial and recommended her to the Travel Channel in 1999 to audition for a new show being developed called Great Vacation Homes.

A decade of series followed, including Great Hotels, Girl Meets Hawaii, Passport to Europe, Passport to Latin America, Green Getaways, Passport to China, Great Weekends and Samantha Brown’s Asia. Samantha’s fun-loving style has made her a revered and engaging television personality whose approach is less expert, less host and more a person you would want to travel with. Brown recently served as a co-host of The Trip: 2014, a sweepstakes event that took viewers on a trip though Spain and Morocco.

Over the last 13 years, Samantha has traveled around the world visiting over 220 cities in 49 countries and 30 of the United States creating over 160 hours of programming (and counting). After all of that traveling she reluctantly accepts her title as a travel expert, preferring jokingly the more humble title of Travel Goddess.

What Samantha enjoys most about travel is not necessarily the “must do’s” of a destination; visiting museums, castles and monuments. Her passion is to focus on the people, their culture, and the privilege of spending time in their everyday lives.

In 2011, Samantha debuted her stylish line of luggage on the Home Shopping Network. The line quickly became a “customer pick” and went on to be one of the top brand launches for the year. Living out of a suitcase for over a decade, Samantha has enjoyed designing luggage as well as accessory cases, handbags and a packing system that bring ease and elegance back into travel and remind people that when it comes to their life they should Go Ahead and Jump In!