Samantha Brown was born in Dallas, Texas and spent her formative years growing up in New Hampshire. Normal travel back then was loading up the family station wagon to visit relatives in Pennsylvania. Her biggest international trip was driving across the border once to Canada for a Quebec family vacation in junior high school… Oh the things to come!

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 with her cat, to pursue her dream of being on the stage. Not surprisingly this lead to 8 years of waiting tables, auditioning and various roles in off to off off off Broadway productions.

In 1999, she landed a gig hosting Travel Channel’s Great Vacation Homes. She’s since also hosted Girl Meets Hawaii, Great Hotels, Passport to Europe, Passport to Latin America, Great Weekends, Green Getaways, Passport to China, and Samantha Brown’s Asia.

In January 2018, she began hosting and producing Samantha Brown’s Places to Love on PBS. The following year, the show won the Emmy for Outstanding Travel/Adventure Program and Brown won the Emmy for Outstanding Host.

She calls herself an airport geek and enjoys her time spent in them (unlike everyone else in the world). Once in an airport, she loves to check the large departure board to see where other people are going.  Even just seeing the names of exotic destinations like Istanbul, Casablanca and Jaipur make her want to travel more.

In 2011, Samantha debuted her stylish line of luggage for HSN. 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.

She is currently lives in Brooklyn, New York with her husband, Kevin, and their twin son and daughter.

Samantha’s career as a television travel host happened by accident. 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”.

The audition almost did not happen. Samantha missed her first audition in Jacksonville, Florida after she failed to make a connecting flight. Thankfully, it was rescheduled again for a week later. Her initial flight the second time was also delayed, and Samantha had just five minutes to make her connecting flight. She sprinted to the gate and arrived 10 minutes after the final boarding call.

A sympathetic attendant encouraged Samantha to try to board the plane, so she continued her run on the tarmac toward the small, 50-seater jet located about 100 feet away. A dispatcher interrupted her sprint, telling her it was too late to board.

Breaking down and through tears she told the dispatcher she had been waiting on tables for eight years hoping for a dream job like this. He relented, and told her only the flight’s pilot could overrule his decision. As the dispatcher boarded the plane and explained the situation to the cockpit, Samantha ran the 100 feet and positioned herself under the nose of the plane. She looked up at the captain, opened her arms pleadingly and shouted “PLEASE!!!!” He let her on the plane, she got the job.

Over the last 20+ years, Samantha has traveled around the world visiting over 250 cities in 62 countries and 40 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.