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Women You Should Know
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My name is Samantha Brown and I am a traveler.
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I'm a host of many travel programs on the travel channel if you tune in to that.
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And that has been my job for 13 years, to travel and see the world.
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I'm from..uh..New Hampshire.
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I think about that for seconds. It's been a while I've lived in New York City now for over 20 years. Brooklyn.
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um..but I'm from New Hampshire.
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I went to Syracuse University, or I majored in musical theater.
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and yes you can major in that.
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I moved to New York City to pursue musical theater and I was thought you needed to be what's called a "triple threat."
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And a triple threat means you can act, sing, and dance.
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But when I moved to New York City, I found that I wasn't threatening at all.
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You could take out singing and you could take out dancing but I could still act.
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But I really enjoyed comedy and sketch comedy especially so I pursued a lot more comedy work
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improv work and of course waitressing work.
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I was a very good waitress in New York City
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But I definitely pursued it on my own. You try very hard to get an agent.
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and I couldn't for a good 8 years.
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and waited on tables and really struggled wondering why I went to school
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for theater if this was going to be my life just you know seeing that someone wanted uh...
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a slice of lemon on the side of their...your coke
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I thought wow I've must have been so much more over qualified for this job.
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But I did love it. Little by little you get a job here you get a job there.
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And actually I got a job that I submitted myself for
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for commercials. And it was those commercials that the Travel Channel eventually saw
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thought I had a great personality and called me into audition.
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So, all that work in waitressing slowly but surely paid off.
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The person who sought me out was from a production company
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Travel Channel had gone to this production company that called PineRidge Film and Television, great great company
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and they said well you know we're looking to produce a show
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they said we think we found a really good host.
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and I was like what's a host
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I really didn't..you know this was 13 years ago. Hosts were sort of perfect women who gesticulated and pointed
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and always had pleasant smiles on their faces and I just said well I'm not bad you know
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I really enjoy acting I love comedy and..
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when I got the job I mean I was petrified because I really had absolutely no idea what I was doing
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and I remember the first day of the shoot not knowing what I was doing
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and everything is improvised there is no script it's just you go with it
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Slowly but surely you know you get your groove and
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I instead of being an expert, I just kind of tapped into who I really was which was someone who got to do this for the first time.
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and that really became what they wanted.
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They realized that, the Travel Channel, no we don't want an expert
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we like you. You're the girl next door experiencing it for the first time like most of the people who are watching the show
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You know keep, keep doing that and that approach had just...
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uh I have no idea what I'm doing but I really enjoy meeting these people and I enjoy where I am
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and let's just go with that.
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That became really...I don't want to say shtick because that wasn't put on it was just really what was happening.
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I started back in 1999 with Great Vacation Homes
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and then from there went to Great Hotels...
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let's see um...Passport to Europe, Passport to Latin America, Passport to China
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Girls Meets Hawaii was back there somewhere. There were 3 years of Great Weekends
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and then my last series was all shot in Asia.
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I never ever in a million years thought I would have a job that was better than the one that I actually dreamed of for myself.
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I mean I thought I was going to be on Broadway
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I thought I was in my wildest dreams I'd go to Los Angeles and be in the sitcom...
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But I never thought someone would see those talents and say, hey, you actually be good travelling around the world
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even today I can't believe it it's my job.
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For a half hour episode we are there for four days and for an hour, eight.
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but usually 10 because of travel in and out so we're there 10 days for an hour episode.
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When I arrive in another country or even in another state in the United States I always have one day off before we start to shoot
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and that gives me time to sort of get my bearings and also gives you time to adjust to a different time zone.
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but that is my day where I have to kind of get a grasp on where I am not just the city but the country and the culture
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and so I use that day wisely.
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Everyone wants my job until they hear actually how much effort goes into it.
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uh..usually 230 days out of a year. So you're on the road most of the time.
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Being on the road easily can disconnect you from home.
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That's why there's a lot of difficulty with the job. You are so focused on where you are
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um..I'm in Singapore I'm in Nicaragua I'm in Cambodia and you're
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you just want to do a good job by the country, by the people, so you immersed yourself completely
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and then at the end of a 14-hour day there's very little energy, at least I have very little energy
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to get on the phone and make sure you know... my husband is doing alright, how's my mom, my sisters, you missed birthdays
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you miss weddings, you miss reunions.
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All the things that make you, you know, a sister, a wife, a good daughter, a great friend disappears
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and that can be a big challenge to the job.
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For the other 135 days at the year I stay home. I don't come here in airports.
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I don't even like to get into a taxi. I order in Chinese.
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Watch good television. I basically become a real homebody
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a real homebody which it's easy to do in the New York City in Brooklyn and so we've got great neighborhoods of fabulous ethnicity everywhere
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so even though I am staying home I'm you know you're at home in the world.
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People are surprised to know that hotel rooms can actually be my nemesis. um you know and people see the hotel rooms I stay in
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they're 5 star, the top of the line but I live in hotels
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and just to get a sense of what it's like to live in hotels,
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imagine someone coming into your bedroom and rearranging the contents of the furniture every 2 days
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and not just like big things like your bed and your bureau but little things like electrical sockets, you know light switches
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where's the light switch this time, is it by the bed is it by the doors is it by the bathrooms
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is the light switch on the bulb on the base on the cord
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you know you're constantly rebooting the minutia of your life every 2 days
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and it will slowly drive you insane
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One time actually a hotel room broke my nose and this is a true story
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I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom but I had the floor plan of the hotel I stayed in the night before
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which had a little hallway off my bed and you know bathroom to the right
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in this one it was just a wall and I walked you know walked right into BANG a wall
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heard this crunch and luckily I hit the wall head-on so there's no displacement
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but I had black eyes and a swollen nose and what's the worst thing you can do when you're on camera and break your nose
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but yeah it can be violent even 5 star luxury hotels can beat the crap out of me
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First time they asked me to be in a bathing suit
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you know it was just kind of an obvious choice I was in Hawaii
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and so you know that that's going to be a part of your wardrobe and you're going to be on the beach
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you know 82 percent of the time
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so it wasn't something that I wasn't expecting
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I knew it and
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I knew that you know because well at the time I was in my early 30s so I thought well I should I be in a bikini
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If I'm gonna be in a bathing suit, I'm gonna be in a bikini
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so I put a lot of that pressure on myself
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yeah now I don't do any bikini work it's done
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I've retired. The bathing suits have all you know they're all
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with Smithsonian I think this is going to be a you know
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Travel Channel Bikini Retrospective
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Anthony Bourdain has a bikini there. It's pretty hot and Andrew Zimmern and mine
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What I love about my job and how I approach it is that I get to spend time in other people's lives
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and I get to learn from them and about myself in the process
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and I love that. I love just someone's everyday life and understanding where they come from
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and when you're in another part of the world, someone's everyday life is extraordinary
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and then you think how extraordinary your own life is so it's really reciprocal, it's great felling.
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Traveling all throughout the world and meeting women all around the world.
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We certainly have very different concepts of beauty, what makes us beautiful.
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We have different concepts of work, being professional
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The overall sense of being kind and generous is the same,
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and I'm usually alone on my days off.
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Other women I can see will take care of me.
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There is sort of an acknowledgement of who we are and who we are in the whole world
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and that's been a real joy to discover.
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The least appealing thing about my job has to be managing loneliness
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and it is a job. It is a part of my job because I'm essentially alone.
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You wake up alone, you go back to hotel alone.
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Of course I have my crew, but they have their lives and I have mine
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And no matter where you are you're 10 thousand miles away, you're 5 thousand, 2 thousand, 2 hundred miles away from
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the people who love you who truly make you who you are.
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So loneliness becomes difficult to manage but it's a part of the job.
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Success I mean that is..
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it has to be a combination of doing what makes you happy
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makes you passionate. Certainly being with people and that is it.
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I love being with people. That is my passion.
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I could do it anywhere. I love the fact travel is a part of it but I love being with people
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and it sounds very tried but be yourself.
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That really started me on my path.
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At first I thought I'm not a travel expert. I don't know what I'm doing
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I've never traveled. How could I possibly have this job
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And instead of fighting that just thought well this is me
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and I'm just gonna make mistakes like a real person
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and luckily that just became what people were really interested in.
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So you know the idea of making mistakes, be yourself, don't try to be somebody else
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and just really be true to who you are. I think that is absolutely the key, absolutely.