If you’ve tuned into TV shows about travel since the turn of the millennium, chances are you’ve seen Samantha Brown. The two-time Emmy-winning host began her television career on the Travel Channel in 2000 and is now the executive producer and host of the award-winning PBS series Samantha Brown’s Places to Love.
The series’ new season, now airing, highlights Southern locations such as North Carolina’s Crystal Coast, New Orleans, and the longest stretch of Route 66 in Oklahoma. There’s no complex formula for picking the places—“it’s just kind of where I want to go, to be quite honest,” Brown says. Here are some of her predictions and tips for travel in the South in 2025:
The Americana Music Triangle rocks.
“The biggest travel trend is going to be the Americana Music Triangle,” Brown says about the driving trails in and around Memphis, Nashville, Muscle Shoals, and New Orleans. In Germany, she says she met tour guides who planned entire trips to the South around music. “I don’t think this driving triangle is touted enough by the Southern states,” Brown says. “This incredible path attracts people from all over the world.”
Smaller cities and towns are going to be big draws.
“I love little cities,” Brown says. “I call them B-side cities, like 45 records. You had the A-side, the hit, and then the B-side, people didn’t know much about, but it was still a good song.” Brown cites Lafayette, Louisiana, for folks who already love New Orleans, and Huntsville, Alabama, less than two hours north of Birmingham, as two such destinations that offer fun discoveries and surprises.
Brown on Route 66.
Travelers want authentic experiences.
“I love discovering what people just think is everyday normal, when you can go somewhere and feel like you were absorbed in a place and its culture,” Brown says. For her, such experiences have included meeting a duck decoy maker in Beaufort, North Carolina, and witnessing the Acadian culture in Louisiana, with its vibrant music and foodways. “We went to this place called the Blue Moon Saloon, a turn-of-the-century home turned into a bar and music venue, with creaky wood floors for dancing,” she says. “We listened to a group called the Magnolia Sisters, and I loved them because they were an all-woman band, and they only did songs inspired by Cajun music of the 1920s and ’30s.”
Sustainable travel is about more than just saving the planet.
According to Brown, recycling and conserving water are now “baked into the pie” at many hotels. Environmental sustainability has (thankfully!) taken root in much of travel marketing and leadership. But now there’s an even stronger push to respect the people who have long called destinations home—and allow them to tell their own stories. In North Carolina, she says she admires how Asheville has emphasized Black Appalachian life, and she’s enjoyed learning about the city’s Black Wall Street.
Southern destinations will remain popular.
“In the South, everyone’s invited, and there’s not that sort of air about it—you just walk in,” Brown says. “The food is so accessible; the music, dancing, it’s phenomenal. I think that’s why it does so well.”
Tune into Samantha Brown’s Places to Love on PBS.
