Rudy Maxa, one of America’s premier consumer travel experts, is the host and executive producer of “Rudy Maxa’s World,” the Emmy Award-winning, public television travel series featuring destinations as diverse as Korea, Argentina, South Africa, Tuscany, and Thailand.
Maxa is the host and executive producer of 95 television episodes on the world’s great destinations that air on public television stations nationwide. His television episodes also air in 121 countries in 22 different languages on Travel Channel International. You may view episodes on Create Travel.
In the latest edition of his “Rudy Maxa’s World” series, Maxa is joined by his friend Washington, DC restaurateur Daisuke Utagawa, co-hosting seven new episodes; a one-hour special that highlights three distinct regions of Japan by focusing on its food and the people who work the fields and waters, plus three individual :30-minute episodes on Tokyo, Hokkaido, and Kyushu; two on Hong Kong, and one on Bangkok.
“This isn’t a food show per se,” says Maxa. “This is a travel show that uses food and local producers to tell the story of a nation and its culture.”
Maxa is a fascinating and informative speaker on the subject of travel today and speaks extensively around the world.
He is well known as public radio’s “Savvy Traveler” and an award-winning contributing editor with National Geographic Traveler magazine. He is a contributing editor to Delta’s SKY magazine and Artful Living, the Twin Cities’ lifestyle magazine. The voice of National Geographic Traveler’s “Walks of a Lifetime” podcasts, he also hosts America’s most widely-syndicated travel radio show, “RM World Travel with Rudy Maxa and Robert & Mary Carey,” which airs weekly on 330+ mostly news/talk stations in North America.
As a writer for Traveler, Maxa’s articles have earned him two Lowell Thomas Bronze Awards for Excellence in Travel Writing from the Society of American Travel Writers. He has contributed travel articles to GQ, Worth, Forbes, Modern Maturity, USAToday, the Washington Post, Town & Country Travel, the Los Angeles Times, as well as USAToday.com, MSNBC.com, and ABC.com. He’s a frequent guest on national television networks and shows, including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, and “The View.” And he speaks frequently to both public and industry groups.
After 13 years as a Washington Post investigative reporter and personalities columnist, Maxa worked nine years as a senior writer with the city magazine, Washingtonian, before becoming Washington bureau chief of SPY magazine for two years.
Political scandal reportage by Maxa was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize by the Post, and he has written two non-fiction books. He wrote for the ABC-TV dramatic series “Capitol News” and for several years hosted a Saturday-morning, public affairs talk show on WRC-AM, the NBC owned-and-operated radio station in Washington, DC.
Episodes of the “Rudy Maxa’s World” television series have garnered dozens of awards, including five regional Emmy Awards. He was named “best regular columnist” by the Florida Magazine Association for his writings in Ocean Drive. And as a Post reporter, he won the John Hancock Award for Excellence in Business and Financial Journalism for a series of stories unmasking an international Ponzi scheme. His alma mater, Ohio University, gave Maxa the L.J. Hortin “Distinguished Alumnus Award” in 2002.
Maxa lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, is the father of a grown son and daughter, and is a doting grandfather.
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