No, really, it's cool. I could sit behind a desk all day or I can bop around the country, knowing that at the end of the day, there's a king-size bed in my future. Which is great, because the one thing that makes traveling for work completely, truly, unbearably awful? Being sick while doing it.

Sitting in Newark Airport at 5 a.m. is surely enough to make anyone feel like garbage, but today, I feel like a special kind of crap. I'm staring down the barrel at a two-week shoot, and am trying to will the germs to stay in New Jersey. I felt it creep up the night before, but was hoping it was just an allergic reaction to the 1,000 Sharpies and post-its that litter my desk. I take my first dose of Tylenol Cold n' Flu as we take off and hope for the best as I snooze my way to Texas.

The next morning, my head feels like concrete and my throat like razor wire. Through a complex system involving email, a webcam, some color samples from Home Depot, and a few phone calls, My-Brother-in-Law-the-Doctor, aka Dr. Danny, (we're so proud), declares it strep throat. He suggests a strong course of OTCs, plus tea and cough drops. I offer to skip all that and go straight to morphine and whiskey. Strangely, he doesn't agree and I'm left sucking down cherry Halls like they're going out of style.

On the plus side, it feels like I'm eating glass every time I swallow, so meals are quick and liquid, leaving my Target shorts that much looser. Despite the strep, I love Austin and am actually having a great time. The only way to really make it through the day is to keep on keepin' on with the meds, so I'm energized beyond belief from the decongestants which now make up 50% of my bloodstream. The people are awesome, the weather is great and each location is more fun than the last. Out of all the places we've been, Austin's at the top of my list for a revisit.

The weather is great, sunny and warm, topping out at 90 degrees most days. When we leave for San Francisco at 5 a.m., it's dark, but still at least 75 degrees. Landing in the Bay Area, it's a brisk 50, and less than four hours on the ground, with the climate change, my strep turns into a sinus infection. I could at least be undercover and suffer in silence with a bad throat, but my cover's blown 30 seconds in to my first scout when I go through approximately 20 tissues in the first two minutes. I snuffle my way through two days and by some miracle, no one backs out, despite my Typhoid Mary presentation.

I hop a flight to Los Angeles and spend the 49-minute trek holding my eyes into my skull, as my sinuses do the best to push them out of my head. When I finally arrive, all in one piece, I collapse into bed and don't move for two days. And then I do it all over again.

San Francisco's foodie weekend was a tantalizing and calorie-splurging adventure for Sam, but also for many of the crew like myself. Though I swore I would jog every day just to allow myself to indulge a little more than usual, but I was too busy doing my job, and part of that job was clean-up crew. Let me explain. When we're shooting a food scene, I've got my headphones on, and I'm concentrating on the scene at hand, whether it's watching Sam eat from a gorgeous lazy Susan filled with dim sum (at Imperial Palace) or participating in a cooking competition in Berkeley at Kitchen on Fire. Now, after shouting, "CUT," my sneaky hands somehow find a neglected dumpling, a freshly baked piece of sourdough (from Boudin Bakery) or a million-dollar cocktail (Harry Denton's Starlight Room). I can't help it. Sam couldn't help notice that I would get distracted whenever a new treat was put before the cameras, and being the generous sport she is, she'd make sure that I could be the off-screen taster. That sounds better than clean-up crew, but essentially I was directing and eating on the fly. Yes, I can't ever complain about my job.

Though we shot many different tastes of San Francisco, one place we didn't feature was truly the absolute highlight of the weekend for me -- and in some respects a milestone event. It's called Shanghai 1930, and it was recommended to me by a few East Coast friends as a"must-not-miss" and also by our Chinatown host/tour guide/novelist, Shirley Fon Torres, who said, "It's the best Chinese food in San Francisco, hands down." I am a Chinese foodaholic. I could be in the middle of a place known for Mexican food, and I will default to the one token Chinese restaurant. I would add to the praise given by Shirley and say that Shanghai 1930 is THE BEST CHINESE FOOD I HAVE EVER HAD. If I had a choice of a LAST SUPPER, this would be the place. The lush 1930s Shanghai elegance is flawlessly re-created to the point where you wonder if you've stepped into a time warp with authentic oriental rugs, art deco red velvet chairs and nightly jazz. And the food? It looks better than food does in commercials. I brought the entire crew for our "Welcome to San Francisco" meal, and the hospitality and service were impeccable. The menu was so precious, I wanted to take it home and frame it. Because these were not your typical Chinese dishes with the typical names, all of us were at a loss of what to order. No worries, our host, the lovely co-owner, Cynthia, said, "We'll order for you."
Now there are few, if any, restaurants that I would entrust the owners to order for a table of eight. But suffice to say, you can't order a bad dish at Shanghai 1930. It's impossible. What followed would make the banquet meal from "Big Night" look like scant pickings. The sad truth is that I was in the middle of a heavenly food vortex, and I remember loving every morsel, even though I have trouble recalling the names. Of special note were the Yangtze River Lite Fry, a delicious piece of fish tenderly wrapped in river grass, the Triple Steamer, three stacked baskets of dim sum dumplings, and Buddha's Golden Picnic Basket, eight succulent vegetables cooked three different ways. There was much more than that, but I'm not a food critic, and I put my palette on cruise control and didn't take many notes. One of the nicest things about Shanghai 1930 is that they will make any dish you ask for, even if it's not on the menu. You can point to three different dishes, as I did, and say, "Can you combine this and that and this?" and they'll reply, "No problem." I've never known too many Chinese restaurants that are memorable for inventing a dish at the customer's request. So next time you're in San Francisco and want impeccable Chinese food in an ambience that looks like it was created by a Hollywood production designer, you need to get to the Embarcadero and look for this unforgettable restaurant. You may never go back to your local Chinese restaurant again.

This will be my first trip back to Europe after doing "Passport to Latin America." After spending two years traveling throughout Europe, I had gotten very good at shaking off jet lag. My body just acclimated immediately to a five- or six-hour time difference. But after having spent a year in Latin America, where the time difference averages two hours, I am completely out of time-change shape. I'm so exhausted that at night, I can't sleep. Our call time is 7 a.m., which means makeup at 5:30, which means wake-up call at 4:30 a.m. I am staring at a clock that says it's 3:30 a.m., and I can't believe that I have to get up in an hour. The reason for the early call is that it's the only time St. Paul's Cathedral will let us shoot their view (a view, by the way, that takes 430 steps to get to). By the end of that scene at 12 p.m., I'm absolutely exhausted. Having jet lag really goes against all feelings of love for a place. You certainly understand why sleep deprivation is a popular form of torture. Your body feels like cement, your face a surreal clock in a Salvador Dali painting, and your eyeballs are cold while the sockets themselves have a tingling heat, so that every blink is a painful pins-and-needles type of experience. It's the worst. Especially when some little part of you, deep down inside, past all the major organs and the circulatory system, is not suffering from jet lag and is thrilled to be in London. I think that must be my appendix.

The opening of the London show takes place at Paddington Station. In all my times to London (four now ), I've never been, and I'm really looking forward to it. My favorite story and toy for about five years of my young life was Paddington Bear. In the story, the little Bear sits on his traveling case with a tag on him that reads simply "Please take care of this Bear." The Brown family finds him and takes him home, and I was convinced that I was related to this family.

Day 2

It's 8:30 a.m. Feeling a little better. Got a solid night's sleep, and I'm feeling like my normal self. Borough Market with Juliet Clarke fabulous place and the food all looked incredible. It's the perfect place to pick up fast food with panache and sustenance. While there, a young man -- American or Canadian, either way, no accident -- approaches me and says, "Your shoes are killer!" I asked him if he meant they LOOKED like they were killing my feet or if he actually liked them? His girlfriend is really into shoes, he tells me, and he is beginning to appreciate them himself. Jet lag hits me and, thankfully, even though the restaurant is called Pizza Express, it's anything but. This makes what could be a 45-minute lunch a blissful hour and a half. I go out to our van to catch as much sleep as I can before my salad arrives. As I'm lying in our white van, parked somewhat illegally on a pedestrian-only street, the driver, Chazz, tells me that since I'm here, he'll go get lunch himself. "Sure," I say, but after he leaves I realize you can't see me in the van. What is more suspicious in London these days than a strange white van? I imagine that I'm going to wake up surrounded by police in hazmat suits with the entire street cordoned off and guns drawn. This macabre thought actually puts me to sleep.

Day 3

David Womersley, our producer, jokingly tells me that Camden is one of those places so not conscious of itself that people wear trash bags and don't give a crap. Sure enough, as we begin to shoot on the roof, we spot a woman dancing around wearing a pink trash bag. Turns out she was getting her hair colored a bright fuchsia, and that was her protective cap. Never got into the Punk or Goth scene when I was in junior high, but the kids that did wanted to beat me up. I really do like a lot of what I see and, honestly, love incorporating skulls into my wardrobe.

We have Vietnamese food and I stupidly order Kung Pao Chicken, which I enjoyed immensely in China. When it comes out, it's a bright neon orange, it's brighter than the color of Tang. I take a few bites. The owner, a lovely woman, is enamored of Christina's scent, which turns out to be hand sanitizer. She's never seen such a thing in its little plastic squirt bottle and mimics that she wants to put it all over her body.

Day 4

What a joy this was. I look at my old collection of London tour guides, and none of them have this in there, because the Ceremony of the Keys has been going on every day since 1340. We are in an area where the average Joe is not permitted, so when I tell the guard on duty with a big smile that I'm with the crew, he snaps back at me with a, "I know you are, that's why I'm letting you in, you see, I have this job because I'm smart."

Wow, who knew that my acknowledgement that he IS the guard at the gate that I need to pass through would be inferred as such an insult. As I stand there, I hear Christina come through and, after her polite greeting, get the same talk down. We both laugh at the fact that he must have to say that a lot, as he has it quite down. It's really sad to see a man with PMS.

The ceremony takes three hours to shoot, but it was an amazing experience being in the Tower of London at night with no one around. Andy tells me that there are indeed ghosts and he has had three experiences with them. One was so awful that he, who's been in three wars, was never so scared as when he heard one of the ghosts clawing at his door.

The Carnival Cruise show will be a full hour, but we only have four days to shoot it, which is usually the time we need to shoot a half-hour of ... so it's a pretty busy schedule. Great thing about being on a cruise is you can fit a lot more into a show, seeing that everything is a 10-minute walk away as opposed to an hour's drive. In travel production, stamina and momentum are key, and nothing can kill that more than long drives to destinations or even a long lunch. So, even though the shoot schedule looks challenging on paper, we're all able to get into a zone. Of course this is great for everyone except Allan on camera, who might actually enjoy putting the 40-pound camera down for a spell. Another wonderful thing about shooting on a cruise is the plethora of bathrooms. After my last travels in China and Latin America, the thought of being no more than 50 feet away from a clean bathroom is just bliss. So I'm sure you're thinking, "She gets to go on a cruise with pools, spas, bars, food and partying, and this is what makes her happy?" Yep, pretty much.

On this show, I am reunited with soundman David Gaffney, whom I had the pleasure of working with a few years back. He didn't have as much pleasure working with me, though. One of the scenes we were shooting together involved a golf simulator. He and the cameraman put themselves against the screen facing me to get a front shot of my swing. I am a terrible golfer, as anyone who has watched the shows knows, so when I put the ball on the tee, I just thought I would swing and miss it as I always have. But this time, I didn't miss. This time, my swing was Tiger Woods perfect, and I whacked that ball hard. It missed Dave's face by only a few inches. The computer clocked my ball at 85 mph. Dave stood there stunned, the small impression of the ball still visible against the foam mat. At first I was so totally elated with my first-ever perfect swing in the six years of doing the show, that it didn't dawn on me what I'd done. I was only supposed to pretend to hit the ball because two men were standing just 10 feet away in its path. It was a good laugh, and of course, golf ball jokes abounded the rest of the shoot. I thought about randomly sending Dave a golf ball in the mail with no return address or note. He would know who it was from.

Day Two

After a few days on board, I must say I am very impressed with the entire staff of the ship. Crew members are the hardest-working people in the travel industry. They work excruciatingly long hours and have to adapt to every type of cruise passenger -- from kids, tweens, teens, to 20-somethings, yuppies and baby boomers. All have different expectations on a cruise, and I am really impressed by the quality of the staff as they set about to make everyone's cruise an enjoyable experience. I didn't get to make it to the crew bar, which was a big disappointment. For anyone shooting on a cruise ship, that becomes the goal: to get into the crew bar, which is down in the depths of the ship and a place where civilians are strictly forbidden. Most of the crew want you there because, technically, we are working on the ship as well, but the invitation must come from an officer. I just wanted to go so I could buy a drink for everyone who had helped us out so much.

Day Three

Our excursion is dune buggying. Mostly driving on the one main paved loop road of Cozumel to a beach on the east coast, 45 minutes away, to do a small lap of sand about the circumference of a roller rink. My visions of doing doughnuts in the sand and actually riding the dunes were dashed (I guess it was technically one dune, and it's not called dune buggying). But the scenery is beautiful, and it sure is nice to not only get off the ship, but to drive a stick and have some fun. After being out in the intense heat from 10 to 2, we have a small break to eat some lunch at a very nice spot. A man named Jaime, who is the spitting image of Kenny Rogers, greets us. He has an aura about him that is at once commanding and pacifying. He makes sure we are all doing well. He gets us our Cokes and gives us an area to put our equipment. When I ask where the ladies room is, he answers with such care and concern that I make it all right. It's a beautiful part of Cozumel called Punta Morena.

The beach is just glorious, and I thought if I were to do this again, I would hire a taxi from the ship and come here for the day. Jaime informs me that a taxi round-trip would be 30 dollars.

Grab the Twizzlers, some '80s mix CDs and an atlas! It's time to hit the road.

OK, it's a little different than the road trips from college, being that a television hostess sat shotgun (Twizzlers still remain, however).

But here we are, after packing up our rented SUV (camera equipment on top, obviously), getting ready for our five-hour trek north. Packing for this one was no easy feat - we had to be prepared for the ski mountain in New Hampshire, which was to be immediately followed by the beaches of Cabo, and the happening nightlife of Vegas. It's fair to say that the majority of my closet was shoved into a suitcase.

I'll be honest - I was a little bit concerned when we received the list of destinations and I saw New Hampshire/Maine on it. Not because it's not a cool place to visit (in fact, it's one of my favorite parts of the country), but because I thought it'd have a difficult time keeping up with the more traditional vacation destinations you'll be seeing on the series: Miami, San Francisco, Hawaii.

Those concerns ended up being unfounded - we had an awesome time filming all the hidden spots our neighbors to the northeast had in store for us, despite our producer Ginny have a vicious case of vertigo/nausea/the spins/dizziness. There were good times had around every corner - from our gorgeous hotel to Pat's Peak, from Flo's Hot Dogs to Jumpin' Jay's Fish Cafe - and I can't wait to take another road trip up 95 -- this time for leisure, although it's hardly fair to call this job "WORK."

Even before pre-production began, I could have told you that Cabo looks different through a camera lens than it does through the haze of Spring Break.

I had been to Cabo San Lucas three times before filming our episode. It's a place that's easy to fall in love with, and when you get the chance to show it off to your college chums, you do it. But more than seven years had passed between my last visit and escorting Ms. Brown.

It's admittedly amazing how much that part of the world has changed (there's actually a MALL in town now), but what really struck me was how much more towns like that have to offer - other than beaches, bars, and beautiful people. To be fair, we saw our fair share of all three, but I also discovered some things that may not be on most vacationers' radar.

For many, a weekend on the beach would consist of waking up late, stumbling to the sand, ordering a daiquiri or six, eating at a fancy restaurant at the resort, listening to technofied versions of '80s pop songs at the cookie-cutter watering hole/neon-lined club, and stumbling back to bed. Then, repeat as needed.

For this show, however, we were interested in showing this destination (and all the others) as a place that's not only good for the weekend warrior in need of a recharge, but also for the adventurous bunch that's not afraid to find the gems that may be hidden a bit off the main drag.

There are miles of beaches along The Corridor (the stretch of utopia between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo), but if you keep your eyes peeled, you'll be able to spot some intimate spans. You may even unearth a small beach tucked within the rocky coastline that no one else has found yet that day.

In the States, we're all familiar with the ice cream man. On hot summer days, kids whose ears are properly tuned to that catchy jingle can hear him coming from the next neighborhood. Well, in Cabo, we were lucky enough to spend a few minutes with "The Coconut Man" - that's what we dubbed him, since we didn't really catch his name. He parks his pickup - full of freshly picked coconuts - on the most amazing lookout point over a surfer's paradise and, for a few pesos, hacks the ends off of a coconut and adds a straw. Not only was the view from his "office" a sight to see, but the diversity of his customers was, as well. A crew of bikers, a lot of locals and a handful of tourists all lined up for the same simple delicacy.

I'll leave you with this insight: Never had I woken up in the morning (okay, afternoon) in Cabo San Lucas and thought to myself, "hey, let's go soaring 300 feet above the desert through a canyon!" but chances are good that I will from now on.

I'm not a NASCAR fan. Nothing against fast cars, but I didn't grow up with it -- so it never really crept its way into my consciousness. Sure, I could probably pick a driver or two out of a lineup if I had to, thanks to ESPN. I'm not sure I was prepared for what 160+ mph would look like, sound like or feel like.

Now, it's my understanding that actual NASCAR races hit 200+ mph, but at the Richard Petty Driving Experience, they wisely keep their students and riders sitting shotgun around 160. Nevertheless, this was the closest I've ever gotten to speeds like this.

We had the awesome opportunity to film Samantha as she rode along with a driver. These shoots are generally shot with one camera, but we always bring a smaller HDV camera along, just in case there is an opportunity for a second camera to set up shop. This was one of those opportunities.

The awesome crew at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway was kind enough to allow me to cross the track (before the cars started moving, obviously) to film from the grandstand's point of view. Since I'm not terribly familiar with racing and I don't watch it on television, I had no idea that there were small "windows" in the fences for photographers and film crews to aim their camera out of. This way, there's nothing obstructing the lens' view of the action. I was introduced to these gates and was told that I could aim our small camera out of them to get some footage of the cars coming straight on, or around a corner or from whatever angle I chose.

Had I thought about this "window to the track" thing before running like a child on Christmas morning, camera in hand, I may have thought better of it. After all, once you open this gate and stick your arm/head/hands/expensive camera equipment out of it, there's very little keeping it/them from the speed and potentially hazardous debris - should something go wrong (which I'm sure it wouldn't).

I found myself thinking -- as I gazed through the viewfinder looking for a good angle -- that if something unthinkable DID happen, there's precisely zero chance of my getting out of the way. You'd think that this realization would keep me from leaning out of the gate or removing the camera from the very edge of the track, but you'd be wrong.

What happened next is difficult to describe, but I'll try my best: You see the car coming, and you think it doesn't appear to be going THAT fast. Then it passes, and you wonder why it didn't make a sound. Then a half-second passes, and your hat flies off your head, your shirt feels like it's about to be torn off, and there's a deafening roar penetrating your eardrum. I just hope the footage is usable, because I can't imagine I held the camera very still. Not on the first few laps, anyway.

After all was said and done, it was one of the coolest experiences of my life, and not just my TV life. I'm not certain it was enough to make me tune in to watch all 500 miles at Daytona, but it was definitely enough to get my adrenaline pumping.

I don't know what it is, but I tend to get hurt on shoots. Nothing major, but it's a good bet that when I come home, I'll have a few new bruises. I never go anywhere without Band-Aids, and I like to know where the nearest hospital is at all times. Just in case.

So, indoor skydiving. Why not?

We wrap at 6:30 p.m. and wisely make the decision to postpone dinner until post-flight. Joining the 7 p.m. training class, half of the rational part of my brain reasons that if the 7-year-old sitting in front of me has no fear of putting her butt over her head, why should I? The other half of the half of my brain reminds me that (a) 7-year-olds have no fear, period, and (2) I can barely go up a flight of stairs without a face-plant.

After learning and immediately forgetting a series of very important hand gestures that will surely save my life one day, we suit up, and I, not having the good fortune to be wearing sneakers, am handed the loaner shoes. Ew. At least the socks were new (right out of the bag!). Add to that the special goggles to go over my glasses, and, well, I'll say it: I was lookin' fiiiiiiiine.

We shuffle down to the tube, now helmeted, looking like the world's most busted astronauts ever. The tube is about eight feet around, surrounded by an antechamber ringed with benches. The 7-year-old, with five other members of her high-flying family, charges in to be first in line. I volunteer to go last. The time passes much, much too quickly, and it's my turn. I stand at the entrance and the only thing keeping me from bolting outside is the 7-year-old blocking my path. Considering she's wearing a helmet, I change my mind, but before I can shove her out of the way, I'm pulled inside the tube and immediately shoot up into the air.

Each person gets two minutes in the tube. Next to that time in 10th grade when I had to give a speech about "The History of Corn and Its Impact on Agriculture in The United States from 1924 to 1926," it was the longest two minutes of my life.

Don't get me wrong, it was also the coolest two minutes of my life. On my own, I mostly crashed into the walls and bounced off the ground, but then the instructor took pity on me. He grabbed the previously unnoticed handles on my suit and spun me around, shooting us 15 feet in the air. I was only brave enough to open my eyes once, but it was worth it. He brought us back down to a more sane eight feet, and I resumed bouncing around, feeling like a Super Ball. As terrified as I was in the beginning, when he chucked me towards the door when my time was up, I was bummed and considered shoving the 7-year-old out of the way yet again, but only so I could get back in the tube.

Giddy (and a little wind burnt), I wait for my next turn. I eagerly leap back into the tube, only this time, I'm tired and sore and noodley; my arms and legs won't do what I tell them to do. It's not until the instructor flips me the right way for the 47th time that I realize what a workout throwing yourself into a 100 mph wind tunnel actually is. He lets go, and that's when I smash, face-first, into the Plexiglas. My time in the tube is up.

For the next week, everything hurts - my joints, my muscles - it even hurts to chew. Indoor skydiving has given me some new injuries to add to the list, but it was worth it.

It's not all fun and games, however. It's hot out and I'm pale and fragile and getting sandier by the minute, under a palm tree, wearing a giant hat, playing Brickbreaker on my BlackBerry, and guarding the equipment cart.

What?

To be fair, it's the first sunny day we've had since getting to Miami. We rolled into town during an epic thunderstorm, and the weather's been weird ever since. It's warm for sure, but humid and damp, and the sky is varying shades of gray, from light is-that-sun? to get-in-the-basement-kids-this-is-the-big-one! dark and forbidding. Normally, this is no big deal; we shoot no matter what the weather. Add enough lights and reflectors and a snowstorm can look like a day at the beach.

Too bad we can't fake a sunset.

What's a trip to South Beach without a great shot of the sun slipping into the ocean? The infamous "green flash". The perfect end to the show.

We find a good spot, right on the water, that will all but guarantee a good, long shot of the sun going down. We sit and wait.

And wait.

And wait as the clouds roll in and it starts to rain. Every. Single. Night. I watch Weather Channel relentlessly and have 17 weather alerts plugged into my cell phone. Every time it beeps, we crowd around, staring at the tiny screen, waiting for good news that never comes. The best we can do is Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Afternoon Thunderstorms.

The rest of the show becomes unimportant when we discover a bridge that leads from Miami to South Beach, the very end of I-95. Going over it one day, we realize that, depending on the car's location, it's almost possible to see the sunset. If you squint. And stand on your head. And jump up and down a few times. But it's there.

We reroute all our travel plans every day to take us over the bridge from 5 p.m. on, in anticipation of a 6:30 sunset. One night finds us parked under the overpass, engine idling, as if we're trying to sneak up on the sunset. It doesn't work. One night, we try to outrun the clouds by trying to break land-speed records in the minivan. Another, we wind up halfway to Ft. Lauderdale, convinced that the sun is "just past those buildings, no, really."

Without exaggeration, we drove over that bridge 50 times during the shoot, including on our way out of town. It was a beautiful, clear, sunny day as our flight took off, bound for the frozen North.

• Bottled water
• Orange Gatorade
• Granola and Luna bars (chocolate, preferably)
• Trail mix
• First-aid kit (complete with plenty of Dramamine)
• Extra socks
• Flip-flops
• Raincoat
• Umbrella
• Four (yes, four) cell phones, each with its own set of
  numbers
• Super special "ship phone" that doesn't have a
  keypad lock so I may or may not have accidentally called the captain a few
  times
• Laptop
• BlackBerry (don't start)
• Two iPods
• Two digital cameras
• Chargers for all of the above
• Extension cord for the above
• Ethernet cable (just in case)
• A wide selection of batteries
• Bungee cords
• Extra tapes
• Plastic bags (both of the sandwich and garbage varieties)
• Tissues and napkins
• Two kinds of sunscreen (no less than SPF 80 - I'm pale and
  fragile)
• Aloe (see "pale and fragile")
• Two hats
• Spare toilet paper (AP means "paranoid" in
  Sanskrit)
• Gaffer's tape, assorted rubber bands and paperclips (just in
  case I need to MacGyver something together)
• Sharpies
• A towel
• Tylenol, Advil, Motrin and aspirin
• A lifetime supply of Tums

All this, plus an accordion folder full of releases, insurance forms, production notices, customs clearances and any other scrap of paper necessary to get this shoot off the ground AND the giant Hold Harmless sign I prop up everywhere we go. I look like a genetic experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong, a cross between a fourth grader and a Staples catalog.

Assuming I can stand up when I put the bag on (and ignoring how many times I've fallen backwards onto my rocking cruise ship bed when I do), it doesn't come off until bedtime. It's my security JanSport, and I may or may not have fallen asleep with it next to me in bed (in my defense, my cabin is really small. No, really.)

At the end of each day, I find fun little surprises in it, like a forgotten and now liquefied Hershey bar or a stack of casino chips (five whole bucks - winner!). The ship's elevators aren't large and I take up two spaces wherever I go (upside: I'm a human roadblock when necessary).

By the time we leave the ship, I have a sunburn in the exact shape of the straps. Ah, memories.

The Pussycat Dolls. I remember getting the email from Ginny my producer asking if I would be up to learning some dance moves from the Pussycat Dolls. The infamous burlesque dance troupe out of Los Angeles, of course, had their own stomping grounds in Las Vegas. I read the email out loud to my husband, thinking he would laugh at how hysterical the proposition was, but the look on his face was like a 10-year-old boy seeing a Ferrari for the first time. "I'm in," I wrote back. Hoping once my husband actually saw me as a Pussycat Doll, the facial expression would still remain as blissful.

I thought I would be scared to meet and learn some moves from the Pussycat Dolls, but as we walk into Caesar's Palace into Pure the nightclub they perform in, I'm as excited as a kid going to Build a Bear. I remember the time I got to be a Rockette in NYC. What a thrill that was. We enter the club, and there are swings laced with feather boas, a claw-foot bathtub and a stripper pole. This IS going to be fun. The Pussycat Dolls are about as sweet, adorable and fun as you can get for women. They taught me a quick dance move and I'm a little disappointed since I don't want this to end. Soon we get on stage and they show me how to spin on a stripper pole -- a Samantha Brown first. It's hard to come by an activity after eight years of traveling that I haven't done. Bobsledding? Check. Hang-gliding? Check. Hold a Panda? Sure. Swim with dolphins? Four times. But swing around a stripper pole? Now that's a first. The highlight is when I get sit in a eight-foot champagne glass that rises from the stage and spins. My foot and ankle keep scraping a fiberglass platform inserted into the glass as I try to attempt the physical movements of sexiness. It's cutting up my ankle but all I keep thinking is how fun it will be to explain the injury. Oh, how did I get the cut on my leg? Writhing around in a spinning champagne glass.

Day 2

Let me set the record straight. I WANTED so badly to drive the car during the Richard Petty racing experience. The Richard Petty people wanted me to drive the car, too. Someone at the Travel Channel did not. I kept hearing something about the insurance rider being too high or this was considered too dangerous. So I'm not sure if it's because I wasn't worth it or I am worth too much. I've been in a pen with wild bears, but for some reason, me driving a race car proved too much for the insurance. While recording the VO for this scene, someone wrote that "you can drive the car but then I don't drive stick." I was like NO WAY AM I SAYING THAT! I will not be thrown under the bus for this one, nosiree. And what an embarrassment to the Brown family name. My dad races cars, my sister was once a race-car mechanic, I had a radar detector at the age of 17! All the Brown girls were taught how to approach a hairpin turn before we learned to parallel park! Oh well, I must say I had so much fun just riding shotgun, but I can only imagine what a thrill it would have been to drive.

Day 3

There's nothing more intimidating than walking into a dive bar patronized by the hard-core locals who don't want a camera crew in their dark somewhat secretive haunt. This was the case on our last night in Las Vegas. And after a day that began at 6:30 a.m. with 13 hours of shooting, the crew and I were no more happy to see them than they were us. This is going to be hard I thought to myself. I was so ready to bail, we had 14 scenes in a 22-minute show about things to do on the weekend. I had a schedule that was hard to complete in four days, let alone two. But we all really thought we needed this in the show. The great thing about being tired is you just don't care. Your ego gave out long ago and you just want to get it over with. The crowd surrounding the bar looked unreceptive and could possibly turn a little hostile. I was at a point where I could have turned a little hostile myself, but then the bacon martinis started flowing.

Melo, the bartender from Hawaii, was great. I got behind the bar and learned how to make the bacon martini. Not hard really -- just some vodka they infuse with cooked bacon (or was it raw?), which sits at the bottom of the bottle like a tape worm in formaldehyde. I started asking the people around the bar if they wanted one and the unresponsive crowd soon was having a good time. I really liked being bartending, you have a lot of power behind that bar, because you hold the key to people's drinking. I can't believe I waited on tables for 10 years; I should have been a bartender.

Once I had the hat, the transformation was complete. But if I had a leather bustier and boots up to the knees ... who knows what would've happened.

Ginny is trying to get things done as something distracts Paul Kloss my cameraman. Michael Petrella, our associate producer, does the only sensible thing which is to make the international rocker facial expression.

This was from the arrival taxi scene, which I believe was cut from the finaledit. Too bad because Ginny nearly cut off her circulation squeezing her tiny frame into an even smaller spot to avoid the camera. We were both pretty grossed out thinking about how dirty that seat and floor was.

Riding shotgun.

We are back in Austin to shoot for the series. Last time I was here was probably over four years ago when we featured Hotel San Jose and The Driskill in Great Hotels. We tried to stay in the Hotel San Jose, as it's one of my favorites, but the Hot Rod and Custom Car show is in town, and there's not a room to be had. We all feel this is just as well, as I'm sure it's rowdy and noisy into the wee hours of the morning. We end up staying in a Residence Inn. Nice room -- a kitchenette, free wireless and breakfast included. I love it! Resorts are pretty, but when you are working, you never use the pool, spa, golf course, so who cares? On top of that, you can't get a breakfast for under $25, internet is never free and forget having things washed or dry-cleaned. Just put me in a clean, safe hotel where there are restaurants and strong espresso nearby, and I am in bliss!

Day 2

We were doing a henna tattoo scene. It seems everyone in Austin has one. Henna is the way to go but we have to be careful where we put it as it then locks us down in the show for time. For instance, we are playing it off like I got it Saturday, so it now cannot show for anything we have for Friday. We try to do this with clothing, as well, but that becomes too difficult since the editor can completely change the line-up of the show once they realize the pacing of the thing. The back turns out to be the best place to put it. Austin is all about characters and who you meet walking down the street. It's definitely a place where you can rely on the kindness of strangers. While shooting the tattoo scene, the artist went next door to get a bottle of water. The man behind the counter asked what was going on with all the camera equipment, and she told him what was up. The man loved the Travel Channel and watched it all the time. Now here's where it gets freaky weird. The band he is in, named the Schotzies, were touring, and they were stuck in a hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska, because of a snowstorm. They wrote a song about it, and the title of the song was "Samantha Brown, Save Us From the Lincoln Snow." Hysterical. I was so flattered that someone had written a song about me. At the end of the show, you'll see how we worked it in.

Day 3

I think one of the best nights we had was at the Broken Spoke. This was voted the "Best Honky Tonk in Texas" by Texas Highway magazine. Willy Nelson played there in the late '60s when he was a clean-cut man without his trademark braids and beard. James White, the owner, was such a peach, and to have a man like that say he has watched and enjoyed my show, meant the world to me. The place is covered in framed photographs of his family and the musicians that played there. I was looking at a much younger James White holding a newborn. The caption read "James and his daughter Ginny" I followed the pictures of Ginny from newborn to little girl and so when a grown woman came up to me and said "Hi, I'm Ginny, James' daughter," I was so taken aback because I had last seen her as a 5-year-old. I told her the last time I saw her, she was this big! A couple of days ago, I realized that forget barbecue, I was in chicken-fried steak territory, and the Broken Spoke was famous for it so at 11 p.m. I ordered a chicken-fried steak with the expectation of only having a few bites. I ate the whole thing in five minutes. It was sooooo good. Now it was time for dancing, and when cable TV shows roll into town and want someone to dance with their female hosts, they call in a man named Peter. Man, the guy could spin you around like a record. He could make an elephant feel like they could dance, he was so good. We just didn't have a bad minute in Austin.

Me and Wes, owner of Hey Cupcake. What could be better than buying acupcake through the window of an airstream? His trailer is parked in a lot in SoCo, but be may to move it to make way for a high-priced condo development.

Cameraman Rob sporting his best German tourist look. He had to wade into BartonSprings with his camera, and when he rolled up his pants, we spotted his black socks. Then he hiked them up over his calves and put on the fanny pack to finish the look.

Ah, drinks out by the dumpster. I'm loving Austin.

This is the band Schatzi, which means sweatheart in German. Five yearsago on tour and stuck in Lincoln, Nebraska because of a snow storm, they wrote a song about me called "Samantha Brown save us from the Lincoln snow." It's a great song ... and not just cuz my name is in the title.