Rudy Maxa

Who is Rudy Maxa?

Rudy Maxa is an American consumer-travel expert. He's the host and executive producer of 85 half-hour travel shows on the world's great destinations that are broadcast on public television in the U.S. with the titles Smart Travels: Europe with Rudy Maxa, Smart Travels: Pacific Rim with Rudy Maxa, and—since 2008—Rudy Maxa's World. His most recent 20 episodes of Rudy Maxa's World are also broadcast overseas on Travel Channel International and have received numerous awards, including two regional Emmy awards.

In addition, Maxa hosts America's most widely syndicated radio travel show, a two-hour weekend show also called Rudy Maxa's World.

Maxa began his career in journalism after graduating from Ohio University as an investigative reporter, magazine writer, and personalities columnist at The Washington Post. His reporting on a Capitol Hill sex scandal and the resulting changes in congressional rules was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and he received the John Hancock Award for Excellence in Business and Financial Journalism for a series of stories on an international Ponzi scheme.

He left the Post to become a senior editor at the city magazine, Washingtonian and also worked as the Washington bureau chief of Spy magazine. He is an award-winning contributing editor with National Geographic Traveler magazine and Delta Air Lines' magazine, Sky.