Travel expert spotlights Hot Springs National Park in web series

Renowned travel expert Samantha Brown earlier this week featured Hot Springs National Park in a new web series showcasing the nation’s “lesser known” national parks.

To help travelers find their “soulmate” with one of the “under-the-radar” parks, Brown, who gained international fame with shows on the Travel Channel, takes the whimsical approach of profiling the park as if it was an eligible bachelorette on a dating website (https://goo.gl/l2HaRA).

The result is “Fall in Love with Hot Springs National Park,” complete with information on “her” age, location, the “first thing people usually notice about me,” “claim to fame,” and “hobbies.”

“I’m kind of a leisurely gal. I enjoy a hike from time to time, as the park boasts 26 miles of trails. You’re more likely to find me strolling down picturesque Bathhouse Row and the Grand Promenade, within the National Historic Landmark District. The entire Bathhouse Row area is designated as a National Historic Landmark District

that contains the grandest collection of bath houses of its kind in North America,” says the listing for “hobbies.”

Along the way, Brown mentions the national park’s history (“In 1832, I became the first piece of land set aside by the federal government for preservation. Basically, I was a National Park before they were a thing.”); the downtown area’s monthly Gallery Walks; and park attractions like the Fordyce Bath House and Hot Springs Mountain Tower.

“You can’t buy the amount of coverage that stories like this one bring to our community,” Steve Arrison, CEO of Visit Hot Springs, said Tuesday.

“Well-known columnists/writers have a big impact on their readers and the result, we hope, is more visitors to Hot Springs.”

Brown’s website says that, over the last 13 years, she has “traveled around the world visiting over 220 cities in 49 countries and 30 of the United States creating over 160 hours of programming.”

Her series have included “Great Hotels,” “Girl Meets Hawaii,” “Passport to Europe,” “Passport to Latin America,” “Green Getaways,” “Passport to China,” “Great Weekends,” and “Samantha Brown’s Asia.”