Not California's Gold
One thing I've been wondering lately: who are the equivalents of Huell Howser for other states or regions?
For my friends in other states who aren't completely aware: the late Huell Howser was a California TV personality who made several TV series for the California PBS stations, the most famous of which was California's Gold, in which he visited any place in California he thought was precious, beautiful, or of historical interest. He had a couple other shows as well: Visiting, which seems to concentrate more on people and businesses, California's Parks, California Missions, Road Trip, etc. Obviously, almost everything was about California, since I think he financed almost all his travel himself, although he did a couple shows on Alaska, Las Vegas, and Moscow (Russia.) Many, but not all, of his shows have been digitized and put online by Chapman University as part of the Huell Howser memorial archives.
There's one other California-centric PBS show which is sort of like Huell Howser's shows: Rob on the Road. He may be local to KVIE/KQED only. But the stories tend to be much shorter and to the point, and aren't quite the same as Huell's.
But what I've been wondering is: if I wanted a wealth of information about roadside attractions, points of interest, tiny bits of local history, and the like for another state or a region, via a TV show similar to the Huell Howser shows, where would I look? Surely, there ought to be local travel shows for New England, or Massachusetts at the very least, since WGBH seems to produce nationally-distributed PBS shows. Some other stations might produce regional-interest travel/history shows as well.
For my friends in other states who aren't completely aware: the late Huell Howser was a California TV personality who made several TV series for the California PBS stations, the most famous of which was California's Gold, in which he visited any place in California he thought was precious, beautiful, or of historical interest. He had a couple other shows as well: Visiting, which seems to concentrate more on people and businesses, California's Parks, California Missions, Road Trip, etc. Obviously, almost everything was about California, since I think he financed almost all his travel himself, although he did a couple shows on Alaska, Las Vegas, and Moscow (Russia.) Many, but not all, of his shows have been digitized and put online by Chapman University as part of the Huell Howser memorial archives.
There's one other California-centric PBS show which is sort of like Huell Howser's shows: Rob on the Road. He may be local to KVIE/KQED only. But the stories tend to be much shorter and to the point, and aren't quite the same as Huell's.
But what I've been wondering is: if I wanted a wealth of information about roadside attractions, points of interest, tiny bits of local history, and the like for another state or a region, via a TV show similar to the Huell Howser shows, where would I look? Surely, there ought to be local travel shows for New England, or Massachusetts at the very least, since WGBH seems to produce nationally-distributed PBS shows. Some other stations might produce regional-interest travel/history shows as well.