The first thing Samantha Brown wants you to know is that women do travel—not that mainstream travel media is paying attention, she says. Once the Travel Channel’s lone female marquee host, the spirited 47-year-old recently parted ways with the network, and is now in the midst of filming her forthcoming PBS show, Samantha Brown’s Places to Love, set to debut in January. It’s a loss for Travel Channel viewers, who came to know Brown as the face of the channel early on, along with wandering food fiends Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern.

Brown is crossing her fingers the industry finally steps into the 21st century; after all, women account for a staggering two-thirds of all travelers, according to the George Washington University School of Business, and 54 percent of the most affluent travelers are women. You’d never know that from the travel media space, in which women-helmed television shows are depressingly hard to find.

It wasn't always that way: Rachael Ray and Giada De Laurentiis each hosted popular travel shows on Food Network in the past—namely $40 a Day, Rachael’s Vacation, Giada's Weekend Getaways, and Giada in Paradise—but all are either defunct or on a seemingly indefinite hiatus. Spain... on the Road Again, the Gwyneth Paltrow vehicle on PBS, lasted a single season in late 2008. Another one-season wonder, Bridget's Sexiest Beaches on Travel Channel, featured scantily clad former Playboy model Bridget Marquardt in 2009. And Girl Eat World, starring the not-scantily-clad MasterChef South Africa 2013 winner Kamini Pather on a food crawl around the world, came and went on the Food Network.

Viceland stands out with a handful of female-led travel-ish shows: Meg Gill currently hosts the suds-focused program Beerland; Hailey Gates explores fashion around the world in States of Undress, and Ellen Page’s Gaycation is currently in its second season. But beyond these stars, women seem to be relegated to sidekick roles across—deep breath here—National Geographic, History Channel, Travel Channel, Food Network, Discovery, CNN, truTV, SundanceTV, Spike, Animal Planet, A&E, Science, Syfy, IFC, BBC America, and MTV. Same holds true for streaming services Netflix and Hulu. Even round-ups touting the best travel shows out there look like a wall of men. We trawled listings for each of these channels, but if there's a woman leading a travel show, she’s extraordinarily well hidden.

"The visual of a woman confidently traveling is a powerful one."

“There is a whole consumer base with a massive budget that [they’re] not reaching because [they] do not have a woman” representing female travelers on TV, Brown said. A rigid truth, she added, is that women have travel concerns that most men do not—safety comes up often—and the visual of a woman confidently traveling is a powerful one. "People have seen me travel, they see me in the world. All of a sudden it makes it possible.”

In fairness, this bias isn’t limited to the travel sphere. It speaks to a larger issue in film and TV—according to a study by the Women’s Media Center, an organization founded by Jane Fonda, Robin Morgan, and Gloria Steinem, the 2017 Oscars saw fewer women nominated in non-acting categories than last year’s. Only 20 percent of the nominees in non-acting categories were women, down two percent from last year.

When reached for comment, Travel Channel's SVP of programming Courtney White pushed back at the suggestion the network shies away from female voices. She ticked off several female-led shows in development: Mysterious Islands with travel journalist Kellee Edwards; Alaska 1,000 Ways with bush pilot Ariel Tweto; and Vintage America with writer Claire Burns. In addition, a new series, Caribbean Pirate Treasure, began airing August 20; it's co-hosted by married couple Ashlan and Philippe Cousteau (the latter is the grandson of famed explorer and conservationist Jacques Cousteau).