Rudy Maxa, a Washington-based journalist for more than two decades, was an investigative reporter and personalities columnist with the Washington Post for 13 years and a senior writer and columnist with the Washingtonian for nine years. He served as Washington Bureau Chief for Spy magazine for two years. He has been a contributing writer for Worth magazine and has written regularly on consumer travel issues for Forbes magazine. From 1997-2001, he hosted the Savvy Traveler.

Rudy Maxa has an irresistible personality composed of a special mix of wit, vibrance, brains, irreverence and sympathy, all combined with a zest for living well... on a budget. (A friend describes Maxa as someone who "would check into Motel 6 and ask for an upgrade!") Rudy says everything with an impish twinkle in his voice, for example, about flying on the Concorde, Maxa says, "I so rarely get time to spend quality time with the Queen of Jordan, what with my busy schedule and her responsibility as a mother and a Queen..."

Rudy is the author of two non-fiction books and has written for the ABC-TV dramatic series "Capitol News." For several years he hosted a radio talk show on two major Washington stations. He has also been a frequent guest on national talk shows, such as "Geraldo," "The Montel Williams Show," and others. He has lectured widely on the topics of politics and scandal as well as traveling smart.

Maxa's articles have appeared frequently in GQ, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, US Air Magazine, Playboy and dozens of other magazines and newspapers around the world. His reporting on political scandal was nominated by the Washington Post for the Pulitzer Prize in 1976. His monthly "Letter From Washington" in Ocean Drive magazine won first place as "best regular column" by the Florida Magazine Association. As a Washington Post reporter, he won the John Hancock Award for excellence in Business and Financial Journalism for a series of stories on an international Ponzi scheme.

As of April 2004, Maxa was living in Washington, D.C. He has two children.