About John

John Sanders is, at various times, a TV advertising producer/editor, a TV news reporter, a TV news photojournalist, a documentary producer, an adventure travel blogger/web developer/photographer, a casual computer programmer and now, co-founder of TheHardestYear.com.

A native of Lee County in rural southwestern Virginia, John attended Syracuse University and has since worked and lived in more cities than he can easily remember, though he’s pretty sure they included Peoria, Illinois and Washington, DC.

His sense of adventure has extended beyond his career in television and technology. In 1997 his home was in the great outdoors along the Appalachian Trail as he hiked more than 500 miles of the mountainous footpath from Georgia to Virginia. From 2002 to 2004, he traveled independently through Latin America, Africa and Europe while documenting the adventure in real time with photographs and live journals on the website ThereGoesJohn.com. More online updates have included travels to Iran and North Korea.

John is the winner of an Emmy Award, a National Edward R. Murrow Award, a National Headliner Award and an Associated Press Award for his work as executive producer and reporter for the 2007 documentary “Africa’s Maryland,” a television program about Maryland County in the West African republic of Liberia.

He loves yellow Labradors, Argentinean Malbecs, traveling to places he’s never heard of before, and C-SPAN. You can email him at john *at* thehardestyear.com.