field staff

Liz is one of Global Route’s most seasoned and valued trip leaders and has supported Global Routes in program development from 2014-2018. She was Valedictorian at Sierra Nevada College and holds a holds a BA in Humanities. Her certifications include: Teaching English as a Foreign Language Certification, TEFL International, Wilderness First Responder w/ CPR, PADI Rescue Diver, and ACA Sea Kayak Instructor & Guide.

She has left her wake in every ocean but the Arctic. Liz has studied, worked, volunteered, and traveled throughout Central and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. She is fluent in Spanish and spends her free time exploring and paddling in new places, visiting family/friends, singing monster rock ballads at open mics, and breaking taco-eating records in obscure port towns.

A 5-time Global Routes Leader (Tanzania x 4 and Nepal) Mary is an explorer, a boundary pusher, a pump-up giver, a lover of humanity, and a hopeless believer in the good. She spent her youth moving around to five different states before finally settling into life in Colorado. Once settled in the land of mountains, sunshine, and smiles she stumbled into her passion of human equality and women’s empowerment. Beautifully powerful people surrounding her along with an open-mindedness created the perfect opportunity for further developing her passion of female empowerment and exploration.

She immersed herself in these passions while serving in the Peace Corps. Nothing has ever been as wonderfully difficult or as magically soulful than her time in Tanzania. She has been privileged enough to see the profound impact that integrating with villagers has had on not only herself and the communities, but her students as well.

After years of working with student travel programs like Global Routes and Carpe Diem Education, Mary bravely chose to create not one but two businesses, Mama Dunia and Live Dunia. The intention behind these businesses is to create positive impact through sustainable collaboration in Tanzania, specifically with marginalized women. In different ways, both organizations aim to connect mindful consumers and travelers to women’s co-ops, and local villages, in effort to increase income, access to education, health care, and empowerment of the entire community. Live Dunia is, for her, the way to keep the stream of consciousness, joy, and peace flowing through humanity. Mary prides herself on her guac making abilities, can spit a mean Swahili rap, affirms others like there is no tomorrow, and loves cracking jokes.

The way to her heart is through a good, strong cup of coffee, friends, laughter, nature, and a fan blowing in her face. What lights her fire is empowering those around her to explore the world, believe in themselves, and know that they can make a positive

Shankar is the Managing Director of Exotic Mountain Treks in Nepal, where he has worked for 25 years, organizing treks and guiding hikers throughout the Himalayas.

He has an MBA from Tribhuban University in Kathmandu and has worked with Global Routes groups since the mid 1990s. He elevates the Global Routes Nepal program by providing opportunities for students to immerse themselves in the culture while providing meaningful service work.

Angela Maria Prieto was born in Bogota, Colombia and grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada. She is bilingual and has a passion for traveling and learning about new cultures. She completed a MA in Intercultural Youth and Family Development from the University of Montana and has a BA in Psychology from the University of Nevada Las Vegas.

Angela served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Guatemala with the Youth in Development program from 2013 to 2015. She also has taught English in Colombia; mentored high school students in Las Vegas; and worked at a wilderness therapy program in Hawaii. She loves to help people, dance, make art, hike, garden, and swim with dolphins. She is currently residing in Honoka’a, Hawaii where she works with autistic students as a registered behavior technician. She looks forward to leading her first Global Routes trip to Costa Rica and explore the meaning of Pura Vida.

From the Providencia de Páramo de Pérez Zeledón, Carlos has been working in adventure tourism for 22 years. He loves introducing visitors to the natural beauty and adventures to be had throughout Costa Rica! He’s excited to be a leader on the 2022 Costa Rica program because he believes it’s essential for the development and social growth of young adventurers in today’s world.

He’s the father of three (two sons and a daughter) and certified in Wilderness First Aid and RCP, White Water Rafting Instructor Rapids, Rope Rescue Operational Level, and as a White Water Rescue Technician.

Mike grew up in the foothills of Colorado. His curiosity and wanderlust has since carried him to all continents of the world. For the past couple of decades, he has been involved in the field of experiential education, both as a group leader and program director.

To date Mike has led programs for Global Routes in Thailand and Ecuador. He enjoys reading, playing music, meditation and motorcycling. He continues to combine travel and education in his personal life as well, visiting old friends and making new ones, in all corners of the world.

Molly is a wonderer and a wanderer. She has been afflicted with a severe case of wanderlust since being a child. She loves to combine her passions for education, community building, health & wellness, and fun. Molly has worked as a nanny, a camp counselor, a mentor and tutor, a wilderness guide, a teacher, and a fairy godmother while continuing her intensive education in the School of Life. She has worked in education in Asia, Oceania, and Europe.

Molly has embraced the world of sustainability, farming and growing food and has a great love for vegetables, bicycles, physical fitness and delicious food. Molly has her BA in Sociology and Psychology from Oberlin College and is a certified yoga and group fitness trainer. This is her first time as a Global Routes guide and she is quite delighted about the opportunity.

Raised in the Southwest amongst ravens, junipers & coyotes; Kayla dreamed of one day exploring the far reaches of the world. She received a B.A. in Adventure Education & has since guided in the realm of environmental education, wilderness expedition, international service, and wilderness therapy.

Kayla has had the opportunity to guide in 11 countries over the last 12 years and is grateful to be working her first season with Global Routes this summer.

This is my first summer leading for Global Routes! I love each culture that’s able to come out of strangers coming together and bonding, struggling, reveling, and growing in their unique shared experience.

As a past student, I grew so much with the safe and supportive community that seemed earnest in their excitement of me. As a leader, my heart feels flooded with joy being able to help co-create similar environments for my students to feel safe, seen, and earnestly cared for.

My last name Fast comes from the German word Faust meaning strong, lucky, & fortunate but my life started in the jungles of the Philippines on a large volcano named Mount Pinatubo. After her 1991 eruption, I found myself growing up in one of the two snow belts of the Great Lakes in Northern America. This snow field the Manistee River where my family owned a trout ranch. A river whose name means “the life of the forest.” The other snow belt was located on the upper peninsula of Michigan where I gained a Bachelors degree in Environmental Studies and Sustainability. Here I learned from Ojibwe teachers that emphasized how Earth shows us the way. In Hawai’i we call these kinds of observations as kilo.

I found home on the dormant volcano of Mauna Kea which is named after its snowy peak. This water fuels the lands below where I started Hawai’i Time Farm when the pandemic first started. I was in the middle of student teaching and was fortunate to have graduated early with a teacher’s certificate in secondary science and a focus on Hawaiian studies. My passion throughout life stems from the extinction rates of our fellow earthlings. Solutions I have found are deeply connected with our own species and our relationship with food, water, energy, and economics. I hope to inspire generational thinking to help leave this planet better than when we came to it.

José is passionate about the role education can play in transformation. He is a 9th grade English Teacher in the Bay Area, and has previously worked with all grade levels, PreK-12th. He has a deep love for the outdoors and loves to learn about new ecosystems.

He loves horror movies, reading and also telling dad jokes. José became interested in the field of experiential education when he was in high school, joining student wilderness programs and international cross-cultural programs, both of which were life-changing for José and his path in the world. He is so excited to dive into programs, developing as a professional and helping youth grow and develop as leaders!

Born and raised in Southern Appalachian mountains (ancestral Cherokee land), Topher has spent his life exploring, studying, and communing with the natural world. With a background in mindfulness, Ecopsychology, and biology, he brings his passion and sense of wonder to his work as a nature connection guide and outdoor educator.

He has traveled and led programs throughout India, Southeast Asia, Pacific Islands, Latin America, and the US.

BFA International Development and Musical Theatre; Tulane University. Growing up in southern Maine, Lane’s family took her far and wide, which no doubt kickstarted her hunger to forever continue exploring. The power of immersive travel became clear to Lane in 2007 when her family lived in a beautiful fishing village in the Dominican Republic where she learned Spanish attending the local school, developed friendships across cultures, and became a salty island girl. Lane’s other adventures have had her working on a permaculture farm in eastern Europe, hiking in Southeast Asia and studying the traditional medicine of Chile’s indigenous communities.

When not on the road, Lane spent years singing and acting on stages across New England and New Orleans. She also spent five summers as a counselor and head counselor at Windsor Mountain International Summer Camp deep in the woods of New Hampshire.

Growing up between Japan, India, Argentina, and the United States, Soumya danced between cultures, languages, time zones, and belief systems from an early age. She spent her formative years on ancestral Lumbee lands in the sweet, sticky Southern city of Raleigh, North Carolina, and she went on to graduate with a B.A. in International Studies and a B.A. in Economics from North Carolina State University. In college, Soumya focused as much on extracurricular activities as her classes, and she got involved in gender equality efforts, interpersonal violence prevention, animal rights advocacy, environmental direct action, Buddhist philosophy, and outdoor education, just to name a few interests. Her pursuits have led her to explore environmental justice in southeastern North Carolina, conduct ethnographic research in Quito, Ecuador on culture and gender, and serve as an AmeriCorps VISTA in Portland, Oregon where she worked to make experiential international education accessible with Carpe Mundi. She has also led college students to Guatemala to study gender issues, interned at a community development NGO in Delhi, and spent a year teaching English on a Fulbright grant in the Himalayan foothills of northern India. Some of her favorite moments abroad have been riding a motorbike through the hills of northern Vietnam, celebrating a friend’s wedding dancing the night away in the Ecuadorian Amazon, and celebrating Holi with her students in India. Most recently, Soumya has brought her passion for facilitation to her roles as an overseas educator and as a field instructor for wilderness courses for NOLS. She is passionate about the power of embodied learning and collective liberation and hopes to unite the two by making experiential education a catalyst for personal growth, cultivation of critical consciousness, and engagement & advocacy. In her free time, Soumya can be found playing outdoors, nursing a cup of tea and a good book, dancing at a concert, slurping down veggie ramen, bouldering at the climbing gym, and pondering how to better cultivate radical community, loving-kindness, and joy.

Raised in Savannah, GA there were endless opportunities to fuel Tara’s curiosity and she was always seeking a non- traditional way of learning and seeing the world around herself. Starting off on her own gap year program in New Zealand and Australia, her adventure goggles were ready to see it ALL. Beginning her career in experiential education as an Outward Bound School instructor, she found many opportunities to experience places by boat and even find the excitement of cycling through many countries. Seeking a different balance, Tara spent her time away from her adventures by indulging in fine arts studies. Tara can frequently be found covered in metal dust, working at different shops creating life size metal art installations. She likes to use many traditional metalworking, jewelry techniques, and old analog industrial machines, and explore designs that share beauty. In art, she can bring her learnings from the dynamic sea into my sculptures and find ways to blend my desire to adventure with urges of creativity.

Curiosity has been a driving force in Megan’s life, and nature served as her first classroom. She had an exploratory childhood along California’s Pacific Coast and in the Sierra Nevadas, where she camped and skied with her family. Her imagination led her to create characters for short stories, examine new flora and fauna to add to her collection of dioramas, and read voraciously—notably National Geographic magazines. It wasn’t until she began teaching that she realized the importance of inquiry and discovery in education, and she built her teaching philosophy around holistic and experiential learning that would nurture life skills and instill global values in students.

After teaching English in public high school for four years and completing her graduate work at Pepperdine University, she felt the relentless urge to explore this spectacular planet, and began teaching in international education. This life-changing journey took her on adventures across dozens of countries, while having the opportunity to live in France, Indonesia, Lebanon and Argentina over the past 13 years. A few of her most unforgettable moments include bungeeing off a bridge in New Zealand, hang gliding over Brazil’s gleaming coastline, whitewater rafting down the Nile, trekking Indonesia’s vast jungles and volcanoes, and rappelling into Vietnam’s labyrinth of ancient caverns.

Megan recognizes the importance of adapting to foreign surroundings, learning with an open mind about cultures different from her own, and understanding how to travel as a local, while embracing the challenges and fulfillment of living life abroad. Working with teenagers to help guide them on their own journeys is an experience that she truly values and she can’t imagine a better job than combining two of her favorite things: education and travel. During the pandemic, she virtually connected with other educators and teenagers around the world by launching a weekly global discussion forum about topics ranging from cultural celebrations, political strife, economic crisis, top travel destinations and boosting student morale.

Megan resides with her partner in the Patagonian region of Argentina, where she teaches English and math, explores the hiking trails of the Andes mountains, practices her Argentinian Spanish with her running team, and surfs the southernmost beaches in the world.

One of Megan’s favorite quotes: “I think about the hands I have held, the places I’ve seen, the vast lands whose dirt is caked on the bottom of my shoes. The world has changed me.” -Amelia Earhart

Megan’s love for travel, adventure, and service learning began when she convinced her nervous parents to let her participate in a leadership service program in Tanzania when she was 16 years old. Though she grew up in New Jersey (where she also attended undergrad to earn a degree in Public Health), she took every opportunity to go abroad and learn about the world beyond her east coast city life. She spent a semester studying and traveling in Australia and took a summer course in Greece during her college years.

After graduating, she started a two year stint with AmeriCorps NCCC to gain leadership and program management skills in a federal volunteer program for young adults in the Pacific Region of the US. Her experiences in AmeriCorps included learning to construct houses for victims of devastating floods in West Virginia, planting trees throughout Eugene, Oregon with the Parks and Rec Department, and overseeing her team’s efforts to distribute covid vaccines to vulnerable populations in Oakland, California in 2021.

After completing these service years, she spent time living and working in Alaska working as a sled-dog handler! She spent her free time learning to backpack over glaciers and chasing the northern lights. She then lived in Hawai’i for a year, working on organic farms across the islands. While in Hawai’i, she began to pursue the experiential education field that she had loved as a teen. She became a mentor for a teen leadership program focused on sea turtle and coral education, and led a gap semester for college students on the Big Island. In the summer of 2023, she led high schoolers on a camping trip through Yellowstone NP and The Grand Tetons, as well as a program in Costa Rica!

An avid reader, gardener, and mediocre vegan chef, Megan continues to avoid the “big girl job” but looks forward to one day continuing studying her academic interests in Public Health. She is excited to support her gap year students in their journeys of becoming global citizens who are aware of their role and responsibility to society and the natural world.

Despite his parent’s best efforts, Matt has managed to avoid settling down and getting “a real job with a 401(k) and dental plan”, and has no plans to change his wandering anytime soon. His love for an alternative lifestyle, as well as a desire to live anywhere outside the US, began when he was in University and enrolled in study abroad programs to Nicaragua and Peru. With his interests sufficiently piqued by the fact that a whole different world existed outside the safe confines of his own country, Matt only lasted a year and a half in his first and only “real job” (with a 401(k)!) and instead took off to see the world. Starting with Latin America – it was the cheapest to get to – and loving it to the point that he’s never really left, he has spent about 90% of the last six years in the region.

Matt initially began working in alternative education as a way to fund his travels, but soon came to love the impact he was able to have on guiding young people in their first experiences with other cultures, languages, environments, and all the challenges and excitement that those experiences bring. When not working with youth travel programs, Matt has led multi-day hikes up volcanoes and across mountain ranges in Guatemala, Nicaragua and Bolivia. Through various jobs he has been lucky enough to lead tourists sandboarding down volcanoes, chat with former guerilla leaders, ride on the roof of chicken buses, and visit Machu Picchu nine times. Not so bad for someone without a dental plan is it, Mom and Dad?

Matt does occasionally return to visit his home state of Michigan (only somewhat begrudgingly) and catches up with one of the few things he misses from the States – American football. A long-suffering fan of the woeful Detroit Lions, his dream is to live long enough to see them one day win a single playoff game.

While at the University of Vermont, Mary focused on Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Agroecology, studying the intersection of cultural conservation and environmental conservation. During her studies, she spent time in Botswana, where she conducted research in the Okavango Delta and worked with local communities on human-wildife conflict. After school she traveled throughout Europe, Central America, and Southeast Asia, to understand the diverse ways in which culture impacts the land, and assist in wildlife conservation efforts. Mary first came to know the profound impact of student travel in 2017, when she received a National Geographic Student Expedition scholarship to study wildlife throughout Australia. While there, she served as editor for a student magazine, and contributed with an article on Indigenous perspective on preserving the Daintree Rainforest. Mary has also learned an array of healing traditions and folk medicine, having studied with teachers in Mexico, the U.S., and her own lineage in Italy. Aside from her interest in the confluence of tradition and land stewardship, Mary is passionate about working with youth of all backgrounds. For many years she has taught social skills groups to youth on the spectrum, mentored in low-income communities, and taught art through an immersive curriculum. Mary went on to serve as Project Coordinator for an organization that connects Indigenous Elders around the world, co-creating solutions for global issues of today. She helped facilitate a conference of the elders in Hawaii, centered on Native perspectives related to climate change. This past summer Mary led two student travel programs, from the city streets of Japan to the vast greenery of Iceland. She had an incredible time, and she is thrilled to carry her passion for adventure forward into the Overseas Educator role! When not on the move, Mary can be found cuddling her two precious cats, drawing or painting, taking photographs, or scuba diving! Above all, co-cultivating meaningful communities is what makes Mary the happiest.

Born in Chicago, Mara’s first steps were taken during her first international trip in Vancouver, Canada. At the time her family underestimated how much foreshadowing had occurred. Mara grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, strongly influenced by her mother who was incredibly passionate about culture, travel, and local experiences. When internationally traveling was out of the budget, they explored and learned about different cultural neighborhoods throughout Chicago. She was empowered to switch subway cars while the trains were moving, create plans by reading guidebooks, and rely on local maps to navigate.

Cobblestone streets, walks along the Charles River esplanade, Nutella milkshakes, and a vibrant student scene drew Mara to Boston for college. After graduating from Emerson College, she moved to Dublin, Ireland on a Working Holiday Visa for what was anticipated to be a gap year… Six and a half years years later, she is still living and working abroad on the road the majority of the time! After her Irish Visa expired, she backpacked across Europe and India. Inspired by her international friends and roommates, Mara wanted to improve her Spanish. The following year, she taught English in Madrid. Before leaving Spain, she hiked 600 miles along the Cantabrian Sea on the Camino de Santiago del Norte as a fundraiser for refugees in Greece. This experience came full circle when she volunteered with an NGO outside of Thessaloniki throughout the Spring of 2020.

In 2018 Mara began working in experiential education, which she believes is the perfect intersection of her passions for mentorship, travel, and community. Fostering an environment that encourages growth, connection with local communities, and support within the group is the most rewarding part of the job. She is a huge believer in the power of connection and storytelling to create a more empathetic and inclusive world. Trip leading has taken her to Ecuador, Costa Rica, Panama, Thailand, India, Nepal, and Hawaii across three gap semesters and four summer programs. She is thrilled to be leading her first program in Europe, especially because her grandmother, “Yiayia,” immigrated from a small island in Greece.

In between trips, Mara has continued her personal travels – both solo and with friends old and new – across five continents. Some favorite memories include motorbiking through Vietnam, dancing through Brazil, and “van-life”-ing through Hawaii. Her travel style is slow – opting to spend as much time in each country as her visa allows. She loves hiking and wandering through museums, remote areas and live music, reflecting in her journal and meeting every single guest in a hostel, which typically causes her time to be split between cities and nature. She spends most of the year living out of her backpack unsure where she will be in a few months, and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Malcolm was born and raised on a high school campus in Delaware where both his parents were teachers, so he was raised by a community of educators with fellow faculty kids as his neighbors and best friends. He went to a summer camp in the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York when he was 11 years old, and he’s only taken one summer off since. He was a counselor, he led trips to Spain for the camp, and in recent summers he’s worked in the outdoors department as a rock climbing and ropes course facilitator. His experiences at camp fostered a love for trying new things and building community with people from different backgrounds, as well as a passion for outdoor adventure and working with young people.

He went on his first international trip to Nicaragua while in high school, and that’s when he caught the travel bug and decided he wanted to learn Spanish so he could continue to travel and build relationships with people from other countries and cultures. He went to Sewanee for college, a small school in rural Tennessee, because of their incredible outdoors program and beautiful campus. In addition to all of the outdoor adventures he embarked on while there, he went on and led trips to Ecuador and Costa Rica, studied in Buenos Aires, Argentina for a semester, and minored in Spanish to continue his Spanish-learning journey.

Malcolm moved to Miami after college and worked as an assistant teacher and interventionist in an ESL classroom, and loved it so much that he became a teacher just like his parents. He moved to Nashville, Tennessee where he taught for 3 years and earned his Masters in Education, and then decided that although he loved teaching, the traditional classroom may not be for him. Malcolm left his school and used his time away from the classroom to travel and explore a variety of seasonal jobs in the nonprofit and education worlds. He then found his way to Carpe Diem Education, which is a perfect melding of his love for students, education, travel, and adventure!

Originally from the Bay Area, Lauren spent her early childhood running around in the sunshine and forests of Northern California where she developed a love for adventure in the great outdoors. At the age of nine, she and her family moved to England, which instilled in her an insatiable curiosity about the world and a deep respect for all you can learn from immersing yourself in a new place and different culture. Since then, Lauren has sought out opportunities to do just that all over the U.S. and abroad.

Lauren headed to New Hampshire for college, where she studied Geography and French (she loved learning French so much and took so many French classes that by senior year, she realized she could just add it as a second major). Thankfully, she only endured two northeastern winters… during one of those Januaries, it got so cold she could toss a bucket of boiling water out the window and watch it turn to snow before it hit the ground! She was lucky enough to escape the freezing temps twice over and spent one winter working for a salsa dance company in L.A. and another studying abroad in France.

After graduating from Dartmouth, Lauren hit the road to begin work as an English teacher in Arizona. She quickly became passionate about integrating experiential learning into her curriculum and expanding access to enriching educational opportunities. This has led her to pursue work as an educator in many different capacities and environments, from Phoenix, Arizona to Grenoble, France, in summer travel programs and the outdoors, and with students of all different ages and backgrounds. For the past five years, Lauren has been working in Denver Public Schools as a founding teacher of World Literature, French, and Senior Projects and developing the first travel abroad program at her school. She’s excited to continue her mission to provide fun and engaging educational experiences and learn alongside Global Routes students!

In her free time, you can find Lauren backpacking and backcountry skiing in the Rocky Mountains, reading fiction on the porch, trying to cook all of Ottolenghi’s recipes with varying degrees of success, and spending time with her friends and family.

Raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Jane always found ways to explore the world we all inhabit both domestically and internationally. Living in various places around the world has taught Jane to immerse herself with flexibility, curiosity, and leadership. She travelled with similar programs during her high school summers exploring Costa Rica, Spain, Dominican Republic, and Thailand, and spent her Junior year living in Idaho and Chile. She then went on to the University of Denver to obtain her B.A. in International Studies and Spanish, as well as an M.A. in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education.

After graduation Jane moved to Bat Yam, Israel. There she was teaching English in an Elementary school, mentoring post-IDF young adults, and soaking up every bit of the sunshine and balagan (quirky chaos) in this very special place.

She likes to spend her free time downhill skiing or uphill hiking, eating gluten free food, and enjoying time outside with her friends and family. Jane has dedicated her life to international education and is pumped for the journey ahead!

Raised in a small town in Arkansas, Forrest never really had a choice about whether he would fall in love with the great outdoors. From 8 am until 2 pm he and his brothers would be locked out of the house and told to “play outside” by their mother. Due to these fortunate circumstances Forrest grew up camping in cow fields, playing dungeons & dragons in tents, and practically living at the lake.

This love for the outdoors continued through high school and into college. His weekends filled with hiking, kayaking, camping, and airsoft. These experiences culminated in Forrest working at a boys & girls sleepaway camp in NE Pennsylvania halfway through college. He would continue working at this camp for many years which would lead to friendships with people all over the world and a furious passion for outdoor education. After college Forrest told his parents that he had saved to take four months to travel before starting a career in the world of camp. Six years later Forrest realized that he had lost track of time. These years involved hiking the Camino de Santiago, living in Germany, vandwelling in Australia, backpacking across SE Asia, and bikepacking up the coast of Tasmania along with many months of seasonal work in the US.

During the beginning of the pandemic Forrest found himself living in his van while studying for a graduate degree in central Illinois. When he wasn’t freezing in the van he spent this time taking undergraduate students on adventure trips for his graduate position. After graduation he started as an instructor with North Carolina Outward Bound where he currently spends his summers. He is excited to join the team! When Forrest isn’t outside he reads, plays board games, and uses every scrap of spare time to visit his partner in Germany.