Crooked Trails Autumn Newsletter

Welcome everyone to our Autumn newsletter
Every year, about this time, as I watch the leaves turn colors and fall to the ground I cannot help but think of our friend Moi, the Haorani leader from the Ecuadorian Amazon. During a visit to Seattle one autumn, Moi and I drove along a particularly colorful tree lined [...]

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Telling a Tale from Kenya

Crooked Trails participant Christine Frederickson returns to the Maasai village of Merrueshi to reconnect with her friends.

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Festival in Peru

By Kris Parfitt –Crooked Trails traveler
Stepping through the doorway, I noticed my friends were no longer in the courtyard, yet music trailed down many of the narrow streets beckoning me to follow. There were drums in the plaza far off to my right and brassy horns echoing off the cobblestones around the corner to my [...]

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A Chat with Philip Swanstrom Shaw from Golden Lasso

Over the years, Crooked Trails has received a lot of support and helping hands from “angels” in our midst. Often, it is just the thing we needed at the exact moment it is most beneficial.
When the mavens at local marketing firm Golden Lasso offered up their pro-bono services to help us develop a new set [...]

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A Peek Inside Cascade View

by Crooked Trails intern, Lindsey Goldberg
It has been quite exciting to launch a partnership between Cascade View Elementary School and Crooked Trails. It is powerful to have found a way to fulfill the mission of Crooked Trails, to facilitate cultural exchange rooted in service learning, locally. Already we have developed meaningful relationships with members of [...]

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A Chat with Dan Moore from EverGreen Escapes

Local green travel gurus Jake Haupert and Dan Moore offer fantastic year-round getaways here in the Pacific Northwest through their company EverGreen Escapes. (Click here to read a recent profile on the Wanderlust & Lipstick site) We were lucky enough to catch up with Dan somewhere between the mountains and the ocean this week and [...]

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Another Mexico: The Zapotec Festival, Sangre Preciosa

by Christine Mackay, Crooked Trails co-founder
photos courtesy of Eric Mindling & Christine Mackay

For over a decade Traditions Mexico has offered unparalleled opportunities to immerse oneself in the heart of Oaxaca Mexico. Eric Mindling, the founder of Traditions Mexico has spent most of his adult life working and living with the Zapotecs in and around Oaxaca. [...]

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Crooked Trails Premieres Bhutan April 2009 Itinerary!

Our Executive Director Chris Mackay has just returned from a site visit to Bhutan. We hope you enjoyed the featured article on her visit posted here.
We are excited to announce we will be offering two programs to Bhutan this year; one in April centering around a homestay and cultural tour, and one in October where [...]

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Bhutan: Where Ancient Meets Modern

by Crooked Trails co-founder Christine Mackay
Since my recent return from Bhutan, people have been asking me what I thought of this lost Shangri La. My reply has consistently been: “It’s not like any country I have visited before”. Where else have the rulers decided that Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross [...]

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…drumroll…our two new interns!

Hi! I’m Bill and I’ve just begun interning with Crooked Trails. My interest in international education and travel began as a study abroad participant to Beijing in 2003. After graduating in 2004 from Pitzer College I returned to Beijing to work with that same study abroad program. My main focus was in developing programs that [...]

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