Headquartered in Quito, Ecuador, V!VA Travel Guides’ diverse staff is a motley crew of writers, editors, web-enthusiasts, techies, and adventurers. Hailing from several countries and various professional backgrounds, the V!VA staff has one thing in common: the desire to create the most up-to-date, un-biased travel guides possible, to fit the needs of travelers just like themselves. 

Name: Andrea Davoust
V!VA Title: Staff Writer/ Editor
Hometown: Toulouse, France
After more than two years of working and living out of a suitcase in Eastern Europe and in various improbable African countries that no-one has ever heard of, Andrea joined the V!VA office in Quito as a staff writer. As the resident Frenchwoman, she brings her expertise of European cities and of the African continent, while downing liters of tea to fuel her writing process. In previous incarnations, Andrea studied political science and international relations in Paris, before earning a degree in journalism and beer studies in Scotland, then worked as a journalist in various Parisian news outlets for three years. On the side, she reads novels and travel literature by the kilo and likes to hang around markets and parks practicing her photography skills on unsuspecting passersby.


Name: Dr. Christopher “Crit” Minster
V!VA Title: Head Writer
Hometown: Rochester, New York
Dr. Christopher Minster is currently an instructor at the Universidad de San Francisco de Quito, and a graduate of Penn State University, The University of Montana and Ohio State. Before becoming head writer for V!VA Travel Guides, Crit worked for the U.S. Peace Corps in Guatemala as a volunteer from 1991 to 1994, and has traveled extensively throughout Latin America. He is the V!VA Travel Guides resident expert on ruins, Latino history and culture, and has surprisingly in-depth knowledge of haunted museums. If he's not at work pounding out new stories, you'll probably find Chris gallivanting around the Galápagos with his wife or beating everyone in the room at a local pub quiz in Quito.


Name: Chris Hughes
V!VA Title: Staff Writer / Editor
Hometown: Cincinnati, Ohio
Chris Hughes graduated from the University of Cincinnati with degrees in English Literature and Journalism. After college, he became a sports reporter and was named the 2007 Kentucky Press Association's Best Sports Columnist at a class one daily. However, the Cincinnati native's itch to be paid to travel, while he is still a relatively young 27-years-old, started to outweigh his desire to cover the day-to-day happenings of athletes – so he signed on to become a staff writer at V!VA. Chris has traveled throughout the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Puerto Rico, the Caribbean, Canada and the United States. He now looks forward to the opportunity to become fluent in Spanish while exploring more of South America.


Name: Jason Halberstadt
V!VA Title: CEO
Hometown: Iowa and Wisconsin
After falling in love with Latin America as an Instructor for Costa Rica Outward Bound in the mid-nineties, V!VA Travel Guides CEO Jason Halberstadt settled down in Quito, Ecuador. As an online media consultant in the small Andean country he became a pioneer in online travel marketing, E-government and E-business, finally settling on his passion for travel and the dream of creating V!VA, a better travel guide.


Name: Karen Nagy
V!VA Title: Staff Writer/ Editor
Hometown: Klamath Falls, Oregon
Karen Nagy studied travel writing in Greece, and went on to receive BA degrees in Journalism and International Studies from the University of Oregon. She worked throughout college as an editor for the UO College of Arts and Sciences and Flux Magazine, and her work has appeared in Oregon Quarterly and Skipping Stones Magazine. After living and traveling throughout Argentina in 2007, she was eager to make a home for herself once again in South America. She currently resides in Quito. When she's not planning weekend road trips, she can be found learning how to salsa dance, rolling sushi, or reading on her patio in Guápulo.


Name: Margaret Rode
V!VA Title: Staff Writer/ Editor
Hometown: Chicago, IL
A self-professed city girl, sassy staff writer Margaret Rode hails from Chicago where she received Bachelor degrees in English Literature and Spanish from North Park University. Her pins in the map include, but are not limited to: a train-traipse through Western Europe, a Christmas season spent in the lower half of Sweden, volunteering in the Dominican Republic and on Ecuador's coast, and a roadtrip across the U.S. She loves nuns, hip-hop, maps, eating outdoors and bicycles with baskets. In the future she hopes to be covered in tattoos with a small family of eleven children. Having also lived in Barcelona and at Glacier National Park in Montana, she currently calls Ecuador home.


Name: Michelle Lillie
V!VA Title: Staff Writer/ Editor
Hometown: East Lansing, Michigan
Both a smarty pants and a party pants, staff writer Michelle Lillie boasts an impressive life-resume. She holds Bachelors and Masters degrees in International Relations from Loyola University Chicago, and definitely brings to V!VA some decent globe-trotting experience. Originally from East Lansing, Michigan, Michelle claims a solid six years in Chicago, eight months in Italy, six in China, five in Thailand and currently resides in Quito, Ecuador. Next on the list: Africa! If she's not climbing to the top of Mt. Zugspitze in Germany, riding in the cargo hold of buses in southern Thailand, eating pizza with the Cardinals of Vatican City, getting woken up by a 5am call to prayer in Morocco, or traversing Europe, Asia, North Africa, or Central and South America, you'll most likely find Michelle reading her horoscope, trying to kick the habit of drinking diet beverages, or creating the perfect ipod playlist.


Name: Paula Newton
V!VA Title: Editor-In-Chief
Hometown: Kingston Upon Thames, England
Paula Newton is the editor-in-chief and operational genius that keeps the V!VA Travel Guides team moving forward like a well-oiled machine. She brings expertise from 11 years in the Broadcasting and New Media industries where she has been a pioneer in interactive television. In the past ten years, her passion for travel has taken her to more than 25 countries across the globe. Her bag of travel tales includes a somewhat dubious locomotive experience attempting to travel local-style through Kerala Province, India.


Name: Rachael Hanley
V!VA Title: Staff Writer/ Editor
Hometown: Northampton, Massachusetts

Rachael Hanley, a Smith alumna, has a Master’s degree in Communications (Stanford) and an MPhil in English Literature (Cambridge). After a chilly year in eyebrow-high New York snow (with icicles that often pointed in a menacing way toward her windows), Rachael's shovel broke, so she quit her journalism job and moved to Quito. Rachael is known for going on ridiculously long car rides across the United States and Central America. She has also unpacked her gear in New Hampshire, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Spain, California, England and Natural Bridge, N.Y. Despite her travels, she continues to insist that Northampton, Massachusetts is home (probably because her parents live there and they give her money). When not running around in red tights for the Hash House Harriers, Rachael likes to scrawl long letters to her family, jump on buses to parts unknown and ponder founding a dry-land rowing team in the Andes.

Name: Rachel Anderson
V!VA Title: Staff Writer/Editor
Hometown: Minneapolis, Minnesota
Rachel Anderson is a prolific pint-sized poet with an insatiable thirst for travel, cheap wine and, apparently, alliterations. Her varied studies include a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a double-minor in English and Eastern Religion. A self-proclaimed dandelion floating across the field of youth, her life’s varied landscape has included marching in London’s millennium parade and witnessing shock therapy while studying psychiatric practices in Fiji. During her 2007 stint as an English teacher in Peru, Rachel hiked innumerable Inca ruins and island-hopped her way around Lake Titicaca. Before stumbling upon the Ecuadorian fields at V!VA, she spent a year studying copywriting and creative writing. She enjoys excavating nuggets of wisdom and humor from her life’s gravitational pull toward awkward misadventures.


Name: Tom Raven Scroft
V!VA Title:Writer/Editor
Hometown: Bristol, England
Initially intending to just pass through Ecuador on his year-long sojourn across the world, Tom Raven Scroft decided to set up camp in Quito as an intern in the V!VA office... at least for the time being. From Venezuela to Brazil, around Argentina, Paraguay, Uraguay and Colombia, Tom's wanderlust has brought him backpacking through South America and soon on to New Zealand, Asian places, other pretentious countries, and Russia. The bus-riding, map-reading, hostel-staying skills Tom brings to V!VA are unmatched, as he has guidebooked around the globe, spending six months in Australia, six months in Central America, one in Eastern Europe, and made multiple trips to the States and Western Europe. Tom has a Master's degree in History of Architecture from the University of Edinburgh. He is English. Thus he says words like "knackered" and "rubbish" and drinks so much black tea it's unreal.