Gigi Austin was raised an Appalachian Mountain girl and spent much of her childhood hunting, fishing, and farming in Southwest Virginia. Her dad instilled in her a deep love for Nature and its conservation. Her mother taught her social graces and grit. Gigi left her home after college and spent the next twenty years developing her career as a language instructor and facilitator of conscious travel communities. Some of the most treasured experiences she accrued during her seven years of wanderings include: walking the full Camino de Santiago in Spain, WWOOFing across Chile, working at a hostel while living in a tent on the Uruguayan coast, raising baby goats on a ranch in Texas, couchsurfing the south of South America, leading people-to-people exchange programs in Cuba, apprenticing as a Dream Quest guide, leading 70-day Gap Year programs in Latin America, teaching yoga at a silent retreat center in the mountains of Guatemala, and going on a safari in Tanzania. Of the twenty-four countries where Spanish is an official language, Gigi has experienced twenty firsthand. She has recently returned to the ‘hollers and hills of the Virginia that raised her and looks forward to contributing to a cultural renovation of the area. Gigi serves as the Language Immersion Director at Springhouse.