Amy has a fascination with world cultures and a boundless enthusiasm for the natural world. After studying anthropology and music at the University of Toronto, Amy’s wanderlust drew her to Japan, where she taught English to more than 12,000 junior high school students across Kanazawa. This overseas immersion revealed her fascination with the interplay between language, thought and behavior (and also kickstarted an obsession with finding the best hot springs!). After returning to North America, Amy worked as a museum exhibit designer and project manager in Hawaii and San Francisco before finding her way back to travel and education. She worked both backstage as an operations manager for educational trips to Japan and Mexico, and on the front lines, lecturing on expedition ships and managing her own Japan travel company. Amy holds her master’s degree in language teaching, and when she’s not traveling, she teaches English language learners at community colleges in Northern California and at the International University of Japan each summer. She is enthusiastic about sharing her love of wild spaces with Nat Hab travelers as an Expedition Leader.

At home in Northern California, Amy recently moved from Point Reyes National Seashore, home to more than 400 species of birds and thousands of northern elephant seals, to Lassen Volcanic National Park. She shares her new heavenly habitat with her park ranger husband, three cats, boiling mud pots and four types of volcanoes.