Bridget Crocker is an adventure guide, outdoor travel writer and mother. She has led remote river expeditions and guided first descents down many of the world's greatest river canyons in far-flung regions of Zambia, Ethiopia, the Philippines, Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, India and the Western United States. She is a contributing author to Lonely Planet guidebooks and her writing has been featured in The Best Women's Travel Writing 2011 and magazines including National Geographic Adventure, Trail Runner, Paddler and Outside. Read more about her travels atwww.bridgetcrocker.com and on her blog, The Adventures of Little Mama.

Sarah Katin has been a television host in Korea, professor in Japan, tree house dweller in Laos, house painter in New Orleans, sangria swiller in Spain, dragon hunter in Indonesia, and fishmonger in Australia. A soon to be two-time contributor to the The Best Women's Travel Writing series, she has recently retired (pending her success as an unemployed screenwriter) from her teaching position in South Korea. These days you can find her hard at work on her latest screenplay in her L.A. office (the cushy chair by the window at Starbucks) or in Costa Rica bathing baby sloths. You just never can tell about these things.

Abbie Kozolchyk, a New York-based writer and editor, has contributed to National Geographic Traveler, Travel + Leisure, the San Francisco Chronicle, Outside, World Hum, Conde Nast Traveler, Forbes Travel, Traveler's Tales and a variety of women's magazines. She is also the Beauty and Travel Editor at Every Day with Rachael Ray. Visit her at www.abbiekozolchyk.com.

Kimberley Lovato has written about travel, lifestyle and food for National Geographic Traveler, Executive Travel, AFAR, Delta Sky, Condé Nast Traveller (UK), Easy Jet Traveller, b.there, Ryan Air, and online at frommers.com, hotel-scoop.com, gadling.com and leitesculinaria.com. Her culinary travel book, Walnut Wine & Truffle Groves: Culinary Adventures in the Dordogne, won the coveted Lowell Thomas Award this year, given by the Society of American Travel Writers, as did her personal essay “Lost and Liberated,” included in the Best Women’s Travel Writing, Volume 8. See her website at www.kimberleylovato.com.

Mary Jo McConahay's travel memoir, Maya Roads, One Woman's Journey Among the People of the Rainforest, is a National Geographic Traveler Book of the Month and has been named Best Creative Nonfiction Book of the Year, 2012 Northern California Book Awards. An award-winning journalist, documentary filmmaker, and inveterate traveler, Mary Jo has written for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Time, Newsweek, Sierra Magazine, Rolling Stone, Vogue and many others. Her reporting and travel writing appears in seven anthologies, including Laura Flanders' The W Effect, Bush's War Against Women. She wrote and co-produced the prize-winning PBS documentary, Discovering Dominga. Visit her at www.maryjomcconahay.net and www.mayaroads.com.