Ross Wehner is the founder of Village Leaders, an organization that sends volunteers overseas to work with and learn from community leaders. Before that, he worked for seven years as a journalist in Peru and other Latin American countries. He has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, Outside, and other publications, and has also worked as a wilderness educator for the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Ross holds an M.A. in Spanish and Latin American Literature from the University of Virginia.

As an architect, Renée del Gaudio has long considered Machu Picchu to be the world's finest example of architecture integrating with a landscape. She holds an M.A. in architecture from the University of Washington in Seattle and currently works for Semple Brown Design in Denver, Colorado. Her designs have been published in Dwell and House Beautiful, which ranked her as one of the Top 25 Next Wave Designers in America. She is an avid backpacker and has traveled widely throughout Europe, Asia, and Latin America.

Renée and Ross live in Denver and have two children, Sebastian and Francesca, and a fluffy white cat named Scout. They can be contacted at rosswehner [at] hotmail [dot] com and reneedelgaudio [at] yahoo [dot] com.