Going Places: Brooks and Fernald lead women’s trip to Guatemala

06 Sep Going Places: Brooks and Fernald lead women’s trip to Guatemala

The Women’s Travel Company is owned and operated by Telluride locals Wendy Brooks and Donna Fernald.

The Telluride Academy is the local institution Wendy Brooks founded in her backyard in 1981. A single mom with three young boys of her own, Brooks started the daycare/camp to help her friends. The initial enrollment was six kids. Today, up to 850 students, ages 5 – 17, attend about 100 unique summer course and specialized programs.

Brooks, now the Academy’s director emeritus, has moved on.

She is the driving force behind Mudd Butts International, the Academy’s traveling drama camp. She and her friend Donna Fernald, another long-time local, own and operate The Women’s Travel Company.

WTC began after moms kept asking when they could go on global adventures like the ones Mudd Butts get to take every year.

In response, Wendy and Donna began organizing just one trip a year for 10 – 12 women, 40 – 70 years old. Trips feature off-the-beaten-track opportunities to places women would not necessarily venture without an experienced guide.

Itineraries are designed to open doors to second and third world cultures, villages, schools and marketplaces, in a safe context. In addition to being an experienced world traveler, Donna is also an EMTI, or intermediate EMT, a notch below a paramedic.

WTC’s first three trips were to Guatemala in 2006, Viet Nam and Cambodia in 2007, Turkey and Jordan in 2008, and now, by popular demand, back to Guatemala.

The 2008 Guatemala trip adds the Mayan jungle culture of Flores/Tikal to the first year trip to highland market villages.

The cost is $2800/person for 12 days, November 6 – 17. The trip originates in Houston.

In addition to working with Wendy and spending time in the back of an ambulance supporting patients, Donna is a broker at Nevasca Realty and one of the beautiful voices of the women’s a cappella group, Heartbeat.

Wendy and Donna have lived in the Telluride region since the 1970s.

Contact Women’s Travel Company:PO Box 671, Telluride, CO 81435; tel: 970-729-0334 or 970-708-1333; email: wendy_brooks@yahoo.com