Renée Alexander and Scott Mansfield found each other through bicycles and beer. They met at the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition’s “Love on Wheels” Valentine’s party and quickly discovered they shared a love of booze, food, and culture. Renée is on hiatus from the boutique public relations firm she founded, which focuses on progressive non-profits. Scott recently retired from a successful career, most recently as an IT Project Manager at a ginormous law firm. In addition to their professional careers, they have decades of freelance writing experience between them, for local, regional, and national (US) publications.
Renée is an avid road tripper, eclipse chaser, and collector of travel bugs. She co-piloted an auto-rickshaw across Northern India to raise money for Room to Read, drove a mini van from Syndey to Cairns to watch the sun disappear in the Australian outback, and survived sepsis to see another total solar eclipse on an uninhabited island in Indonesia’s Togean islands. She also contracted dengue fever in Honduras, then returned the next year to cross the border from Guatemala in the bed of a pick-up truck, surrounded by men with guns demanding passports.
Scott is the author of Strong Waters: A Simple Guide to Making Beer, Wine and Spirited Beverages at Home. When he isn’t covering the beer scene in the San Francisco Bay Area, he teaches people to make beer, cider, and wine for Workshop SF. He has driven, bicycled, and hitchhiked across much of the US and traveled in Europe, Asia, Latin and South American and North Africa.
In early June 2019, Scott and Renée embarked on a year-long international trip to seek out and share stories from remote corners of the world. Their journey began in South America, where they celebrated the Winter Solstice at a shamanic ceremony on Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, chased a total solar eclipse in Argentina, and got repeatedly teargassed during gasoline protests in Ecuador. When it came time to move on to another continent, they realized they weren’t ready to leave. So, they decided to spend the rest of their time in South America, scouting for stories.
If you’d like to suggest a story scouting mission somewhere in South America, email scout@storyscout.org.