Malia Everette

Malía Everette, CEO and founder of AltruVistas, promotes in-depth experiential education and socially responsible travel as an alternative to the type of “sun and fun” tourism that often results in cultural homogenization and does little to benefit local communities and host economies.

From 1997-2012, Malía was the director of nonprofit human rights organization Global Exchange’s Reality Tours program. During her tenure at Reality Tours she oversaw the growth and development of alternative travel programs, study seminars, and fact-finding human rights delegations to over 45 global destinations. After two decades of experience pioneering cultural and educational exchanges and ecotours for other organizations, foundations, educational institutions, and families, she founded AltruVistas in 2013. As a foundation and travel company, AltruVistas’ primary goal is to promote transformational philanthropy and social responsibility in the travel industry. The company’s customized journey program creates privately branded trips for our partners, utilizing the pillars of experiential education, philanthropy, and social responsibility—while its intentional meso-financing programs and professional fellowships provide communities the financial tools they need to improve their lives and benefit from the tourism sector.

Malía facilitates experiences around the world, focusing on international relations, human rights, political economy, sustainable development, agroecology, women’s issues, health and healing, responsible business, and the resilience of indigenous cultures. She is an expert on legal travel to Cuba. AltruVistas organizes over 80 domestic and international departures annually.

Malía is involved with many local environmental and human rights groups in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is a co-founder and on the steering committee of the Richmond Progressive Alliance, has served as a Human Rights Commissioner for Contra Costa County, and is an Economic Development Commissioner for the City of Richmond. She has been an advisor for the Women’s Earth Alliance, and has served on the boards of THRIVE-Gulu and the Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First). Currently she serves as a board member for Ethical Traveler, Witness for Peace Southwest, and Bay Area Green Tours.

Malía has a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and a Master of Arts degree in International Relations. She has written numerous articles about socially responsible travel and is a regular speaker and lecturer. She has been a contributor to the The Blue Pages: A Directory of Companies Rated by Their Politics and Practices (2010), UNWTO’s “Religious Tourism in Asia and the Pacific” (2011), and “The Good Company: Sustainability in Hospitality, Tourism and Wine” (2015). In 2013, she joined the faculty at San Francisco State University in Tourism and Recreation Management as a professor of Ecotourism, and also joined the World Learning team at the School of International Training to organize their Climate Change program. Perhaps most importantly, Malía is the proud mother of two intrepid, curious, and very well-traveled sons!