Manuela Siegfried was born and raised in Costa Rica. Having a biologist as a father made nature a part of her life since very young. The passion for nature and being outside led her to work as a naturalist tourism guide for 3 years. After that she worked in the hotel management and tourism industry for over 15 years. She came across the concept of Shinrin-Yoku and the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy and immediately felt inspired and related to it.

Manuela was trained and certified in 2018 and has been guiding and facilitating experiences very actively since then.
As a trainer she has trained and mentored people from all over the world. She served as one of the main trainers for the first bilingual training in Puerto Rico. She has been the main promoter of trainings in Spanish, making this practice accessible to all Spanish-speaking countries. She is fluent in Spanish, German and English. Currently she is the training coordinator for the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy.