Chiori Santiago

Chiori Santiago is a Berkeley-based freelance writer whose stories have appeared in Diablo, Sunset, Smithsonian, San Francisco Chronicle, and Bay Nature. She's happy to add kayaking across Raccoon Strait to her life list of adventures undertaken in pursuit of a good story.

Low Vision, High Adventure

October 1, 2006 •  by

As a sighted person, I take in most of my information about the world through my eyes. So I’m wondering how my fellow travelers perceive this journey when they can’t see the backdrop to our adventure: the impressive green of … Read more

Betting on Point Molate

July 1, 2006 •  by

With stunning views of the Bay and Marin, Richmond’s Point Molate has seen a lot of changes: It’s been a shrimp camp, a huge winery, and a Navy fuel depot. Now the site of a controversial casino proposal, this modest point of land is home to diverse wildlife and some of the East Bay’s last native coastal prairie.

A Modest Majesty

October 1, 2004 •  by

Seventy-five years ago, there were only 900 acres of public parks in the East Bay. Today, the East Bay Regional Park District encompasses over 95,000 acres. From its humble beginnings in the Berkeley hills, the EBRPD has blossomed into the nation’s largest regional park district, making beaches, redwood forests, oak woodlands, tidal wetlands, and so much more, forever accessible to the people of the Bay Area.