If you ask Yvonne Verstandig – founder of luxury travel agency, Y Travel – how and why she ended up in the travel industry, she’ll tell you she was born with wanderlust in her blood.

“By the time I reached adulthood, my innate thirst to explore the world was unquenchable. It was always my dream to find a way to combine my passion for travelling with my career; a vision brought to life with the founding of my own travel agency.”

In 2020, after 20 years as the co-founder and head of the leisure department at Executive Edge Travel, Yvonne took the bold step of establishing a new business in the luxury travel space – Y Travel – and subsequently acquired fellow Virtuoso agency, Trans World Travel.

Yvonne’s moto is to live each day to its fullest and this is a philosophy she adheres to whether at home with her family, at work, or travelling. The Y Travel team share her zest for life and together they hope to encourage their clients to travel with a sense of passion and purpose; to explore the world in a more considered way.

Their universal goal is to transform the collective travel mentality into a slower and more sustainable paradigm – and they do so by working with likeminded brands and partners. By working with sustainably committed operators, and promoting tours and experiences that benefit local communities, they build ethical choices into their itineraries.

Y Travel is built on the premise that the best travel experiences are those designed specifically with each traveller’s unique ‘travel DNA’ in mind. The team boasts decades of knowledge, incomparable lived experience, and the belief that travel can be positive for the planet. They promise personalised, professional and purposeful service for discerning travellers, and curate their itineraries based not just on what their clients want to see but also on what they want to feel, taste, and immortalise in their memory banks.

They achieve this with the help of Yvonne’s carefully curate catalogue of eight specific ‘Y Factors’, which she personally developed as a way of categorising travel according to travellers’ different portals of passion. According to Yvonne, their Y Factors allow them to connect their clients with experiences that truly resonate with their wants, needs and dreams, ensuring the most custom-fit trip possible.

“From immersive expeditions imbued with culture, to thrilling adventures in nature and everything in between, we draw on our wealth of lived experience and the calibre of our Y Factors to provide unrivalled nuance and attention to detail.”

Like all great names, Y Travel is a play on words. It pays homage to Yvonne, to the ‘Y Factors’ that yield intuitive travel solutions; and to the team’s vision, which is to redirect the travel industry toward a more purposeful path by encouraging travellers to ask the ever-important question… ‘why?’.

Yvonne finding work-life balance at JOALI Maldives.

On the role of travel in the post-pandemic era

On the topic of where the travel industry is positioned in the post-pandemic era, Yvonne believes now is the perfect time for people to hit the reset button on their travel mentality by weaving sustainable, ethical choices into every step of their decision-making process.

“We help our clients do so by shedding light on purposeful operators and destinations. We encourage them to think about how accommodation, tour and activity providers are making a difference to the environment and communities in which they operate.

It might feel like a small action, but there’s a lot of power in choosing to spend money with tourism providers that support their local communities, honour and uphold the heritage, and are making an effort to reduce their environmental impact.

Beyond the planning phase, travellers can choose destinations that require the least amount of plane travel to reach; offset the carbon footprint of any flights they do take; learn about the history and culture of the place they are visiting and support local experiences. It’s vital for our travellers to avoid exploitative or appropriative activities, so they don’t just experience the culture through a ‘tourist’ lens.

From collecting rubbish on their morning beach walk to visiting local charities and asking what kind of assistance they require, there are plenty of ways for tourists to give back. Most resorts – especially those we endorse – have impressive social responsibility programs in place, which empower guests to make a positive difference.”

Yvonne finding work-life balance at JOALI BEING.

Ski Buzz by Y Travel

Running Australia’s premier luxury, purpose-led travel agency might sound like more than enough to keep one woman busy, but Yvonne is not one for resting on her laurels… or for sitting still!

On the side, Yvonne also runs Ski Buzz with her sibling, Daniel Burger. Ski Buzz is an exciting, luxurious way to holiday for passionate skiers that started in 2015 with a group trip to Ellmau and St Anton in Austria.

Since then, the concept has evolved in scope and popularity, with subsequent trips exploring other sought-after ski fields in Europe, including Flims, Andermatt and Zermatt in Switzerland, and the Dolomites in Italy.

Yvonne says the Ski Buzz philosophy is about sharing the exhilaration of a great day skiing with old and new friends while enhancing the experience beyond the slopes. It also encompasses all of Y Travel’s distinctive Y Factors… of course.

“Our Ski Buzz trips always involve little elements of surprise – which ties in nicely with one of our Y Factors, ‘the unexpected’ – and of course, we like to showcase the local cuisine or the ever-popular ‘taste’ factor.”