TRANSFORMATION THROUGH TRAVEL
How A Wellness Tour Operator Sold Out Retreat Bookings 2021-2022
A few weeks ago, Run Wild Retreats, a US-based wellness tour operator and YouLi client, has announced 2021 to be the BIGGEST year in group
Why We Offer Free Travel Website To All YouLi Customers
A few years ago we’ve launched YouLi booking software and we found a lot of our clients would come to us and say “Awesome! I
Retreat Planner 2021 Success Story
Nick Vannello is a US based business and life coach with a wide community around his branded GoNaked Magazine and regular community events. In January
How Our Travel Startup Turned To The Community And Thrived Through The Pandemic
The travel industry has started its fall into the pandemic in the beginning of 2020. In March, the YouLi team decided to launch biweekly discussions
How To Monetize On Affiliate Links & Get More Bookings in 2021
Tour operators often underestimate the power that analytics and affiliate links. They don’t realize how they help attract more bookings. We recently ran a YouLi
Increase Profit By Offering Packages On Your Retreats
Smart travel management software makes the life of a retreat planner less stressful and helps you save time by applying automation, so you can focus
“A New Dawn in Travel” with The Transformational Travel Council
Speaking to our group from a log cabin in the woods of Washington, where they go to create, innovate and hang out, co-founders of the
Student Travel Must Go Digital
It is predicted that student travel will be among the first segments of the tourism industry to restart, yet the lockdown demonstrated many weaknesses of
Getaboutable: Launching Niche Travel Marketplace Despite The Travel Ban
On September 3, 2020 Dr Yasmine Gray, the founder of Getaboutable.com, a social enterprise focused on improving travel and leisure options for people with disabilities,
4 Tips To Help You Market Group Trips After The Pandemic
Since the beginning of global quarantine, the YouLive To Travel team has been hosting weekly online workshops for travel entrepreneurs and niche tour operators from
Does The Payment Platform Hold Money For Your Bookings?
When choosing the best tour operator software, consider a payment processing system it uses, and what became especially relevant due to the events of 2020
4 TIPS On Choosing The Best Online Booking System For Your Travel Company
As a tour operator, trip planner, or a retreat organizer committed to recovering post-covid, you need to the technology to gain resilience and recover fast.
Liability Insurance: Should Travel Planners Update Terms & Conditions Post-Covid19?
We have invited Sean Bemrose, Managing Director of an Australian insurance brokerage, to discuss the changing environment of the travel insurance world and covid19 related
Comparing Leading Travel Software: YouLi, WeTravel, Group Desk, Retreat Guru, Rezdy, MTrip, Vamoos
We compared key features for the leading travel booking, itinerary and travel document software providers: YouLi, WeTravel, Group Desk, Retreat Guru, Rezdy, MTrip, and Vamoos.
Get Paid Fast: 5 Questions To Start Taking Bookings Post-Covid (no developer required)
If you take bookings for trips or retreats you design, you have a few options to accept your traveler bookings. You could do it the
Wait for Rebound or Run Virtual Experiences – or both?
The world is reeling, but it feels like we’ve gotten a moment to catch our breath after the initial shock. If you aren’t on the
Travel Outlook and How Organizers Are Preparing For Recovery
Our Community Meetups with travel organizers around the world opened up a valuable discussion around best practices and recovery strategies from this unprecedented time. Outlook
Surfing the Wave of Covid-19 in South America
Two weeks ago, I boarded a flight for Argentina. I chose to go after proper consideration of the risks which I blogged about here: Why
Why I’m Still Traveling During a Global Pandemic
Despite the coronavirus risks, I’m still getting on a plane this week I’m one of those lucky people who has arranged my life around travel.
Tech-Free Immersive Group Trips: Is This The Future of Transformational Travel?
The YouLi team just came back from a travel networking event organized by the Transformational Travel Council (TTC), “a coalition of businesses & organizations who
Best Group Travel Apps (Besides YouLi) – Online & Offline
After spending the BEST 8 days in Morocco with my closest girlfriends for an epic Bachelorette party, I’ve got fresh experience with the best group
Seven Moments We Did Not Expect in 2019
2019 was a surprising year for the team at YouLive to Travel. We are a global team, but our development team is based in Melbourne,
Starting Your Travel Business In 5 Steps
If you are on the path of a travel entrepreneur, we welcome you with the community guidance and 5 simple steps to avoid common mistakes
How To Create A Travel Website With YouLi
You have several amazing group trips planned. Now you need to turn those itineraries into online travel brochures and start promoting your trips online. YouLi
The World Needs Travel to Change
Travel has beeen changing the world for centuries. Since ancient times, travel has connected civilizations and made each of them better because of that contact. So
What Software Do I Need to Organize Group Trips – Guide For “Non-Techie” Trip Leaders
When you organize 2+ group trips a year, managing emails, spreadsheets, and PDFs becomes a hassle. Choosing the right software to help you prepare and
Integrate with Website for Group Travel Business
As a group travel business there are so many tools available to make you more productive. You need to use and integrate the best tools
3 Questions To Help You Choose The Best Group Travel Platform
As a business owner, you know every itinerary can be continuously optimized, fine-tuned, and improved, but it comes at the price of interruptions, time wasted,
The Future of Group Travel is CUSTOMIZATION
What does Customized Itinerary look like? Every traveler goes through their transformational journey, but what does it take to organize extraordinary experience for a group
Transformational Travel – Founder Story
In the end the trip was better than I could have dreamed even when things didn’t go to plan. I encourage everyone about to embark on a new venture to test with a friendly audience and challenge themselves to do the impossible, it makes you feel like you can do anything, and that’s transformational travel.
Scaling Group Travel Business
You created an itinerary for another destination, and it went well as well. Your travelers are highly satisfied and keep asking for more adventures. You know you need to grow and do it fast, but thoughts of doing it manually one trip at a time makes your head spin, so what do you do?
Well, here are some expert tips from successful group leaders in YouLi community.
Passion-Driven Entrepreneurs Need Community
Entrepreneurship is creative, and it’s harsh. No matter what you do, no matter who or where you are, you’re always in a non-stop brainstorm mode. Ideas come,
5 Tips for Group Travel Organizers To Stand Out
When we speak to our community of group travel organizers we find that the common theme is the challenge of delivering the right customer experience. They know that people can go elsewhere to just book travel. So what does it take to stand apart and deliver that unique travel experience?
Make Good Data Choices – Data Privacy Day – 2019
Today is Data Privacy Day, some say it is a day to mourn the loss of our privacy. But we take it as a day of pride to be part of the growing movement of companies that are responsible stewards of customer data.
More than a Booking Platform
We know organizing groups to travel is challenging work; whether you’re a professional or amateur, whether you’re working with an agent, booking independently, or you are an agent. That’s why YouLi is so much more than a booking platform.
Who’s your Group Leader?
We’ve discovered that because travel has become so much more accessible, passionate Group Leaders are able to create trips for the groups that matter to them, to travel for the causes and destinations that give them purpose. That’s why we built YouLi.
“Find people, Break rules” – Travel that Transforms
So much in the travel industry is transactional when it could be transformational; with the right awareness applied. We call this “responsible travel” and people like Max and Jeremy show us how they are responsible travellers that have a global impact.
Experiential Learning Travel – TribesforGOOD
Mandeep Kaur, is the founder and Program Director of TribesforGOOD and she’s eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first eight participants on their new “social impact journey” this November. The program complements their volunteering programs and is designed for those who are just starting out on their exploration of social impact as a career.
New Feature: Custom Quotes & Templates
YouLi is already the perfect platform to make group trip management easier. But we know that not all trips require communication with multiple people. Sometimes you need to coordinate with a single person to establish the overall plan before you get the rest of the group on board.
If you’re a Travel Agent that creates unique itineraries for groups, but find that quite often people want basically the same thing with a few modifications, then YouLi Quotes is the tool for you. Take advantage of the power of templates without being locked in for the final itinerary.
3 Essentials when Organising a Trip to The Ashes
The next Ashes is August 2019. That’s just under a year away, plenty of time to properly organise your group. But only if you’re taking advantage of all that time to properly herd the cats, err, players.
Here are 3 key aspects you’ll want to stay on top of to ensure you’re not stressed out and can enjoy the tour yourself.
Mindful Travel – Wherever you go, there you are
There is a lot of travel out there that is all about escape rather than travel with purpose. It is a denial of the life you are living and attempt to “get away”. This kind of travel leaves you dreading the return home. And while a mindful travel experience should leave you sad to say farewell, it should also leave you changed in a way that makes the return journey one that you welcome. Because you can take the things you learned while you were away and apply them in your life, whether you enjoy group travel or solo travel, travel should transform.
Travel That Transforms
What is Transformational Travel to you? Do you prefer to be independent? Guided? In a Group? If you’re afraid to be challenged, it probably means it’s time to be challenged. Next trip allow yourself to be changed and come home knowing more than when you left; about yourself, about others, about the world.
3 Tips for Organizing Group Travel
Group travel and planning group trips is a challenging yet rewarding task for group leaders. We are the people who love to pull people together to have experiences that wouldn’t happen on their own. I’ve heard many horror stories and many triumphant stories of trips gone wrong and trips gone epic. So here’s a few tips I’ve picked up along the way.
WordPress Plugin – Embed your Collection
We’ve made it easy to embed your public trips via our WordPress Plugin. Every premium client gets their own collection of listed trips available under ‘My Marketplace’ from the Planner dashboard. This means you don’t have to duplicate the content from your trip, simply embed the content you’ve already entered. Travelers can see all your listed trips, select the one that is right for them and click through to the YouLive to Travel Page. From there they can express interest, pay their deposit and ultimately experience the transformational experience you deliver.
I was about to build my own…then I discovered YouLi
We know travel businesses don’t want to worry about the Tech. They want to focus on the trips. It takes a lot of energy to keep a site running smoothly and we love doing it, so our clients can focus on creating unique travel experiences.
7 Reasons You Should Stop Using Spreadsheets for Travel Planning
Even if you excel at spreadsheets (sorry, we couldn’t help ourselves) the reality is that they’re holding you back. If you’re planning and managing travel
Being a Group Leader is Challenging, but so Worth It
Leading groups is challenging, but like so many challenges, it is incredibly rewarding. Group leaders know the way and dream of leading others on transformational travel; to see the joy on their faces when they get there.
Today I’d like to highlight an incredible duo, Brigitte Muir and Juliette Robertson, creators of the transformational Women 4 Women Walking Retreat in Nepal – November 2018. Brigitte was the first Australian woman to summit Everest.
Still using Spreadsheets for Trip Planning?
Spreadsheets are amazing, that’s why they are used to manage things they were never meant for, including Trip Planning. And that’s why no one reads your detailed Trip spreadsheet. After you’ve spent hours perfecting the plan, you should have an easy way to create a visually appealing version of that plan for your group. Welcome to YouLi, as in, YouLive to Travel.
Data Privacy is a Good Thing
For those of you who fall asleep as soon as GDPR appears in the subject line, all you need to know is that you have to ensure you are compliant, but YouLi is here to assist you by providing the functionality required for your processes to be compliant.
Wonderlust Collective: Exploring the Natural World
With an Instagram feed that boasts nearly 140K followers and is filled with travel imagery that makes you gasp, YouLi was thrilled to collaborate with Wonderlust Collective. Their founder, Carlos Loya, and I talk all things travel, photography, and what it means to feel dwarfed by the overwhelming beauty of nature.
Transformational Expeditions with Adventure Awake
“I was successful in my 20’s despite my childhood. However, I am successful in my 30’s because of my childhood.” Antesa, founder of Adventure Awake used YouLi to systematize the experiences that are essential pieces of an Adventure Awake expedition – all in one tool.
Turn An Idea into a Trip – in 12 Minutes
“Ah-hah, that’s what we need, an adult field trip for immigrant citizens to catch up on their missed grade 6 lesson!” With names of grade 6 teachers to contact bouncing across the table, I was inspired to make this happen. So as I sat waiting for the 96 tram, instead of being disappointed by the 12 minutes displayed on the screen, I pulled out my phone and logged into YouLi.
Group Trips with The Hacker Exchange
Stories from the Road Series: The Hacker Exchange needed help managing trips for 18-25 aspiring entrepreneurs traveling to Silicon Valley for two inspiring weeks. Their itinerary while in Silicon Valley included a packed schedule of workshops from world-class thought leaders, talks with founders and mentors, meet-ups, and VIP access to some of the freshest businesses and co-working spaces in the Valley.
Trip documents – All in One Place
YouLi Tasks can provide documents to download and require your travelers to upload. You can collect any document you need with automatic permission controls. No need to mess around with Google Drive permissions, simply assign tasks and know that both you and your traveler can see the right documents.
Thrive Global Feature – Founder Story
Interview by Yitzi Weiner A “Positive” Influencer, Editor of Authority Magazine, CEO of Thought Leader Incubator Read full Thrive Global article here. I had the
CASE STUDY: Photo Workshop
The water can be freezing, there are snakes, spiders, waterfalls, slippery rocks, and steep ascents at the end of it all. But the thrill of challenging yourself and exploring places that few others dare to tread and bringing back photographic trophies makes the canyoning and photo workshop totally worth it.
The Surprising Life of a Travel Director
“You have to be game for anything” to do this job. If you can roll with the issues, adapt to the situation and maintain a custom service orientation then you’ll do great. For Gracie the pros outweigh the cons so far. She knows that she will always have a place in the Travel Director world now – even if she needs to take a break for other things and come back to it. Would you want to be a TD? Why or why not?
#DeleteFacebook – use YouLi to plan your trips
The next time you’re planning a trip, instead of setting up a facebook group, create a YouLi Travel Page and keep track of everything in one place, where you control your data and your travelers don’t need an account to stay informed.
YouLi Planner Personalities
YouLi is for all kinds of trip planners. So what kind of Planner Personality are you? PIONEER, EXPLORER, GUIDE or PRO?
Human Curated Experience vs. Algorithms
‘Wait – let me Google that!’ We are all used to hearing these words uttered across the dinner table in response to some question, debate
Celebrating Individuality: Why Travel Organizers Should Offer Customizable Itineraries
Group travel can be a gorgeous opportunity for intrepid adventurers to connect. Whether its women finding those safety in numbers as they trek the Atlas
4 Things To Consider When Managing Group Travel Payments
How to best manage payments when dealing with a group of travelers? From deposits and payment plans to custom invoicing, here are four things you need to think about.
Lessons from limit breaking female founders
Recognised as one of the top 99 limit breaking female founders Jennifer Fein, Co-Founder and CEO shared her lessons creating YouLi.
We take care of the Tech
As we’ve evolved with our clients, we find they all love that using YouLi means they don’t have to worry about: Security – SSL and software
YouLi makes her debut
This launch is for the destination wedding planners, the retreat organizers, the adventure group leaders, and those who want to share their travel experiences in a beautiful format that others want to experience – for any purpose!
💦Unsplash or use your own 📷; Choose wisely
Next week we will be on-boarding those of you who signed up to see what we are all about. We release improvements every week and
Getting to the top is all about who goes with you
Kilimanjaro is the most climbable tall mountain in the world. Adventure travelers will enjoy the challenge, for some it can be life changing.
❄︎ We are all unique snowflakes ❄︎
You can now track payments made elsewhere (along with payments online) & specify a different cost for each traveler 💵 all in one place Whether
Why would anyone climb Kilimanjaro?
We are 8 climbers, who love adventure travel, but each one of us is climbing for our own reasons. Over the next two months, we will be sharing what motivates us to get out of our comfort zones and touch the roof of Africa.
End of Fiscal Year 2017 – Bring on FY18!
his year we did a successful pilot with Seek Learning , we launched our MVP, went through One Roof Plus accelerator and signed up clients that share our vision. I’m so lucky to have a dedicated product team that makes this all happen.
Kilimanjaro – Climb the Lemosho Route
Lemosho is the longest and most remote route to the summit of Kilimanjaro. After beautiful forests and moorlands it crosses the Shira Plateau to meet up with the Machame Route. The extra 2 days over the standard climb gives our group a much better chance of making it to the summit AND means we get a more enjoyable route.
Where the magic happens
“The magic happens outside your comfort zone” We’ve all seen the diagram and heard someone exclaim at the power of “getting outside your comfort zone”.
How to Gather a Group to Climb Kilimanjaro
As an example on how to use YouLi to gather a group for Adventure Travel, we are managing a trip to Tanzania this year.
YouLi Travel under One Roof
Today I was invited to chat about my experiences as a founder with Sheree Rubinstein the founder of One Roof in Melbourne, a co-working space for female led businesses. We are still early on our journey, but it’s great to be able to look back proudly on the last year and recognize how far we’ve come.
Get Inspired
5 close friends spread across the globe are taking this opportunity to come together and get away and reconnecting in a supportive and restorative environment.
YouLi Team
The magic of organizing your epic destination within an easy to use and friendly web app doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a dedicated team of experts to create software that is beautiful and functional.
Dreams for 2017
I have many dreams for where YouLi will end up, but it has already taken me farther than I ever imagined. My name is Jennifer Fein, and I am a Digital Nomad & Product Manager & Startup Founder & Traveller & Planner.
Plans are Worthless
I’m a planner, so I can totally appreciate the need to feel in control of what is coming, especially when a special destination event is coming up.
Building Beta & Climbing Kili
After two successful trips managed on our alpha version of YouLi, one Wedding and one Corporate event, we’ve decided to relaunch early 2017 with our Beta version.
Why YouLi?
Why YouLi? I have no shortage of people who want to join when I plan a trip, because they know I’ll do all the planning. They count on me, and I needed a tool I could count on.
Confidence Delivered – SEEK Learning
Imagine this: you’ve got a few months and a fixed budget to deliver an internal company conference for about 150 people. You’ve got half the employees local to Melbourne and half travelling in from Sydney.
Planning an Epic Destination Wedding
When we started planning 2 years ago, YouLi didn’t exist, so I decided to create it, or at least part of it. The vision: create a platform that allowed me to communicate with my guests about what they were getting into and allow them to create customised itineraries from the options I provided.
