A Brisbane nurse who spent more than four decades putting others first is about to take the trip of a lifetime after being selected as the winner of Intrepid Travel’s Golden Gap Year campaign.
Yvonne Reynolds, 59, was chosen from more than 2,800 entries to receive a travel experience valued at up to $100,000 plus $25,000 in flights and a full year of Intrepid experiences designed around her own pace and interests.
Ms Reynolds, who currently holds three nursing roles across a boys school, a children’s hospital and a doctor’s surgery, said a health scare last year had prompted her to rethink her priorities.
“I’ve served the community for 41 years. While I love each and every moment, last year I had a health scare that made me rethink what I want to spend more of my time doing. Having a gap year to follow my dreams would just be incredible,” Ms Reynolds said.
Originally from South Africa, where travel was not always accessible during apartheid, Ms Reynolds moved to Australia in her twenties and raised two children as a single parent while building her nursing career.
Zoë Tostevin, Intrepid Travel ANZ General Manager PR and Communications, said the campaign had uncovered a broader shift in how Australians were thinking about later-life travel.
“We saw a really strong response from people who have spent so much of their lives focused on work, family or other responsibilities and are now thinking about what travel could look like for them,” Ms Tostevin said.
The campaign was underpinned by research finding 80 per cent of Australians aged 55 and over never took a traditional gap year, with one in five saying they still regret it.
Across its one-month run, it generated more than 300 pieces of media coverage and $180,000 in attributed revenue.
Ms Reynolds will work with an Intrepid sales consultant to design her year of travel from the company’s range of more than 900 small-group trips worldwide.
