Youmin Yap

Youmin is a certified Forest Therapy Guide and Senior Trainer with the Association of Nature and Forest Therapy. As a pioneer forest therapy guide in Southeast Asia, she has been practising full-time since late 2017 and has led thousands of people – both local and international, on these nature-based wellbeing experiences. She knows and embodies the essences of the work in heart, body and mind. Together with her professional and academic backgrounds grounded in Science, she excels in navigating the worlds of quantification and logic, and that of the subtler arts of wellbeing and intuition.

Youmin founded Forest with You (formerly known as Xiu Nature Connections) in 2017, an award-winning wellbeing entity based in Singapore that trailblazed urban-based forest therapy. Forest therapy is one of the signature programmes, and the innovative and collaborative ways of bringing that into urban landscapes and urban nature have conferred Forest with You the prestigious Singapore Tourism Board Awards 2023 and 2024: Outstanding Wellness Experience awards.

Her extensive forest therapy guiding experience includes working with brands, corporations, senior executives and C-suites, cancer survivors and patients, schools and youths etc.  Her clients and partners include Aberdeen Standard Investments, Deloitte & Touche,  Johnson & Johnson, LVMH, Microsoft, Spotify, Vacheron Constantin, various public and private schools, Singapore Cancer Society, Far East Hospitality, Mandai Wildlife Group, Yeo Boon Khim Mind Science Centre and more.

Youmin has also been a guest speaker or presenter for several forest therapy-related local and international seminars, conferences and talks, and contributed the article “Urban Forest Therapy in Singapore” on the invite of the National Parks Board, Singapore.

As a forest therapy trainer, Youmin has trained 18 cohorts and more than 400 forest therapy guides from the Asia-Pacific region and around the world. Her deep connection to this body of work has also led her to continue to train and develop in the role of an ANFT Trail, Space, Place Certification Consultant

Academically trained in plant and science research, as well as education, Youmin holds the degree of Master of Science (Life Sciences) by research from the National University of Singapore. She is also a qualified educator, a Certified Shinrin-yoku International Instructor (INFOM) and a Certified Yoga Teacher (YTT200). She is further trained in yoga nidra/sleep meditation and mindfulness. She carries into each training and project a down-to-earth attitude, balancing mind and heart, science and art, rational and mystical.

Fluent in English and Mandarin, Youmin is also one of the few ANFT Trainers who trailblazed the training in Mainland China starting in 2026.

Youmin is grateful she has found forest therapy (or forest therapy has found her!) and opened the doors for her to being more human. She is honored to deepen in this journey through supporting others along their guiding paths. Youmin is currently based in Singapore and Thailand. When not guiding, teaching or managing the business, Youmin loves spending quiet time in nature for her own self-care, traveling and exploring the small and big fascinations in our wonder-full world.