Today we’d like to introduce you to Vanessa Rivers
Hi Vanessa, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
My love affair with traveling and surfing began at 15. A friend invited me on her family vacation to San Jose del Cabo. It was on this Mexico trip, that I caught my first wave and fell instantly in love with surfing. In my twenties I was a broke surfer girl chasing waves (and boys). My love of surfing led me around the world on some of my greatest adventures, sleeping in hostels, on friend’s couches, and sometimes sleeping in my surfboard bag on the beach. Through surfing, I fell for the other great love of my life – travel.
I began my career as a travel writer in 2012. I was in my late twenties and was dating a man from Chicago who moved to London for work. We were already doing long distance, him living in NYC and me living in Santa Barbara. So I decided to pack up my apartment, live out of a suitcase, and spend as much time in London as my tourist visa would allow – 6 months a year.
I grew up on a rural farm on the Central Coast of California. Most of my childhood adventures revolved around motor home trips with my family across the United States. We rarely flew and never traveled internationally so it was a huge leap of faith for me to move across the world for love. No one believed it would work (not even the guy I was dating), but I didn’t see it that way. I saw it as a once in a lifetime opportunity that could become an amazing adventure!
Three years later I began working on a travel company that would change my life forever. Founded in 2016, We Are Travel Girls is a community created to inspire, connect, educate, and empower female travelers. WeAreTravelGirls.com was built by women for women and is a leading website for female travel advice, tips, and inspiration and a go-to resource for adventure lovers around the world. With over 4 million tags to #WeAreTravelGirls, our popular feature account, @WeAreTravelGirls, has become synonymous with independent, adventure loving women.
Since its launch, we have expanded our brand to host events and meet ups in cities around the globe, curate luxury women’s group trips through Travel Girls Getaways, and give back through Travel Girls Giving. With new, authentic travel articles published every week, our community of over 9 million readers continues to grow and inspire travelers to step out of their comfort zones and embark on their own exciting adventures!
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
As with most startups, there have been a multitude of challenges along the way. We launched We Are Travel Girls in June of 2016. I gave birth to my daughter, Sadie, the the following year in May of 2017. At the time she was born me and my business partner were both working full time (10+ hour days) on We Are Travel Girls. This workload was impossible for me to maintain with a newborn. This put a huge strain on the company’s trajectory and my relationship with my business partner, and ultimately lead to us parting ways in 2023.
Like many travel companies, the pandemic also crushed us. In April 2020, Forbes published an article titled, “How We Are Travel Girls Built A Six-Fugure Empire.” The next week, we had to have a heartbreaking meeting to accept that virtually over night, We Are Travel Girls had become almost worthless. Just like that everything we worked so hard for was gone. Eventually, (thanks in part to our low overhead), the company was able to bounce back – but it took years.
As you know, we’re big fans of We Are Travel Girls. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
We Are Travel Girls is a global community and website created to inspire, connect, educate, and empower female travelers. We partner with iconic brands in the travel space such as Google, Pepsi Group, Four Seasons, Mandarin Oriental, 1 Hotels, TUMI, Kayak, Alaska Airlines and Sports Illustrated, consistently delivering high-quality campaigns across our platforms. Articles published on We Are Travel Girls are read by millions of travelers and often rank on page 1 of Google searches. Our work has been featured in Forbes, NY Times, Harper’s Bazaar, Marie Claire, Sports Illustrated, NY Magazine, CNN, FOX, Oprah and more. We use our platform to elevate and promote travel writers and female travelers around the world.
What matters most to you?
My biggest goal is the be able to use We Are Travel Girls to give back. One of the ways we are doing this is through our impact trips. In 2017, we launched our tour company, Travel Girls Getaways, which curates and hosts affordable luxury women’s group trips to incredible destinations around the world. Malawi is one of the destinations we’ve visited where I know We Are Travel Girls has been able to make a meaningful, positive impact on the local communities. We will be hosting our third Malawi Safari & Impact Trip Nov 2-10th, 2025.
Voted one of the top 50 places to visit in 2020 by Travel + Leisure, on our Malawi trip guests will enjoy a three-day safari adventure, immerse themselves in the local culture, take part in community fundrasing and inspiring mentoring work for a local school, and disconnect and relax with a two-day digital detox on idyllic Mumbo Island (a private island that was named Sunday Times’ Top 100 Places to Stay in 2017). This expedition is aimed at ladies wanting to give back, travel with a purpose, and discover a little known slice of Africa. If you are interest in joining us on our next Malawi adventure you can find all the details on our Travel Girls Getaways site (https://getaways.wearetravelgirls.com/malawi-2/).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wearetravelgirls.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearetravelgirls
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wearetravelgirls
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/WeAreTravelGirls
- Other: https://getaways.wearetravelgirls.com
Image Credits
All these photos are mine
