Rising Stars: Meet Vanessa Rivers

Today we’d like to introduce you to Vanessa Rivers.

Hi Vanessa, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself
I’ve always been an entrepreneur. At eight years old I started my first “company” selling handmade puff paint t-shirts. In college I started my private surf lesson company SurfLesssonsWithVanessa.com, and after graduation I launched an eco-bikini line made out of recycled fishing nets – SummerLoveSwimwear.com. In 2012 I began travel blogging, documenting my adventures on GlitterandMud.com which eventually led to launching WeAreTravelGirls.com – a travel community created to inspire, connect, educate and empower female travelers. My business partner Becky van Dijk and I launched We Are Travel Girls in 2016 and since it has become a popular go-to resource for female travelers around the world.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road at all. There have been a lot of ups and downs. I have made so many mistakes along the way, there have been many failures and a I have learned the hard way many times. The most important thing I have learned though is never give up. If you want something bad enough you will find a way to make it happen!

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m an entrepreneur so I do an array of things and run several different companies. I guess first and foremost I think of myself as a travel writer and an advocate for sustainability. So let me tell you a bit about my eco swimwear line first… SUMMER LOVE SWIMWEAR® is an environmentally and ethically conscious swimwear line that blends fashion-forward designs with luxe eco fabrics to create swimsuits that are fun, flirty, and affordable. Born from my passion for surfing and love of travel, I was inspired to create SUMMER LOVE SWIMWEAR after years spent searching the globe for swimsuits that used sustainable materials but still looked luxe. When I started sketching designs for my line in 2009, most of the eco swimwear brands that I saw were not functional or stylish and I began to realize that there was a void in the market. I wanted to create swimwear that is chic and affordable, allowing women to buy green and still look gorgeous.

Designed and manufactured in California, SUMMER LOVE SWIMWEAR features a range of mix and match separates made exclusively from a sustainable swimwear fabric made with ECONYL®, a 100% recycled fiber that’s made from pre and post-consumer materials such as discarded fishing nets recovered by the Healthy Seas initiative. Every year, around 640,000 tons of fishing gear is lost or left in the ocean. The gear traps, injures, and kills hundreds of thousands of sea animals. Abandoned fish nets, known as ‘ghost nets’, are usually lost in storms, snagged on reefs or tangled when boats operate in crowded waters. But the Healthy Seas Initiative has given these nets a second life. Working with local fishermen, they retrieve the nets and instead of sending them to a landfill, they partner with a textiles company who use them to produce a recycled nylon called ECONYL®.

This recycled material is then used to make a number of products like our eco swimwear. Another company I am really proud of is our travel community – We Are Travel Girls. We Are Travel Girls is a global travel community created to inspire, connect, educate and empower female travelers around the world. I met Becky van Dijk in London in 2015 and we became fast friends. We immediately bonded over a mutual love for travel and decided to come together to create a community to inspire women to get out of their comfort zone and see the world! At the time we met there were no travel community blogs that consistently shared travel articles from women around the world. So, we decided to create a website (WeAreTravelGirls.com) to promote female travel bloggers and bring together women from all around the globe, publishing five new, authentic, travel articles every week. Since We Are Travel Girls launched in 2016 we have expanded our brand to host events and meet-ups all over the world, curate bespoke luxury women’s only trips through Travel Girls Getaways, and proudly launched the charity branch of our company to give back through Travel Girls Giving.

If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
I am big picture person and a believer. I dream big and I am stubborn and I refuse to give up – often to my own detriment but sometimes to my benefit.

Contact Info:

• Email: vanessamrivers@gmail.com
• Website: https://www.glitterandmud.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vanessarivers/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SurfwithVanessaRivers
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/VanessaRivers
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/GlitterandMudTV
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/surf-with-vanessa-rivers-santa-barbara
• Other: https://www.summerloveswimwear.com