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Vanessa Karel

@vkarel

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👩🏻‍💻VC backed Travel Founder @greet.her
📰seen in @fastcompany @forbes @incmagazine @usatoday
🏆 Most Influential Woman in Travel 2025
🌁 📍SF
💃🏻Flamenca

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We’re beyond proud! 💫 Our Founder & CEO, Vanessa Karel, has been named one of 2025’s Most Influential Women in Travel by @travelpulse ! ✈️🌍
This honor recognizes her mission to help women travel safely, while creating real economic impact for female guides in 100+ countries. 💪🏽👑
At Greether, we’re all about redefining travel for women — with safety, connection, and confidence at the core of every journey.
Congrats, Vanessa! And thank you @travelpulse & Mia Taylor for spotlighting this movement. 🙌
🔗 Link in bio to read the full article!

#womenintravel #travelsafety #womeninspiringwomen #femaleempowerement #femaletraveler #femaletravel #travel #travelgram taken in Worldwide by @vkarel

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2 years ago

✨ Greether Wins Startup Of The Year at #WTMLondon! ✨

A historic moment for our team and all women in tourism:

Greether has been awarded Startup of the Year at World Travel Market in London! 🏆

Led by our founder, @vkarel , we’ve shown that a proudly Latina, women-led company can transform the travel industry. 🌍

This win is more than just a title; it’s a step forward toward a world where women can travel safely, freely, and empowered. 🙌💪

Thank you to everyone who inspires and supports us in this mission.

🌟 Here’s to more milestones and let’s keep pushing for a world where we all feel safe and empowered to explore!
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#SafetyWomen #SoloFemaleTravel #Travel #TravelTips #Safety #GreeterTravel #WomenTravel #Viajeras #WorldTraveler #WomenTraveler #FemaleTravelApp #WomensSafety #WomensEmpowerment #FemaleTourGuide #Greeter #Greether #SeeHerThere #ExploreWithGreether #WomenInTravel #FemaleFounders #FemaleEmpowerment #Greether #WomenInTourism #wtmldn #wtm #wtmlondon taken in Worldwide by @vkarel

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2 years ago

the goal is to keep collecting places where we’ve kissed ♥️🇵🇫
#travelcouple #frenchpolynesia #borabora @fsborabora taken in Bora Bora, French Polynesian, Four Seasons Resort by @vkarel

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8 hours ago

En el evento realizado en el marco del Día Mundial del Turismo 2026, Vanessa Karel, fundadora y CEO de Greether, brindó unas palabras a Moraima Ruiz, presentadora del programa juvenil El Sótano.

#TNM #GMV by @vkarel

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7 days ago

Be delusional. Especially when your delusion is that women deserve to move through the world more safely, confidently, and freely.

Tomorrow, I get to take the stage with UN Tourism for World Tourism Day to talk about the work behind Greether, the future of travel, and how AI can help women travelers without replacing the human connection that makes travel meaningful.

What started as an idea has now grown into a platform operating across 130+ countries, connecting women travelers with verified local women and generating income for women around the world.

I’m proud of how far we’ve come, but even more proud of every woman who believed this needed to exist before the world fully understood it.

Sometimes the “delusional” idea is the one worth building. 💜🌍

#womentravel #greether #WorldTourismDay #WTD2026 #UNTourism taken in San Salvador, EL Salvador by @vkarel

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7 days ago

World Tourism Day is only 3 days away, and this year I’ll be celebrating it in El Salvador @gobierno_sv with @unwto , who invited me to speak about AI and the future of travel. 🌍🇸🇻

I’m so honored to represent women in travel, female travelers around the world, and something I believe deeply:

Technology should empower people, not replace them.

I built @greet.her Greether because I believed women deserved to navigate the world with more safety, confidence and human connection.

Today, that belief has grown into a community of 100,000+ women across 130+ countries. 🥹💖

AI can plan the trip.

But it can’t surprise you with chocolate because it learned it’s your birthday, wait until you’re safely on the right train, or make a new city feel a little more like home.

That’s the future of travel I want to keep building.

Still processing that I get to take this message to the World Tourism Day stage on Sunday. 🥹✨

See you in El Salvador. 🇸🇻 #WorldTourismDay #WTD2026 #UNTourism #WomenInTravel taken in San Salvador, EL Salvador by @vkarel

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9 days ago

You know what they say: it takes very little for a woman to be called “difficult,” right?

Well, if women before me hadn’t fought for our rights, I probably wouldn’t have even had the opportunity to sit on that stage.

And the work is still not done.

After this panel, some people came up to congratulate me for speaking up. Others had a very different interpretation of the woman who did.

The organizers later apologized, and I asked why there wasn’t a woman moderating. What struck me is that this wasn’t the first time I had raised this at WTM.

In 2024, when I pitched @greet.her , the judging panel was all men. I questioned it then too. Both times, two years apart, I was given essentially the same explanation: “The woman on the panel cancelled.”

I have no way of knowing what happened behind the scenes. But at an event of this magnitude, in an industry filled with extraordinary women executives, founders and leaders, I don’t think one woman cancelling should mean there simply isn’t another woman in the room.

And I say that as someone who genuinely loves World Travel Market. It is one of my favorite events in this industry.

But loving an institution doesn’t mean ignoring its gaps.

If being labeled a “difficult woman” makes it a little easier for the women who come after me to speak up, take their time, and occupy the space they earned, so be it.

These things can look small in isolation.

But they compound.

And just yesterday, António Guterres reminded the UN General Assembly that inequality between women and men remains one of the world’s most universal forms of inequality, while warning that women’s rights and voices are still being pushed backward.

His words were simple:

“Equality is not a dream. It is a decision.”
#genderequality #femalefounder #wtm #womenintravel #femalebusinessowner taken in London, United Kingdom by @vkarel

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11 days ago

Traveling solo as a woman? You don’t have to explore a new city completely alone. 💜

Greether connects female travelers with verified local women Greeter guides for personalized tours, local recommendations, and extra confidence while traveling.

CBS News Los Angeles recently featured Greether and spoke with our founder, one of our travelers, and one of our Greeter guides about how the platform works and why more women are looking for safer, more connected ways to travel.

Whether you’re planning a solo female trip, a girls’ trip, or visiting a destination for the first time, you can book a local woman who knows the city and can help you experience it beyond the usual tourist route.

Available in 130+ countries and 1,300+ cities worldwide.

Search your destination on Greether before your next trip. ✈️🌍

#SoloFemaleTravel #FemaleTravelers #WomenWhoTravel #womentravel #travelingwoman taken in San Francisco, California by @vkarel

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12 days ago

@greet.her Greether took 3rd place at HER Silicon Valley Pitch: AI Edition 🥉

Proud to be building a global travel-tech company using AI to help women move through the world with more safety, confidence, and access — while creating economic opportunities for local women across 130+ countries.

AI should scale human potential, not replace it.
That’s exactly what we’re building at Greether.

Founder mode: very much on. 💜
Huge thank you to @sisters_founders and @women_x_ai for creating a room where ambitious women could pitch, be challenged thoughtfully, and genuinely feel supported. Spaces like this matter, especially right now, when more women need to be building, funding, and shaping the next generation of AI.

#Greether #WomenInAI #FemaleFounder #TravelTech WomenFounder taken in Silicon Valley, California by @vkarel

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18 days ago

The world feels very different when you actually go out and meet the people in it. 💜🌍

Different languages, cultures, religions, traditions… and somehow, the more we travel, the more we realize how much we have in common.

We all want to feel safe. We all want to be happy. We all want to belong.

That’s one of the reasons Greether exists: to connect women travelers with verified local women around the world — creating safer, more personal experiences while supporting women locally.

Sometimes the best reminder that the world is still full of good people is simply to go see it. ✈️

#WomenWhoTravel #SoloFemaleTravel #FemaleTravel #womensupportwomen #womeninTravel taken in Marrakech, Morocco by @vkarel

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19 days ago

Tomorrow I’m taking the stage to pitch @greet.her at the HER Silicon Valley Pitch Competition: AI Edition. 🎤✨

I’m excited to be one of 9 founders selected to pitch in front of the Silicon Valley founder and investor community.

There’s a lot to fit into 3 minutes 😅 — but I’m especially excited to share where we’re taking Greether next: using AI to make travel for women more personalized, safer, and more connected, while continuing to create economic opportunities for local women around the world.

We’ve spent the last few years building Greether across 130+ countries and 1,300+ cities, and this next chapter is about making that global network even smarter and more scalable.

If you’re in the Bay Area, come cheer us on tomorrow! 💜

Thank you @women_x_ai and @sisters_founders for handing me the mic — and Jenny Kay Pollock, Assel Seitova and Reut Lazo for bringing this together.

Wish me luck. 🚀

#FemaleFounders #ArtificialIntelligence #TravelTech #WomenInTech #Startups taken in Silicon Valley, California by @vkarel

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20 days ago

Things that give me the ick as a female traveler ✈️

After years of solo female travel around the world, I’ve definitely developed a few travel icks:

Waiting for someone else to finally take the trip.
Only visiting the most popular destinations.
Skipping the local food.
Only planning girls trips around weddings or bachelorettes.
And traveling without looking for ways to support local women.

One of the biggest things I’ve learned from traveling as a woman is that the best experiences usually come from going beyond the obvious: meeting local people, trying local food, exploring lesser-known places, and finding ways to make your tourism dollars matter.

That’s also why I built Greether, a platform connecting female travelers with verified local women in 130+ countries, so women can explore with more confidence while directly supporting women in the destinations they visit. 💜

And yes, temporarily adopting the local cat is always encouraged. 😂

What’s your biggest travel ick?

#SoloFemaleTraveler #FemaleTraveler #WomenWhoTravel #SoloTravel #TravelTips by @vkarel

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