Born in Giubiasco, Traversi was encouraged by her father, a musician, and started singing with an orchestra in the mid-1950s, including with the orchestra of the Italian language Swiss radio channel. In 1956, she took part in the Swiss selection for the first Eurovision Song Contest, but "Bandanelle Ticinese" was not chosen. In 1959, Traversi obtained a recording contract in Italy, and went on to record a number of songs with Adriano Celentano, including the top 10 hit "Piccola". Anita Traversi represented Switzerland at several Song Festivals in the world with great success, as the Sopot International Song Festival (Poland), Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), "Golden Orpheus" (Bulgaria). She appeared to the Song Festival in Sopot twice, first in 1962 with a song "Una certa sera" (A.Scotti) and with a Polish song "Jesienna rozłąka" ("Dis-moi, dis-moi") (Gert-Brok). She was awarded with the First Prize for best performance. In 1968, she was in Sopot for the second time singing for Switzerland. In "Polish Day" she performed a Polish song "Odra rzeka"("Odra") (Pałasz-Fiszer) and this time she was placed second after Annarita Spinaci (Italy). During the festival she performed a fantastic song "Balalaika" which was one of the favourites of that festival. In 1970 she was one of the big stars at "Golden Orpheus" in Bulgaria with a great performance of the Bulgarian song "Edna bylgarska roza" ("One Bulgarian rose"). And in Rio de Janeiro she was among the rewarded singers too.