Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards


The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards celebrate the best travel writing and travel writers in the world. The awards include the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year and the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing.
The Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year was previously called Dolman Best Travel Book Award. The award is named after Edward Stanford and is sponsored by Stanfords, a travel books and map store established in London in 1853. The Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year is one of the two principal annual travel book awards in Britain, and the only one that is open to all writers. The other award is that made each year by the British Guild of Travel Writers, but that is limited to authors who are members of the Guild.
The first Dolman award was given in 2006, just two years after the only other travel book award - the Thomas Cook Travel Book Award which ran for 25 years - was abandoned by its sponsor. From its founding through 2014, the £1,000 to £2,500 prize was organized by the Authors' Club and was sponsored by and named after club member William Dolman. Beginning in 2015, a new sponsor Stanfords, a travel book store, was established along with an increase to £5,000 for the winner.
WWW Official Site

List of awards

The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards consist of the following:
  • Stanford Travel Book of the Year
  • Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing
  • Bradt Travel Guides New Travel Writer of the Year
  • Children's Travel Book of the Year
  • Fiction with a Sense of Place
  • Adventure Travel Book of the Year
  • Travel Memoir of the Year
  • Travel Blog of the Year
  • Photography and Illustrated Travel Book of The Year
  • Food & Travel Book of the Year
  • Innovation in Travel Publishing
  • New Travel Writer of the Year

Stanford Travel Book of the Year

= winner
"Stanford Travel Book of the Year":
2025
  • Noo Saro-Wiwa, Black Ghosts: A Journey Into The Lives Of Africans In China
  • Clare Hammond, On the Shadow Tracks: A Journey through Occupied Myanmar
  • Tom Chesshyre, Slow Trains to Istanbul:...And Back: A 4,570-Mile Adventure on 55 Rides
  • James Rebanks, The Place of Tides
  • Phoebe Smith, Wayfarer
  • Jeff Young, Wild Twin
2024
2023
  • Silvia Vasquez-Lavado, In The Shadow of the Mountain
  • Alex Bescoby, The Last Overland: Singapore to London: The Return Journey of the Iconic Land Rover Expedition
  • Erika Fatland, High: A Journey Across the Himalayas Through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and China
  • Tobias Jones, The Po: An Elegy for Italy’s Longest River
  • Rebecca Lowe, The Slow Road to Tehran: A Revelatory Bike Ride through Europe and the Middle East
  • Shafik Meghji, Crossed Off the Map: Travels in Bolivia
  • Alice Morrison, Walking with Nomads
  • Mary Novakovich, My Family and Other Enemies: Life and Travels in Croatia’s Hinterland
"Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year":
2022
2021
  • Paolo Cognetti, Without Ever Reaching the Summit: A Himalayan Journey
  • Erika Fatland, The Border: A Journey Around Russia Through North Korea, China, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Norway, and the Northeast Passage
  • Taran Khan, Shadow City: A Woman Walks Kabul
  • Nanjala Nyabola, Traveling While Black: Essays Inspired by a Life on the Move
  • Jini Reddy, Wanderland: A Search for Magic in the Landscape
  • Sophy Roberts, The Lost Pianos of Siberia
  • C J Schuler, Along the Amber Route: St Petersburg to Venice
  • Jonathan C Slaght, Owls of the Eastern Ice: The Quest to Find and Save the World's Largest Owl
2020
2019
  • William Atkins, The Immeasurable World: Journeys in Desert Places
  • Ben Coates, The Rhine: Following Europe's Greatest River from Amsterdam to the Alps
  • Damian Le Bas, The Stopping Places: A Journey Through Gypsy Britain
  • Alev Scott, Map and Illustration by Jamie Whyte, Ottoman Odyssey: Travels Through a Lost Empire
  • Witold Szablowski, Dancing Bears: True Stories about Longing for the Old Days
  • Daniel Trilling, Lights in the Distance: Exile and Refuge at the Borders of Europe
2018
2017 no award
2016
2015
"Dolman Best Travel Book Award":
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
2006

Edward Stanford Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing award

A lifetime achievement award for travel writing.

Fiction with a Sense of Place

Children's Travel Book of the Year

  • 2024: Mya-Rose Craig, Flight: Explore the secret routes of the skies from a bird’s-eye view…
  • 2023: Hannah Gold The Lost Whale
  • 2022: Zillah Bethell, The Shark Caller
  • 2021: no award
  • 2020: Chloe Daykin, Fire Girl, Forest Boy
  • 2019: Alastair Humphreys, Alastair Humphreys' Great Adventurers
  • 2018:: Katherine Rundell and illustrated by Hannah Horn, The Explorer
  • 2017: no award
  • 2016: Lucy Letherland, Rachel Williams & Emily Hawkins, ''Atlas of Animal Adventures''

Photographic Travel Book of the Year

  • 2024: no award
  • 2023: no award
  • 2022: Stuart Dunn, Only Us
  • 2021: no award
  • 2020: Sam Landers, Tom Maday, ''Trope London''

Illustrated Travel Book of the Year

  • 2024: no award
  • 2023: no award
  • 2022: Matt Brown, Rhys B. Davies, illustrated by Mike Hall, Atlas of Imagined Places: From Lilliput to Gotham City
  • 2021: no award
  • 2020: Travis Elborough, ''Atlas of Vanishing Places: The lost worlds as they were and as they are today''

Food & Drink Travel Book of the Year

New Travel Writer of the Year

Photography & Illustrated Travel Book of the Year

  • 2019: Huw Lewis-Jones, The Writer's Map: An Atlas of Imaginary Lands
  • 2018: Londonist Mapped by AA Publishing
  • 2017: no award
  • 2016: Malachy Tallack & Katie Scott, ''The Un-Discovered Islands''

Innovation in Travel Publishing

  • 2016: James Cheshire & Oliver Uberti, ''Where the Animals Go''

Travel Memoir of the Year

Adventure Travel Book of the Year

Travel Blog of the Year

  • 2019: no award
  • 2018: Dave McClane,
  • 2017: no award
  • 2016: Lauren Williams,