The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards comprises two principal awards the Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year and the Edward Stanford Award for Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing.
The award was previously called Dolman Best Travel Book Award (2006-2014). 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.
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Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year
2015
Philip Marsden, Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place
Helena Attlee, The Land Where Lemons Grow: The Story of Italy and Its Citrus Fruit
Horatio Clare, Down to the Sea in Ships: Of Ageless Oceans and Modern Men
Nick Hunt, Walking the Woods and the Water: In Patrick Leigh Fermor's footsteps from the Hook of Holland to the Golden Horn
Jens Mühling, A Journey into Russia
Elizabeth Pisani, Indonesia Etc: Exploring the Improbable Nation
Dolman Best Travel Book Award
2014
Oliver Bullough, The Last Man in Russia
Patrick Leigh Fermor, The Broken Road
Charlotte Higgins, Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain
Iain Sinclair, American Smoke
Sylvain Tesson, Consolations of the Forest: Alone in a Cabin in the Middle Taiga
Sara Wheeler, O My America!
2013
Noo Saro-Wiwa, Looking For Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria
Jeremy Seal, Meander: East to West Along a Turkish River
Kathleen Jamie, Sightlines
A. A. Gill, The Golden Door: Letters to America
Robert MacFarlane, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot
Michael Jacobs, The Robber of Memories: A River Journey Through Colombia
2012
Julia Blackburn, Thin Paths: Journeys in and around an Italian Mountain Village
John Gimlette, Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge
Jacek Hugo-Bader, White Fever: A Journey to the Frozen Heart of Siberia
Olivia Laing, To the River: A Journey Beneath the Surface
Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, Harlem is Nowhere: A Journey to the Mecca of Black America
Colin Thubron, To a Mountain in Tibet
2011
Nicolas Jubber, Drinking Arak off an Ayatollah's Beard: A Journey Through the Inside-Out Worlds of Iran and Afghanistan
Rachel Polonsky, Molotov’s Magic Lantern: A Journey in Russian History
Katherine Russell Rich, Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language
Graham Robb, Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris
Douglas Rogers, The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe
Simon Winder, Germania: In Wayward Pursuit of the Germans and Their History
2010
William Blacker, Along the Enchanted Way
Horatio Clare, A Single Swallow
Matthew Engel, Eleven Minutes Late: A Train Journey to the Soul of Britain
Daniel Metcalfe, Out of Steppe
Susan Richards, Lost and Found in Russia
Hugh Thomson, Tequila Oil: Getting Lost in Mexico
Ian Thomson, The Dead Yard
2009
Alice Albinia, Empires of the Indus
Andrew Brown, Fishing in Utopia
Richard Grant, Bandit Roads
Kapka Kassabova, Street Without a Name
Grevel Lindop, Travels on the Dance Floor
Dervla Murphy, The Island that Dared
2008
Tim Butcher, Blood River
Henry Hemming, Misadventure in the Middle East
John Lucas, 92 Acharnon Street
Robert Macfarlane, The Wild Places
Christopher Robbins, In Search of Kazakhstan: The Land that Disappeared
2007
Rory McCarthy, Nobody Told Us We Are Defeated
David McKie, Great British Bus Journeys
Tom Parry, Thumbs Up Australia: Hitchhiking the Outback
Claire Scobie, Last Seen in Lhasa
2006
Nicholas Jubber, The Prester Quest
Joanna Kavenna, The Ice Museum
Ruth Padel, Tigers in Red Weather: A Quest for the Last Wild Tigers
Richard Lloyd Parry, In the Time of Madness
Stevie Smith, Pedalling to Hawaii
Edward Stanford Outstanding Contribution to Travel Writing award
A lifetime achievement award for travel writing.
2015 Bill Bryson
2016 Michael Palin
