Best Travel Writing of 2023: The Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year
Last updated: December 30, 2023
The Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards are hosted each year by Stanfords, the specialist map seller and travel bookshop in London's Covent Garden. The judges of the Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year, who rotate each year, tend to be brilliant at highlighting the best new travel books in the form of an annual shortlist. This year the judges were the authors Colin Thubron, Sunny Singh, Julia Wheeler, Lois Pryce, and Caroline Eden, and the journalists Ash Bhardwaj and Jeremy Bassetti. Their 2023 shortlist comprised eight travel books, which we detail below.
In The Shadow of the Mountain
by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
🏆 The Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year, 2023
Mountaineer and former Silicon Valley executive Silvia Vasquez-Lavado’s inspirational story intertwines her quest to summit Mount Everest with a vulnerable meditation on her traumatic Peruvian childhood and the story of her struggle to succeed as an immigrant in the United States. After witnessing domestic violence and becoming a victim of child sexual abuse, the author details her struggles with relationships, growing ambition, and coming to terms with her sexuality as a gay woman. Later, mountain climbing becomes a fixation, and a form of catharsis. “Reaching the top isn’t about the accomplishment,” she writes. “It’s about walking in the shadows long enough to see the other side, about learning how to roll with other women and men, and how to lean on and support others instead of white-knuckling life alone.” Kirkus described it as an “emotionally raw and courageous memoir”; the New York Times said it was “cinematic.”
My Family and Other Enemies: Life and Travels in Croatia’s Hinterland
by Mary Novakovich
☆ Shortlisted for the 2023 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards Travel Book of the Year
In My Family and Other Enemies, the UK-based journalist Mary Novakovich explores her familial relationship with Lika, a region of central Croatia. "It's a region of wild beauty that has been battered by centuries of conflict," she explains. "Used as a buffer zone between the Habsburg and Ottoman empires for hundreds of years, Lika became a land of war and warriors. And when Yugoslavia started to disintegrate in 1991, it was here where some of the first shots were fired." Having first visited Lika as a child, Novakovich has returned many times throughout her life, but the relationship has been complicated by its—and her family's—troubled history. Although Novakovich has previously published several guidebooks to Croatia, this is her first travelogue.
Walking with Nomads
by Alice Morrison
☆ Shortlisted for the 2023 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards Travel Book of the Year
The Scottish explorer and TV presenter Alice Morrison travels across Morocco, from the Sahara Desert to the Atlas Mountains, in the company of three Amazigh (once known as Berber) men and their camels. During her journeys, she encounters a lost city and dinosaur footprints, and does her best to avoid landmines, quicksand and poisonous snakes. She also encounters nomadic peoples travelling through this arid environment, who tell her about the challenges of life on the move, and the changes wrought by a warming climate.
Crossed Off the Map: Travels in Bolivia
by Shafik Meghji
☆ Shortlisted for the 2023 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards Travel Book of the Year
In Crossed off the Map, award-winning journalist and travel writer Shafik Meghji journeys from the Andes to the Amazon as he explores Bolivia's past and present, blending travel writing, history, and reportage to tell the story of the country's last 500 years. Published by the small independent press, Latin American Bureau, Crossed off the Map has an opportunity to reach a wider audience following its shortlisting at the Stanfords awards. Listen to an interesting interview with the author on the popular podcast Travel Writing World.
The Slow Road to Tehran: A Revelatory Bike Ride through Europe and the Middle East
by Rebecca Lowe
☆ Shortlisted for the 2023 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards Travel Book of the Year
In The Slow Road to Tehran, journalist Rebecca Lowe describes her solo bicycle ride through 20 countries and 8,000 miles during 2015 and 2016, the dramatic landscapes she passed through, the hardships she endured (in temperatures from -6 to 48˚C), and the people she met, as part of her efforts to truthfully portray the modern Middle East. The Times said it was a "funny and freewheeling account", noting that Lowe "has a forthright confidence that brings to mind those earlier Middle Eastern adventurers Freya Stark and Gertrude Bell"; despite her parents' worries (they warn her that they think she "will probably die" shortly before she sets off) traveling as a lone female brings her unusual insights that add weight to a humourous, even Bryson-esque account.
The Po: An Elegy for Italy's Longest River
by Tobias Jones
☆ Shortlisted for the 2023 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards Travel Book of the Year
The Po, Italy's longest river, is drying up. It's a tragedy both ecologically and culturally, given the powerful symbolism afforded the water body; to paraphrase Guido Ceronetti, to understand the Po is to understand Italy. At barely more than 400-miles long, Jones's journey down its banks by boat, bicycle, and train may be only minimally intrepid, but the route takes in historic cities, industrial heartlands, and generally serves as a cross-section of the nation. The Times Literary Supplement described it as "a delightful book that is part history, part travel, part a picture of contemporary Italy." To get a flavour of the book, this essay by the author in The Guardian offers a good introduction.
High: A Journey Across the Himalaya, Through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal, and China
by Erika Fatland, translated by Kari Dickson
☆ Shortlisted for the 2023 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards Travel Book of the Year
Norwegian anthropologist and internationally bestselling author Erika Fatland (Sovietistan, The Border) details her journeys to isolated valleys, crowded base camps, and remote monasteries as she journeys through the Himalayan range—a region where Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus brush shoulders with those still following ancient shamanic beliefs. "I wanted to discover what life stories and cultures were to be found there, beyond the well-trodden paths, high up in the valleys and villages of the mountains with the beautiful name," writes Fatland. "Soon I would travel both far and high."
The Last Overland: The Return Journey of the Iconic Land Rover Expedition
by Alex Bescoby
☆ Shortlisted for the 2023 Edward Stanford Travel Writing Awards Travel Book of the Year
In 1955, a group of students led by Tim Slessor drove 19,000 miles from London to Singapore in a Land Rover; the resulting documentary and book, First Overland, caught the public imagination in a time of post-war austerity. But it was a passing comment by Sir David Attenborough's on the fiftieth anniversary of the expedition—in which he suggested it was "a journey that I don't think could be made again today"—that proved an irresistible challenge for the filmmaker and adventurer Alex Bescoby. This book, and a Channel Four documentary series, are the result: a thrilling adventure in which nothing goes quite to plan, that offers an opportunity to reflect on how much has changed since the 1950s.
