2026 Shortlist

The Prize

The judges for the inaugural annual £10,000 Sherborne Prize for Travel Writing have announced a shortlist of six books for 2026.

Awarded for the first time this year, the prize is a significant contribution to the programme of the Sherborne Travel Writing Festival, as well as a boost to its reputation as a window on the quality and creativity of contemporary travel writing.

The prize will be presented to a published British or European author whose work encourages understanding between peoples and across societies, countering the division and isolation of the present day.

Making The Shortlist

The wide variety of locations, concepts and motivations at the heart of these six extraordinary books range from:

a summer spent with the last moving pastoralists in Europe,
a journey across the US from Detroit to Los Angeles by Greyhound bus,
the human cost of the brutal war in Ukraine,
the question of whether or not rivers are living beings,
an epic walk across the Alps in the footsteps of a wolf,
a personal quest to understand an overlooked region on the edge of Russia.

Judging

Chair of the judges Colin Thubron said: “In its vigour and diversity alone, our shortlist is a striking tribute to the indispensable value of travel and the seriousness of its writing. Travel writing has never been richer or more versatile.”

The winner will be revealed at a special event on the morning of Sunday 12 April 2026 at the hugely popular Sherborne Travel Writing Festival which runs from 10th -12th April in the Powell Theatre, Sherborne.

The shortlist for the Sherborne Travel Writing Prize for 2026, chosen from over 70 submissions, is as follows:

Russia Starts Here

Howard Amos

Returning to Russia's European borderlands – once a thriving nexus of trade and cultural exchange, now one of the poorest places of this nation – Amos tries to understand the country he once called home.  

Greyhound

Joanna Pocock

Pocock explores the overlap of place and memory, the individual with the communal, and the privatisation of public space as she navigates two very different landscapes 17 years apart.

Anima: A Wild Pastoral

Kapka Kassabova

This spellbinding book tells the story of Kapka Kassabova's time with the last moving pastoralists in Europe: a gripping portrayal of human-animal interdependence, and a plea for a different way of living.

Night Train to Odesa

Jen Stout

When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, millions of lives changed in an instant. Scottish reporter, Jen Stout, seeks to understand the big questions of identity, history, hopes and fears in this war in Europe.

Is A River Alive?

Robert Macfarlane

This brilliant, perspective-shifting new book answers a resounding yes to the question of its title. At its heart is a single, transformative idea: that rivers are not mere matter for human use but living beings.

Lone Wolf

Adam Weymouth

From the winner of the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award comes an epic walk across the Alps in the footsteps of a wolf, throwing unique light on Europe's mountainous hinterlands.