Win a copy of Steve Davey's Around the World in 500 Festivals

Travel Photographer and author Steve Davey will be speaking at the Destinations Show at Earls Court this weekend. We have a signed copy of Steve’s latest book Around the World in 500 Festivals to give away to one lucky winner.

Around the World in 500 Festivals is a rare book that will fascinate and inspire. A large-format, beautifully illustrated coffee-table volume, it is a photographic exploration of the richness and variety of the world’s most colourful, moving, joyful, and spectacular celebrations. Thousands of festivals, great and small, take place around the world every year.

The book contains:

– A unique selection of 500 unmissable festivals around the world

– More than 200 full-colour photographs that capture the spirit and immediacy of the events

– Special features in the form of extended photographic essays

– Original research and stunning photography by an internationally recognized writer-photographer.

To win a signed copy of this beautiful book simply fill in the form below… Continue reading Win a copy of Steve Davey's Around the World in 500 Festivals

Competition: Win a Marco Polo Map of the World!

As an early Christmas present, our friends at Marco Polo are offering 10 lucky winners a copy of the Marco Polo Map of the World…

We have 10 of these high quality maps of the World to give away!The perfect reference map covering the whole world and showing the political units on each continent, mountain relief and sea depth. Includes national flags of each country as well as country names, capital cities and country codes. Also includes inset map featuring World Time Zones. Ideal for any classroom, bedroom or office wall. Each map measures 120 x 80cm, is laminated, rolled and supplied in a durable plastic tube. Scale 1: 35 000 000.

To be in with a chance to win simply answer the following question:

Adventures Start at Stanfords – Thar Desert

Amanda Huggins is our final winner in our Adventures Start at Stanfords competition! Amanda shares her memory of a Rajasthani feast in the Thar Desert below…

I am reclining on bejewelled silk bolster cushions rather too close to the rear end of a flatulent camel. As our brightly decked cart rolls slowly through villages at the edge of the Thar desert, groups of children wave and shout as they give chase.

It is winter in Rajasthan, the early morning sunlight is still struggling to warm us through, and the villagers we pass are wrapped in grey wool blankets.

The landscape suddenly opens out, and we stop at the edge of shallow dunes stretching towards the horizon, dotted with hardy khejri trees. Our guide, Mr Singh, passes us binoculars as he points out a group of slender chinkara gazelle in the distance. Both the chinkara and the trees are revered by the local Bishnoi tribe, who are even known to bury dead gazelles and mark their graves. Bishnoi translates as twenty-niners, which refers to the number of principles they live by, two of which are to protect trees and ‘all living beings’. Their fierce affinity with nature, and their aggression in its protection since 1485, has led them to be thought of at the first environmentalists. Continue reading Adventures Start at Stanfords – Thar Desert

Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) Neville Shulman Challenge Award

Imagine taking on a truly unique journey, challenging your own limits in pursuit of exploration and better understanding of our world. Learning traditional knowledge from indigenous people; withstanding extreme climes; exploring remote and untouched places – which challenge would you take?

Paddy Le Flufy The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) are offering an £8,000 grant for a project which furthers the understanding and exploration of the planet – its cultures, peoples and environments.

Apply now to the Neville Shulman Challenge Award >.
Application deadline extended until 30^th November 2014.

Image: A London accountant by trade, Paddy Le Flufy swapped the city for the rainforest to spend eight months living in the Peruvian Amazon. As an apprentice to a wisdom keeper of the Ocaina indigenous people, Paddy is learning traditional knowledge to further our understanding of life in this beautiful and complex environment.

For more information go to: www.rgs.org/nevilleshulmanaward >

Adventures Start at Stanfords – The Street Food of Furong Jie

The third winner in our Adventures Start at Stanfords competition is Leah Eades! Leah shares her memories of trying the more unusual local speciality street food while visiting Furong Jie in the Shandong province of China.

You can smell Furong Jie before you see it.

Ok, you can hear it too. And the sight of people cluttering the pavements clutching their steaming hot jianbings is also a bit of a giveaway. But it’s the smell that really draws you in: at once sharp and bitter, sometimes smoky, imbued with the oil of a thousand fryings, and sweetened with azuki bean paste, it’s as if all the smells of China have been crammed into the one sprawling street. Continue reading Adventures Start at Stanfords – The Street Food of Furong Jie

Adventures Start at Stanfords – In the crater of Kilimanjaro

The second winning entry in our Adventures Start at Stanfords competition is by Arthur Cross! Arthur shared this photo with us from his greatest adventure, climbing Kilimanjaro and camping in the crater on Kibo….

Soon after retiring a walking friend asked if I was interested in attempting to walk to the top of Africa. Mount Kilimanjaro is the crown of Tanzania and Africa‘s highest mountain at 19345 feet. Continue reading Adventures Start at Stanfords – In the crater of Kilimanjaro

Adventures Start at Stanfords – Baltic Adventure

We’ve chosen our first winning entry for our Adventures Start at Stanfords competition! Congratulations to Leanne Hughes who has shared her greatest adventure story, taking part in the Tall Ships race from Aahrus to Helsinki.

It started with a map, as plans often do, looking at the vast expanse of the Baltic Sea. It took nearly 40 minutes in Stanfords, not because I couldn’t find what I was looking for but because I was distracted by all the other things in store. Eventually I emerged carrying a few extra books too. I was excited, the Tall Ships race was sailing from Aahrus to Helsinki this year and I’d managed to secure a volunteer place aboard the Brig Stavros S Niarchos. I’d sailed on her before taking young people on sail training voyages but a race was something different. Continue reading Adventures Start at Stanfords – Baltic Adventure

Adventures Start at Stanfords – Competition!

Share your greatest adventure with us to be in with a chance to win 1 of 4 Stanfords vouchers for £50.

With 160 years of experience behind us we’ve seen some epic adventures start here at Stanfords. Great explorers like Ranulph Fiennes, Amy Johnson, David Livingstone, Michael Palin, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton have started some of their most incredible journeys with a trip to our Long Acre store. We are proud to have supplied them with the maps they needed to make history but we’re equally delighted to have guided so many of our other customers around the globe many times over the past 160 years. Continue reading Adventures Start at Stanfords – Competition!

Win Marco Polo Guides to Lanzarote, Turkey and Tenerife

With the holiday planning season firmly underway, we’ve teamed up with Marco Polo to offer 10 lucky holidaymakers a set of 3 guidebooks to Lanzarote, Turkey and Tenerife!

These popular destinations are the perfect places to soak up the sun and relax this summer! To be in with a chance of winning, simply correctly answer the travel trivia question below and submit your details below by Friday 19th July.

Good luck! Continue reading Win Marco Polo Guides to Lanzarote, Turkey and Tenerife

Win Tickets to see Guardian Cartoonist Martin Rowson at Kings Place Travel Festival

Stanfords is delighted to be the Official Bookseller at the Travel Festival, taking place at London´s Kings Place on 22nd and 23rd June 2013.

We have 3 pairs of tickets to giveaway to see Martin Rowson discuss his new book on Sunday, 23 June 2013 at 3.30pm.

After a car accident, Dr Gulliver, Oxfam’s ‘mutilations strategy’ manager finds himself in Lilliput, now ruled by a beaming, Blair-like dictator and populated by shoppers and censors.

And this is just the beginning!

The Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson tells us the story of his new book, an ‘adapted and updated’ version of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and explains where it sits in the tradition of satire. Continue reading Win Tickets to see Guardian Cartoonist Martin Rowson at Kings Place Travel Festival