The 23rd annual Travel Photographer of the Year (TPOTY) award is now open for entries. The closing date is 13th October 2025 but there is also a new early bird incentive until 31st July.

WHAT’S NEW? There is a new award – Travel Image of the Year – voted on by both the public and the judging panel; new categories and themes; the return of the video category with two entry options; two fabulous new judges and an early bird entry offer with unlimited entries.

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In the new series of &Coe podcasts on Eye for the Light photographers Chris Coe chats with photographers, travellers and creative people. The series kicks off with solo traveller and film maker Alex Outhwaite, Venezuelan visual storyteller Ana María Arévalo Gosen and travel and American travel and documentary photographer Mark Edward Harris.

Next up and coming soon are the director of the amazing “My Octopus Teacher” Pippa Ehrlich, and photojournalist and UNICEF Ambassador Krystal Chryssomallis.

All these podcasts – 35 in total so far – are free to listen to and available on both the Eye for the Light website (eye.tpoty.com) or to download on the main streaming service site.

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We have a two new judges from the USA joining our judging panel for the 2025 awards. We’re delighted to welcome Krystal Chryssomallis and Mark Edward Harris

Krystal is a visual story-teller, focusing on human connection and the common threads that unite us, and a UNICEF Ambassador.

Mark is a documentary and travel photographer with many awards and books to his name.

We are thrilled to have these two talented and experienced photographers to compliment an already extremely talented judging panel.

Meet all the judges

TPOTY opens for entries this week – closing date 13th October

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The winning images from the 2024 international Travel Photographer of the Year awards (TPOTY) have been unveiled. The high standard and diversity of the latest winners shines through in imagery which ranges from intimate portraits to atmospheric landscapes and shots which capture our changing planet and its inhabitants. The result is an incredible visual journey around the world, capturing its breathtaking moods and colours, alongside some fabulously strong black and white imagery. 

For the second year in a row, the overall honours have gone to a talented female photographer – this time from the USA. The Travel Photographer of the Year 2024, Piper Mackay, takes the unusual approach of shooting in infrared (IR). Her portraits of African women are simply beautiful and exquisite in their detail, whilst her shots of giraffes in Kenya’s Maasai Mara are tremendously atmospheric.

TPOTY founder Chris Coe said: “So many images seen today are over-saturated, over-processed and even AI-generated. A ‘less is more’ approach is often far more effective. It is therefore refreshing to judge images which demonstrate good camera craft and in-camera creativity – shot full-frame, or close to it, and with very little retouching.”

“Piper Mackay’s distinctive winning images illustrate this ‘less is more’ ideal well. They are beautifully composed, celebrating both indigenous women and wildlife on the African savanna. The use of black and white, with a camera converted to shoot infrared (IR), allows us to absorb the details and atmosphere which good monochrome conveys so well. Her images have an immediate impact, but the intricate detail and atmosphere captured is also eye-catching and highly engaging.”

Piper, who now lives in Kenya, said: “My philosophy has always been ‘Never let the photo dictate your experience, always let the experience dictate the photo.’ This award completes my life’s passion and work across Africa for more than two decades. There is no higher honour!”

Travel Photographer of the Year celebrates the potential stars of the future through the Young TPOTY awards. This year the winners and placed photographers come from six different countries, with the awards’ first overall winner from China – 14-year-old Raymond Zhang – receiving the title of Young Travel Photographer of the Year 2024 for his portfolio of an old steam train and its drivers, photographed right in the heart of the action.

17-year-old Polish photographer Maksymilian Paczkowski first entered TPOTY when he was very young. He has now taken the top honours in the Young TPOTY 15-18 years category. His wonderful series of birdlife shots use colour cleverly and were all shot in his own country. The Young TPOTY 14 years & Under category was won by 12-year-old Australian Leonardo Murray for his glorious images of dunes in the Namib Desert. Runner-up Jamie Smart deserves a special mention in this age group for her series of gannets shot at Bempton Cliffs in England. These images are much harder to shoot than they appear, and this young British photographer has achieved this at the age of nine! 

Piper Mackay’s prize includes a £2000 cash bursary from TPOTY, Radiant Photo imaging software and a portfolio review from top New York agent Frank Meo. Young TPOTY winner Raymond Zhang receives £500 from TPOTY, plus Radiant Photo imaging software. Leonardo Murray and Maksymilian Paczkowski, receive £250 each. All three young winners will also win a place on an Eye for the Light photography workshop or a photo critique.

The 2024 international Travel Photographer of the Year awards showcase the talent of photographers from all around the globe and the organisers say it is both heartening and exciting to see so many talented female photographers amongst the winners this year, including the awards’ first-ever winner from Mexico.

Amateur and professional photographers from more than 150 countries submitted more than 20,000 images in TPOTY 2024. The winning and placed entries combine to form a truly outstanding collection of contemporary travel photography. The winning shots – which can all be viewed in the Winners’ Gallery on this website – will first go on display at The Banbury Museum and Galleries, Banbury, UK from 29th March to 7th July.  TPOTY will also be showcased at Xposure in the UAE. Another exhibition will follow in Changsha, Hunan Province, China in mid-June.

Individual categories and awards

Mexican photographer Maricruz Sainz de Aja won the Faces, People, Cultures portfolio category with a subtly atmospheric series of low-lit images of Papua New Guinean Wauga tribespeople in the Central Highlands. Indian photographer Partha Pratim Roy’s dramatic image of an Indonesian horseman trying to control his steed won the Best Single Image award in this category.

Roie Galitz’s striking landscapes of the Bråsvellbreen ice cap in Svalbard, shot from different viewpoints and perspectives, illustrate both the climate and water elements of the category theme and secured top honours for the Israeli photographer in the Planet Earth Landscape, Climate and Water portfolio category. Belgian photographer and former overall TPOTY winner, Alain Schroeder, won the Best Single Image award with a poignant image which reminds us that climate change is here right now, and blighting people’s lives.

The Travel in Monochrome portfolio winners form a diverse and atmospheric collection. The winner is Aleš Krivec from Slovenia for his portfolio of shepherds’ cottages in the Italian Dolomites, while the Best Single Image award was won by Linda Wride (UK) with a beautiful shot of a Turkish potter from her runner-up portfolio.

Another British photographer, Jenny Stock, was the judges’ choice to win the Wildlife, Nature & Underwater category, with her fascinating and intimate portfolio of American crocodiles in Cuba, while Australia’s Joshua Holko received the Best Single Image award for his beautiful image of a Mongolian Pallas Cat covered in hoar frost.

Portfolio category prizes included TPOTY cash bursaries, Genesis Imaging exhibition prints, Radiant Photo imaging software and membership of the Royal Photographic Society.

There were four One Shot categories in 2024, challenging photographers to capture each category theme in just a single image – which is a lot harder than it might seem! The winner of One Shot: Cities, Towns, Streets was Matthew DeSantis (USA) for his misty image of a baseball game in front of a giant Buddha in Bhutan. Hong Kong photographer Ngar Shun Victor Wong’s serene image of a snow-covered landscape and church is beautiful in its own right, but even more so when you spot the tiny human figure giving it the context, scale and perspective which made it the winner of the One Shot: Escape category. British photographer Jo Kearney’s joyous image capturing a group of colourfully-dressed women celebrating during ‘Chilam Joshi,’ – the Kalash Spring Festival – is a worthy winner of the One Shot: Festivals & Celebrations category. It just makes you smile. And another mesmerising photograph won the One Shot: Women in World Culture category: Turkish photographer Erhan Coral’s image of an elderly woman deep in thought during Mexico’s Day of the Dead warrants a close look to discover just how detailed and enchanting it is. 

The winners of Cities, Towns, Street; Escape; and Festivals & Celebration all receive TPOTY cash bursaries. The winner of Women in World Culture will receive a Lensbaby Velvet 28 plus Lensbaby Twist 60 & Double Glass II Optic Swap Kit courtesy of SheClicks. All four One Shot winners will also receive Radiant Photo imaging software.

New in 2024 was the Rising Talent category for amateur photographers, semi-pros and professionals who have turned pro within the last two years. The ten winners, from eight different countries, will receive mentoring from TPOTY judges and Eye for the Light. The winners are: Sofia Brogi (Italy); Gilberto Costa (Portugal); Thibault Gerbaldi (France); Dmytro Geshengorin (Germany); Kevin Hoare (USA); Florian Kriechbaumer (Germany); Jo Martindale (UK); Kaz Rollison (UK); Khaichuin Sim (Malaysia) and Agnieszka Wieczorek (Poland).

In this award, three of the winners – Thibault, Agnieszka and Kevin – will receive an unusual opportunity to have their work reviewed by top New York photographers’ agent, Frank Meo from The PhotoCloser. Last year’s winners of these reviews found them to be hugely beneficial to their photography. Turkish photographer F. Dilek Yurdakul enthused “The meeting with Frank Meo was very important for my career. It gave me the key to doors I could not reach and was absolutely priceless.  It was a great opportunity that I think was much more valuable than any cash prize.”

The winner in one category was not chosen by the judges. The People’s Choice award was decided by members of the public voting on the TPOTY website. The winning image, chosen from 19,895 public votes, was by Mauro de Bettio (Italy). It captures the wonderfully close relationship between an endangered pangolin, and its devoted protector, who rescued it from a wildlife market in Nigeria.

The awards are judged anonymously by a 15-strong international panel of imaging experts, who give their time and expertise freely to judge the awards. This year TPOTY welcomed a new judge to the panel: British wildlife and nature photographer, Ellie Rothnie. All judging is completed ‘blind’ – the judges do not know the identity or nationality of any entrants – and finalists must provide the RAW/original image files for the final judging stage to confirm the validity of their entries and demonstrate that AI did not play a part in their creation.

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The search is on once again to find and showcase truly exceptional travel photographers – entries are now open for the 2024 edition of the international Travel Photographer of the Year awards (TPOTY). Amateur and professional photographers of all ages and from anywhere in the world are invited to submit their very best work in one of the world’s leading photographic competitions. Entries close on 6 October.

TPOTY 2024 has a range of categories, reflecting the breadth and diversity of travel photography, and entrants will be competing not only for a fine selection of prizes but also for the international exposure and acclaim that comes from achieving success in the awards. TPOTY winners gain tremendous media exposure and feature in UK and international exhibitions. Already confirmed for 2024 and 2025 are Travel Photographer of the Year exhibitions at Foto Festival Manzana 1 in Bolivia (20 – 24 November 2024), Xposure Festival of Photography in Sharjah, UAE (20 – 26 February 2025) and Banbury Museum & Gallery in Banbury, Oxfordshire, UK (29 March – 6 July 2025)… with more to come!

The awards are judged by an enormously respected international panel of imaging experts, who give their time and expertise freely to judge the awards. This year TPOTY welcomes a new judge to the panel, the internationally acclaimed, multi award-winning nature and wildlife photographer Ellie Rothnie. 

Categories and prizes

TPOTY 2024 has four portfolio categories: ‘Faces, People, Cultures’, ‘Planet Earth – Landscapes, Climate & Water’, ‘Travel in Monochrome’ and ‘Wildlife, Nature & Underwater’. There are also four One Shot single-image categories: ‘Cities, Towns & Streets’, ‘Escape’, ‘Festivals & Celebrations’ and ‘Women in World Cultures’. In addition, there is Young Travel Photographer of the Year, which is open to photographers aged 18 and under and has awards in two different age groups. The Young TPOTY theme is ‘Travel Experiences’. The Overall Winner – the Travel Photographer of the Year 2024 – will be the entrant who submits the best two portfolios across any of the four portfolio categories.

This year TPOTY is introducing a new Rising Talent award. This is for amateur or semi-professional photographers, or photographers who have only been professional for up to two years. 10 winners will be chosen here, and each receives a cash prize, a portfolio review from a TPOTY judge, imaging software and online photography training plus membership of the Royal Photographic Society. In addition, two of the 10 winners will be chosen to receive an additional portfolio review – from leading New York photographers’ agent Frank Meo. A number of the Rising Talent winners will also be granted a place on TPOTY’s upcoming mentoring scheme in 2025.

TPOTY is delighted to welcome SheClicks – the community for women photographers – and Eye for the Light as awards sponsors.  With support also coming from Radiant Imaging LabsGenesis Imaging, the PhotoCloser and the Royal Photographic Society, the awards offer some excellent prizes including £10,000 in cash bursaries, photographic equipment, magnificent prints, portfolio reviews, photo tuition and membership of the Royal Photographic Society. 

Inspiration and information

A vast array of award-winning travel photography can be found on the previous Winners’ Galleries on tpoty.com and further source of inspiration and information is Eye for the Light, the free online creative photography, adventure and travel magazine with features and podcasts by Newton & Coe. It’s a fabulous resource and source of knowledge and includes interviews with renowned photographers, travellers and adventurers such as marine and conservation photographer Cristina Mittermeier, wildlife photographer and filmmaker Karim Iliya, motorcycle adventurer Tiffany Coates and former Deputy Director of Photography at National Geographic, Kathy Moran. And those who want to explore some of the themes of this year’s awards can do so in a series of photography workshops run by TPOTY founder, Chris Coe, in Yorkshire, UK, on 8 and 9 June. ‘Gannets & Owls’ and ‘Crazy Red Squirrels’ are a must for would-be wildlife photographers, while ‘Quiet Nature’ looks at the more peaceful side of photography.

Since Travel Photographer of the Year was founded in 2003 entries have been received from 154 countries to date, and over 50 nationalities are represented amongst the winners. Overall winners have come from Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Spain the UK and USA. 

Entry fees start at £12, and entry is FREE for young photographers aged 18 and under. In addition, TPOTY is offering a number of entry ‘packages’ which offer substantial savings of as much as 50% over individual category fees. Submissions must be made online at www.tpoty.com.

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We have a new judge joining our judging panel for the 2024 awards. We’re delighted to welcome the extremely talented nature photographer, Ellie Rothnie to our expert panel of judges.

Ellie specialises in photographing birds, reptiles and red squirrels, using in-camera techniques rather than post processing, to achieve beautiful and elegant imagery.

She is a Canon Ambassador and run a series of extremely popular workshops, and she’ll also be doing one with us in October this year. Check out our workshops.

Ellie is the only new judge on this year’s panel as all our judges from last year enjoyed looking at your images so much.

Meet all the judges

TPOTY opens for entries this week – closing date 6th October.

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We are delighted to announce that TPOTY has already secured two exhibitions for 2025 even before the 2024 awards have launched. From 20th to 26th February, TPOTY will be returning to the Xposure Festival of Photography  in Sharjah, UAE. It will be one of the biggest exhibition there and will be TPOTY’s 7th exhibition at this event.

The first showing of the 2024 winners will be from 29th March to the 6th July at the Banbury Museum & Gallery in Banbury, England.

More news will follow shortly…

IMAGE © Dmytro Geshengorin, Germany

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TPOTY heads for South America with an exhibition at Foto Festival Manzana 1 in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia, from 20th to 24th November this year.

The exhibition will be TPOTY’s 50th major international exhibition and will feature the winning images from the first 21 years of the awards.

Image © Peter Adams, the 2003 winner

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Amateur and professional photographers from more than 150 countries submitted more than 20,000 images in TPOTY 2023. The winning and placed entries combine to form a truly outstanding collection of contemporary travel photography. The winning shots – which can all be viewed in the online Winners’ Gallery on tpoty.com – will first go on display at The Photography & Video Show at the NEC, Birmingham, UK from 16-19 March and will also be showcased at Xposure in the UAE.

For the second year in a row, a Slovenian photographer has taken the overall honours. The Travel Photographer of the Year 2023, AndreJa Ravnak, follows in the footsteps of her fellow countryman Matjaz Krivic, who took the title in 2022. AndreJa’s depiction of hop growing in Slovenia and her images of rolling fields in Italy and Czechia (Czech Republic) combine a fairytale beauty with the structure one might expect from her ‘regular job’ as an architect. 

TPOTY founder Chris Coe said: “There is a subtle elegance about this year’s winners. This comes through in both of AndreJa’s winning portfolios; one takes us into simple landscapes, with delicate colours and a textural beauty, the other into the hop fields, out of season and undressed ready for the next planting. Neither are obvious subjects, neither photographed at an optimal time of year, and yet they are both engaging and rather beautiful.”

AndreJa Ravnak commented: “Becoming Travel Photographer of the Year is a huge recognition. From my personal experience, I know it’s not easy to judge photography. Images are not measurable, so being a judge is a complex task and responsibility. I would like to thank the panel of judges for recognizing my work. I’ve seen many excellent and creative photos in this year’s TPOTY final and it’s such a great honour to find my work recognised. Congratulations to all the winners; together, we are enthusiastically documenting this wonderful world, and perhaps this is a small contribution, a reminder to preserve its wonder for future generations.”

Travel Photographer of the Year celebrates the potential stars of the future through the Young TPOTY awards – and this year all three young category winners are from the United States. 14-year-old Caden Shepard Choi received the title of Young Travel Photographer of the Year 2023 for her highly accomplished and well observed black and white story of how the Navajo people of Chinle, Arizona produce wool, and use it in weaving.  Another young female photographer – 17-year-old Lilly Zhang – took top honours in the Young TPOTY 15-18 years category with an impeccable series of delicate landscapes shot in Marsh Creek State Park in Pennsylvania, USA. And the Young TPOTY 14 years and under category was won by 14-year-old Zayan Durrani for his glorious images showing the erupting Litli-Hrutur volcano in Iceland.

AndreJa Ravnak’s prize includes a £1000 cash bursary from TPOTY, a personalised leather portfolio book or iFolio from Plastic Sandwich, Radiant Photo imaging software, a portfolio review from top New York agent Frank Meo, plus copies of travel and drinks magazine Tonic and membership of the Royal Photographic Society. Caden Shepard Choi receives £500 from TPOTY, a Plastic Sandwich leather portfolio book or iFolio, Radiant Photo imaging software, a place on a Photo Iconic photography workshop (or photo critique) plus Royal Photographic Society membership.

Individual categories and awards

French photographer Armand Sarlangue won the Landscape & Environment portfolio category with an atmospheric series of images of the lush glacial landscapes of the Icelandic highlands.  Japanese photographer Kazuaki Koseki’s delicate image of the ‘submerged forest’ created by reflections in Lake Shirakawa, Japan, won Best Single Image award in this category.

Martin Broen’s striking black and white images showing the dynamic patterns created by the Mobula ray migration in Baja California in Mexico secured top honours in the Nature, Wildlife & Conservation category. And Martin also won the award for Best Single Image in this category for his colourful and thought-provoking image showing how a discarded glass bottle in the ocean has become a ‘crystal palace’ for a small, iridescent fish.

Greek photographer Athanasios Maloukos’ fascinating portfolio of shamans performing rituals on Siberia’s frozen Lake Baikal was the judges’ choice in the People and Cultures category, while Jack Lawson (UK) received the Best Single Image award for his image of members of Nigeria’s national amputee football team, the Special Eagles, training on the beach.

A former winner of Travel Photographer of the Year and regular name on the TPOTY winner list in recent years, the Belgian photographer Alain Schroeder, was the winner of the Visual Stories portfolio. Alain’s series focusing on athletes in their 80s and 90s taking part in the USAFT Masters Indoor Athletics Championships is inspirational and moving. F.Dilek Yurdakul (Turkey), was awarded Best Single Image in this category for her portrait of a young Kalash schoolgirl in Chitral, Pakistan.

Portfolio category prizes included TPOTY cash bursaries, a signed print by Nat Geo explorer/photographer and Cultural Sanctuaries Foundation co-founder Chris Rainier, Genesis Imaging exhibition prints, Radiant Photo imaging software, copies of Tonic magazine and membership of the Royal Photographic Society.

This year Travel Photographer of the Year welcomed MPB, the largest global platform to buy, sell and trade used photography and videography kit, to the TPOTY sponsor line-up for the first time. The three MPB One Shot categories challenged photographers to capture each category theme in just a single image – no easy task! The winner of MPB One Shot: A Quieter Life was Ignacio Palacios (Australia/Spain) for his serene image of a lone walker on a white sand dune at La Puna, Argentina. Dutch photographer Josien van Geffen’s unusual perspective of the Highline 197 suspension bridge in Reutte, Austria, plays with viewpoint and plays tricks on the mind at first glance. It was the winner of MPB One Shot: Above, Eye Level, Below. And Italian photographer Andrea Peruzzi’s joyous image capturing an adventurous moment when a Bedouin jumps over a small gorge between rocks in ancient Petra, Jordan took first prize in MPB One Shot: Leisure & Adventure. 

MPB also supported the HD video category, World in Motion, which was won by British photographer and filmmaker Matthew Williams-Ellis for Karibu Nyumbani, a thought-provoking short film highlighting the beauty and depleted wildlife populations of the Mara North Conservancy, in Kenya. 

All MPB One Shot winners and the MPB World in Motion winner receive £1,000 to spend on photographic equipment with MPB. They also receive Radiant Photo imaging software, copies of Tonic magazine and membership of the Royal Photographic Society.

The winner in one category was not chosen by the judges. The People’s Choice award was decided by members of the public voting on the TPOTY website – and this year the winner is aged just 15. The winning image, by Rohan Neel Shah (Kenya), shows a bewildered lone wildebeest in the middle of the frenzy that is the Great Migration in the Maasai Mara.

In this year’s awards, three of the finalists will receive an unusual opportunity to have their work reviewed by a top New York photographers’ agent, Frank Meo from The PhotoCloser. The selected photographers are Caden Shepard Choi (USA), F Dilek Yurdakul (Turkey) and Jack Lawson (UK).

The awards are judged anonymously by a 16-strong international panel of imaging experts, who give their time and expertise freely to judge the awards. This year TPOTY welcomes three new judges to the panel: New York-based photographer’s agent, Frank Meo, wildlife, conservation and National Geographic photographer Jason Edwards and editorial photographer and Royal Photographic Society President, Simon Hill. All judging is completed ‘blind’ – the judges do not know the identity or nationality of any entrants – and finalists must provide the RAW/original image files for the final judging stage to confirm the validity of their entries.

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Yes, unbelievably Travel Photographer of the Year is in its 21st year and this hugely prestigious international competition will soon be announcing new winners.

But first, to be amongst them, you have to enter… you have to be in it to win it! So now is the time for all of you to start thinking about what you’re going to enter.

ENTRY CATEGORIES – You have 4 portfolio categories to choose from, 3 MPB One Shot categories, and the MPB ‘World in Motion’ HD video category for short travel-related films. There is an entry fee but we’ve reduced it this year to help you in difficult time, and there are multi-image entry packages offer up to 50% of the entry fee.

The overall winner and Travel Photographer of the Year 2023 will be chosen from the 4 portfolio categories so you have to enter at least 8 images (2 portfolios) then you will qualify automatically. Even if you don’t think you can win this, our judges award additional prizes for the best single images in each portfolio category. So you could still win something with just one of your portfolio images.

SPECIAL PRIZES – Another reason to enter portfolios this year is we have two very special prizes to be awarded to two of the finalists (not necessarily the winners). The two entrants, selected from any of the four portfolio categories, will have their work reviewed and appraised by a top photographers’ agent, and who know where that may take you!

YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHERS – Some of our best entrants over the years have been our young photographers so if you’re 18 year and under, then have a go! There are two age groups – 14yrs and under, and 15 to 18 yrs – plus we’ll be choosing an overall winner, the Young Travel Photographer of the Year 2023.

TPOTY is open to everyone; young, old, amateur, professional. And it’s judged completely anonymously so you all stand an equal chance of being a winner.

Have a go! CLOSING DATE – 1st October

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