The best travel photos of the year

Published on February 5, 2024 at 9:30 am

The world's best travel photographs are entered into the competition every year. These are the winners for 2023.

AndreJa Ravnak. Cerca de Pienza, Toscana, Italia.

AndreJa Ravnak is happiest in the places where living conditions are most difficult: high in the mountains and in the most unusual deserts. It is also there that he likes to take pictures of the depths of these worlds, of the beauty that seems so alien to the human. It is his images that won him first place in the Travel Photograph of the Year (TPOY).

AndreJa Ravnak, Moravia del Sur, cerca de Kyov (República Checa).

Born in Slovenia, Ravnak is not only a photographer. Her profession, in fact, is architecture, and she also writes and designs. But photographs are what allow her to preserve her memory, to save those spectacular places she has visited and captivated. "I need it to preserve my memories. I would have forgotten so many things if I didn't have my photos," says Andreja Ravnak.

Moravia del Sur, cerca de Cejc, República Checa (Czechia).

The images he captures are full of subtlety, texture and calm. His more than 15 years of experience in art have given him the eye and the technique to see tenderness in these almost inhospitable places, where even breathing is difficult. He also shows us the patterns and forms that the earth takes, sometimes with human influence, in landscapes that provoke genuine pleasure to the eyes.

Chinle, Arizona, Estados Unidos.

She was not the only winner of this competition. While she received the top prize, Travel Photographer of the Year, there are also other categories, such as Young Travel Photographer of the Year, which went to Caden Shepard Choi, a 14-year-old American who is passionate about the intersection of photography and journalism. She likes to capture the moments, experiences and emotions of people in precise moments: a crying baby on a crowded plane, a group of wild fans at a game, people going about their daily lives, working. For Shepard Choi, photography has great power: "The more we see of others, the more we can understand ourselves and break down the barriers that divide us.

Las tierras altas islandesas.

The collection of TPOY winners show a melting pot of fascinating views and perspectives of the world: distant landscapes, erupting volcanoes, animal tenderness and humans being part of the Earth's processes. Travel, this competition teaches us, has the capacity to confront us with the unknown and at the same time, with the deepest part of our being.

Exton, Pensilvania, EE.UU.

"There is a subtle elegance to this year's winners. One takes us to simple landscapes, with delicate colours and textural beauty, the other to hop fields, out of season and bare, ready for the next planting. Neither are obvious subjects, neither has been photographed at an optimum time of year, and yet both are attractive and quite beautiful."

Chris Coe, TPOY judge.

Other winners