Extraordinary stories about travel and the human spirit have been the cornerstones of our books since 1993. With the Solas Awards we honor writers whose work inspires others to explore. We’re looking for the best stories about travel and the world funny, illuminating, adventurous, uplifting, scary, inspiring, poignant stories that reflect the unique alchemy that occurs when you enter unfamiliar territory and begin to see the world differently as a result. We hope these awards will be a catalyst for those who love to leave home and tell others about it.

I won a Solas Best Travel Writing Award for my story about what it feels like to make the last continent. You can read the original piece here. I sold a (very slightly) edited version of it to a print mag at the end of last year and they ran it as a gorgeous center spread. The piece took second place in the “cruise story” category, which is funny because, really, cruising? I’ll admit it, I’m feeling a bit pleased with myself this morning; a big part of me is saying, “You guys, look, you can totally publish your best work on your blog and good things can happen! And this one, this one came from a kind of unconventional sponsored trip program, I was helping an Antarctica cruise business relaunch their blog and they sent me down. Press trips for bloggers can result in great writing, too. See! It can be done!”  (Yeah, yeah, we get the point. You can shut up now, Mandel.)

I found out that I’d won when I got out of bed early in the morning, surfacing after a brutal take down by the flu. The husband wandered into the kitchen where I stood, still shivering a little from fever chills.

“I won a travel writing award. I’m an award winning travel writer!”

“That’s excellent. Now get your award winning ass back to bed.”