Travel Snaps Challenge Winners

Travel changes us — if we let its lessons in. It’s possible to wander the world, even to take pictures, with our eyes as good as closed, never opening to the new self that a new place might make of us. So many of the entries to our Travel Snaps challenge were by creators who really wanted to look at the world, and themselves, anew. They were all inspiring to read — and to see, because photography was an important part of this competition. To us, the ‘quality’ of the photographs wasn’t the point; it was that these images were yours. It was a reminder of how much more that can mean — certainly when it comes to personal essays — than widely available or AI images. We really loved seeing these snaps.

Congratulations to S. A. Crawford — who’s been a runner up a few times but never a winner — for In the Shadow of Giants, which took this traveler from Scotland to the Sonoran desert. “You see, the desert is a mirror. It shows you who you are; do you see death or life? Do you enjoy your smallness or fear it?” The piece is a portrait of a place and a glimpse of a heart.

Sometimes travel connects us to home more directly. Our second place winner Natasha Collazo’s Cementerio Maria Magdalena De Pazzis traces her Puerto Rican roots on a first visit to the place as she lets it change her and welcome her: “as I let my black hair down and became one with my brown skin and street empanadas”. I won’t spoil the piece if you haven’t read it, but it ends on a powerful, enigmatic note.

There’s a sense of homecoming too in one our runners-up, Lily Séjor’s Tell Them I Came Home, about a visit to Guadeloupe, which conjures the soft Caribbean air strongly. We admired the courage and frankness of Tiffany Fairfield’s Mina Sauk Falls, an essay about what it takes to voyage inside ourselves. And BK’s Homeland used an unusual, bullet-pointed structure to offer different perspectives on a trip to Ireland. Thanks to all of you for sharing your memory-hoards, your reflections, your visions. It’s been… a trip.

You can check out the full list of winners HERE and learn about our current challenges below: