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Following the death of Michael Jacobs in 2014, the Michael Jacobs Foundation for Travel Writing, a non-profit organization, was created by Michael's widow and brother to honour his legacy and promote travel writing concerning Hispanic and Latin American culture.

The Foundation promotes the art of travel writing, notably through the Michael Jacobs Travel Writing Award and also by participation in relevant conferences, seminars and in organising travel writing workshops.

The Foundation funds the annual Michael Jacobs Travel Writing Award which is given for a book project or travel article on Latin America or Spain, to be published in Spanish or English. Further details of the 2024 Award are on the Award page.

Winners of the Michael Jacobs Travel Writing Award

2015 – Álex Ayala Ugarte (Spain)

Rigor Mortis: La normalidad es la muerte

This book of sixteen stories gives an account of a journey across the Bolivian plateau in the footprints of death. From the region of Chaco to the high waters of the Titicaca, Ayala paints a portrait of death and how human beings accept it in the midst of Bolivian cultural diversity. The book was published in 2016 by Editorial El Cuervo.

 2016 – Federico Bianchini (Argentina)

Antártida: 25 días encerrado en el hielo

Making it to Antarctica is hard, but it’s much harder to make it out of Antarctica. Bianchini writes of the uniqueness of the lives of the men and women who carry out research on one of the Argentine bases on that frigid, virgin continent. What was meant to be a weeklong stay turned into an almost month-long confinement. The book was published in 2017 by Editorial Tusquets.

 2017 – Diego Cobo (España)

Huellas negras: el rastro de la esclavitud

This work of journalism comprises a series of pieces on the consequences of the trade in African slaves in places such as Gambia, Jamaica, Colombia, and Cuba.

 2018 - Sabrina Duque (Ecuador)

VolcáNica, crónicas desde un país en erupción

This book recounts how many Nicaraguan towns live near volcanoes when they are not erupting, a proposal that breathes journalism and answers the basic requirement of the travel chronicle: to offer a new way to see the world. The description of a country through its everyday life with the hostility of nature is an idea that, according to the jury, will both refresh and renew travel literature.

2019 - Ernesto Picco (Argentina)

Un pequeño país aparte

For Ernesto Picco, it seems impossible to talk about the Falkland Islands without talking about the war in 1982. However, the armed conflict with Argentina and the disputed sovereignty hides a local story in the islands which is unknown and exciting. Picco’s book aims at that story: How is life on the islands nowadays ? What are the main political and social reference points today ? Who are their historical figures ? What were their internal conflicts ? How were they before the war and what happened after that ? The project tries to answer these questions, combining travel stories and documentary research, based on interviews and tours made on the islands and meticulous work on local files, both Argentinian and British.

2020 - J.S. Tennant (United Kingdom)

Mrs. Gargantua: Cuba, the United States, and the New Man

A highlight of this project is how it challenges the traditional approach to Cuba seen from a political perspective and instead discovers, in the course of his travels, a diverse and fascinating country, with stories about gorillas, scientists, caves with graffiti, and other topics.

2021 - Santiago Wills (Colombia)

The Shadow of the Jaguar: Capturing the Spirit of America

Santiago Wills proposes a biography of the jaguar, the great American feline, following its steps through a series of trips through Honduras, Colombia, Suriname and Brazil. The proposal aims to narrate the meaning of the jaguar for the places it inhabits and the people around it, and during this process to increase sensitivity about this endangered species.

2022 - Federico Guzmán Rubio (Mexico)

Sí hay tal lugar: viaje a las ruinas de las utopías latinoamericanas

A book of travel chronicles to narrate the road through the ruins that some Latin American utopias left behind, taking the writer to Michoacán (Mexico), Martín García Island (Argentina), Paraná and Santarem (Brazil), Solentiname (Nicaragua) and Santa Fe (Mexico).

2023 - Abraham Jimenez Enoa (Cuba)

Aterrizar en el mundo - Landing in the World

The author sets out to tell the story of his first year outside Cuba, after being confined to the island for his entire life—33 years. Jiménez writes about some of the West’s most emblematic cities, where he has lived in exile— Barcelona, Madrid, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Washington, and New York—seeing them not through a lens of naivety or astonishment, but from a more detailed, analytical, and structured perspective.

2024 - Miguel Veládez (Argentina)

Migrantes Laborales - Migrant Workers

Velárdez's narrative concerns the workers who travel from various parts of Argentina and neighbouring counties in pursuit of employment in the remote province of Santa Cruz, in the heart of Argentine Patagonia. Involving a 1,100 km odyssey through the province during its harsh winter, Velárdez will tell the stories of labourers, employees, traders, and even recent high school graduates, each grappling to carve out a livelihood in an unforgiving environment, far removed from their homes and families.