Stanfords

Dear Stanfords,
With bed roll in tow, I come to you asking for a little corner, just a tiny one, so that I can move in and never leave. Your book selection is heaven, your booksellers knowledgeable and helpful, and your travel book selection inspirational and extensive. Travel and books together under one roof — I feel we are kindred spirits and would make excellent flat mates. Surely you won’t mind if I settle in on the balcony with the used books?
Many thanks,
A loving admirer

We love bookstores, and especially those with travelguides only. If you can’t find it, it probably doesn’t exists. And it will probably be wiser to look for an other destination.
Besides travelguides and maps they also sell themed novels and photo books, and funny books. They have a small assortiment of travel needs like plugs. In the cellar you’ll find some globes. Beautiful but expensive.
The store has two floors. Don’t forget the cellar which houses the travelguides and maps, in alphabetic order by continent.

Among my top 2 specialist bookstores in London at the moment. (the other is the one at the Wellcome Collection premises)
3 floors of travel and London related books. Lonely Planet and DK EyeWitness are obviously all available, but they are just the tip of the iceberg among the selection available here. Other than the guides and maps, they have fiction and non-​fiction from specific regions too and a sprinkling of cookbooks.
Travel guides and travel accessories (toothbrush covers, walking sticks, waist pouches, games for kids to play when traveling — the range is vast) make up the bulk of the collections.
Half the top floor is the frame-​able maps and globes section. Very reasonable and loads to choose from. I also love their travel themed furniture — if only I could fit them into my pokey London apartment…
The staff is extremely helpful and not in the least bit pushy, so its always a pleasure to shop here. They often have a couple of discounts running and a few author signed copies.
There are quite a few London themed souvenirs on offer that are much higher quality than the 2pound stuff available elsewhere.
Its a great place to pop in for a respite or hunt for your next holiday trip. And there is a coffee shop — Sacred Café — on the premises if you want to give your feet a rest.

Great place for books.

I managed to leave without buying anything. I totally deserve a medal.
Full of both beautiful and useful maps, travel items, and gifts, it’s easy to spend an hour just browsing around. I was nearly tempted by the travel books as I have a couple of weekends away planned — but as we’re (oddly, apparently) having a weekend in Luxembourg, the choice of dedicated travel books is precisely one. So I convinced myself I didn’t need it (the pain, the PAIN! of leaving a bookstore without a bag).
They have lots of really neat framed maps — or custom maps with custom framing — for not even all that much money (there were some on display for less than £50, which for a framed anything outside of Ikea isn’t bad!). Definitely going to go back for Christmas presents. Yeah, that’s what I mean. Not things for me…

Stanfords is one of my favourite book shops in London. I don’t go to many of them… in fact, I didn’t even come here for books. I came here because they have loads of maps and travel accessories. You can get maps for almost anything here. World maps, London maps, country maps, etc… also lots of historical maps. They’ve also got lots of globes and other travel items for sale. A great place to purchase gifts for people as well as home accessories. Definitely the go-​to place in London for anything related to maps!

A quiet spot for a cup of English tea and browse a huge number of travel books, memorabilia and the largest collection of maps you’ve ever seen.
This has to be one of my fave spots in Covent Garden & you could easily spend hours here browsing everything over three floors crammed with travel books, cards, gifts and even unique pieces of furniture! Their map room is astonishing and has some great replicas of vintage travel maps from the 1800s priced in the 40 pounds range.
The staff is very helpful and doesn’t rush you into buying anything — browse to your hearts content. Highly recommend if you’re a travel or book buff.

¿En busca de un mapa? ¡este es tu sitio!
En este sitio puedes encontrar mapas cartográficos, guías de viajes, así como libros relacionados con estos temas o cualquier pijadita hecha un globo terráqueo (véasen balones inchables con el mapa global impreso en él).
Es el lugar ideal para encontrar cualquiera de estas cosas, sin duda el mejor sitio que he encontrado en Londres para ésto.
Yo aconsejaría pasarse por la tienda en vez de mirar lo que tienen en la web, ya que ésta no refleja todo lo que tienen. Yo he terminado comprando uno mundial y otro europeo que no pude encontrar online pero que estaban en stock en la tienda. Para que que tengáis una referencia de precios, el mapa mundial más grande que tienen (como 2m de ancho) ronda las 50 libras y el europeo (bastante más pequeño que el mundial) son unos 20, ambos laminados.
Si te gusta viajar este es tu sitio de referencia :)

It is a place that
everyone will love even if you are not a fan of books. This place is full of
surprises! It is a place where design, sculpture and photograph combine
with toy values, they provides an environment that everyone will appreciate
regardless of their gender and age.

The shop is without a doubt great but it’s just too modernised for my taste. They’ve made digital mapping available and also changed the nice old couches with too modern one. Although it’s not a favourite place of mine it definitely is the bookshop with the widest variety, you can find anything here and they also have some vintage editions hidden around and all kinds of weird and original stationary.

Don’t come in here if you only have 5 minutes to have a quick look; it’s easy to get sucked in here! This is a fantastic bookstore for anyone interested in travel (i.e. everyone?). There’s loads of great maps, travel books, and gifts for travellers (or for yourself!), and oh dear the globes! I want to buy them all! They even have a good selection of cycle maps and guides, and although I don’t cycle I know many who do who might love this resource.
Even if you don’t buy anything, it’s still a great place to have a wander through, and definitely a great time killer, but keep your eye on your watch!

I can see why this place is so highly rated. I stopped by just to pass the time and ended up spending about 30 minutes in here looking at all the books, maps, calendars and cards. A fantastic «travel» bookstore with some items for camping. They have a great selection of books on London and some really interesting/​funny photo books. There is a small café in the back with one sofa and a few chairs. I think they have food as well, but it is all in a really small area.

As a map and travel geek, this is one of my favourite shops in all of London.
So ideally, I’d like to buy a REAL map from 1621, but given I don’t own an archive or have thousands of pounds to my name, a £7 replica from Stanfords will have to do.
Need a map of pretty much anything?
A travel guide for Zimbabwe? Melaka? Texas? Japan?
Bestseller hardcopy books?
A globe?
World cookery books?
A moleskin diary?
Fun, random, intelligent gifts?
A poster of an old tube map, a map of Surrey from 1896, or Oxford 1601?
Books mocking German/​English/​American culture?
Random travel supplies like plug converters, rain ponchos, and passport protectors?
Eh, just check it out, its a travel/​map geek’s fantasy world.

BEWARE! Time does indeed move at a different speed here — it is possible to pop in for 5 minutes, only to discover on leaving that several hours have passed in the rest of the world.
I have to limit my visits here — mainly because of the bank balance, (I always buy sooooo much!) but also because I am sure that one day I will accidentally spend a couple of weeks in there before remembering that I have other things to do.

Map Geeks and Travel Dorks of the World Congregate!
This is like heaven in a bookstore for someone like me. I LOVE maps, travel books and the like. I may live in London, but I am a citizen of the world, and good golly miss molly, this place has every possible version and edition of the books that you want. A must visit if you’re going ANYWHERE!
I was about to head home to my birth country, Singapore, and I saw a recent Wallpaper Guide (another must by the way) to Singapore in Vienna the week before but for a ridiculous E9.95 price. I just knew Stanfords would have it and with confidence I strutted right through those doors and headed downstairs to the Asian section and there it was, staring at me in all it’s peach covered glory. Tada! They even had the 2012 version. Brillz.
Anyway, I wouldn’t hesitate to go back anytime to wander and purchase books for my next travels. You shouldn’t either. Now I wish every country had something like this.

Travel Books. Maps. Every book lovers delight…
I love this place.

An amazing bookstore for anyone who loves travel. It’s practically a candy store for the adventure-​inclined, with maps on the floor, globes on the wall and enough travel toys to satisfy the most tech-​savvy of digital nomads.
Further, the staff are fantastic. They let me open up a plug adapter and test it out before dropping £6 on it, which was incredibly kind of them.

Such a neat little find as I was ambling around this area.
Every type of map you can conceive is there. And so many different types of maps/​guides for London. Need a map of all the art museums? or pubs? or chicken shops? well they have it.
Also various travel gear and light reading and cute gifts. I almost bought a flask covered with an old school world map for myself.
And I am a sucker for notebooks. Had to hold myself back from buying five of them I swan!

Book, book, book, book, book… No this is not my chicken impression, these are the shelves of this fabulous travel book shop. A while ago my brother and sister and me bought my parents a trip away to Oxford. As we didn’t have the actual tickets we wanted to give them a pretty map of the area instead to wrap. I came to Stanfords and they turned up trumps, one map of Oxford, fully illustrated.
Anything worldly you’ll find here, from journals to survival guides, maps and energy bars. There is a little café in here but don’t waste your daily calories, there are a lot better places in the area. Come here for the books, the fabulous books. If you have that awkward person you need to by a present for Stanfords is pretty perfect for picking up something interesting. I can see why this place is Craig M’s favourite shop, it’s just fabulous.

If you’re planning a trip anywhere in the world and need stuff, Stanfords is quite simply THE store.
There can only be one Highlander. And it’s Stanfords.

My favourite shope in London. Definitely.
Having a passion for travel, and a geeky obsession with all things maps related, this is a bit of a mecca for me. My affinity for this shop might be the closest I’ll come to understanding how it is you ladies can aimlessly wander around shops just looking at things for hours and come away empty-​handed. This, and possibly the Apple store, are the only places where I could do this. But chances are I’ll actually be walking out the door with another unnecessary black and white map of somewhere obscure. Like the Crimea. Each to their own I guess.
Also fantastically useful for finding travel books for unusual areas of the world, or even the UK. Need a guide book for tribal regions of East Timor? Stanfords will have it.