At Photography Travel Tours, we offer travel adventures in Europe with a focus on photography.

If you can relate to any of the criteria below, you might be somebody who would greatly enjoy traveling and photographing with us.

Find our 2024 tour schedule and a list of our all-time favorite travel books below.

• You have a passion for photography and would love to learn techniques from award-winning photographers to improve your skills.
• You don’t have time to research the most stunning locations in Europe (we do it for you).
• You are freshly retired or have gone through other life changes and/or would like to travel solo in the company of a small group of like-minded travelers/photographers.
• You are happy enough to not have to drive windy roads or reserve charming hotels and great restaurants yourself in a foreign country.
• You’re thrilled about experiencing iconic locations as well as hidden gems at just the right time with just the right conditions for creating your own masterpieces in Europe (we spend many days researching for you).
• You want to learn a lot while also having a lot of fun!

Click here for more information. »

2024 Photography Travel Tours Schedule

The Czech Republic Photo Tour | Old-World Charm: April 11-19 (link to detailed tour information)

Join us on this 8-day Czech Republic & Prague Photo Tour. Included are 3 nights in intriguing Prague, 3 nights in Moravia’s rolling hills, 2 nights in magical Czesky Krumlov, and more.

The Netherlands Photo Tour | Tulips, Canals & Windmills: April 23-May 1 (link to detailed tour information)

Photograph the amazing diversity of this tiny country including medieval towns, boats, and canals, the stately windmills of Kinderdijk, the vibrant tulips fields of North Holland, over-the-top color in the Keukenhof Gardens, modern Rotterdam, and much more.

Tuscany Photo Tour #1 | La Bella Toscana: May 5-12 (link to detailed tour information)

Tuscany is one of the best destinations in the world to take a photography tour and create your own stunning masterpieces! Join us on our popular flagship Tuscany Photo Tour!

Cinque Terre Photo Tour | Timeless Italy: May 14-19 (link to detailed tour information)

If you are looking for one of the best destinations in the world to create stunning masterpieces, join our popular Cinque Terre Photo Tour!

Tuscany Photo Tour #2 | La Bella Toscana: May 20-27 (link to detailed tour information)

Our Tuscany Photo Tour is so popular, that we decided to add a second one in 2023 so that you too can create your own stunning masterpieces!

Venice Photo Tour | The Magic of the Serenissima: May 29-June 2 (link to detailed tour information)

The term of endearment that best suits this idyllic and magical city is “La Serenissima,” which means “The Most Serene” in Italian. Expect a fantastic visual feast on our Venice Photo Tour!

Portugal Photo Tour | A Visual Feast: June 9-18 (link to detailed tour information)

Join us on this 9-day Portugal Photo Tour and photograph fascinating Porto, the lush vineyards of the Douro Valley, impressive 12th-century monasteries, the tile-covered town of Aveiro, medieval Obidos, and charming Lisbon.

Provence Photo Tour | Lavender & Villages: June 24-30 (link to detailed tour information)

Idyllic French villages and farmers markets, lavender and sunflowers in full bloom. Join us on our “France at its most charming” Provence Photo Tour.

Camarque Photo Tour | Exhilaration Defined: June 30-July 3 (link to detailed tour information)

Four action-packed, adrenalin-infused, sessions with the amazing Whites Horses of the Camargue in Southern France. Join us on our Camargue White Horses Photo Tour.

Check out some of our favorite travel books.
Happy dreaming!

Click on each book image to go to the Amazon page for ordering but also consider getting the books from your local library or, better yet, from your independent bookstore down the street. They sure need our support. The book descriptions are excerpts from Amazon except for the red remarks which are ours. And let us know which book you found inspirational.

Why The Dutch Are Different: A Journey into the Hidden Heart of the Netherlands

By Ben Coates

We love The Netherlands and feel right at home there. The people are friendly and practical and the countryside is very intriguing, especially for photographers.

Stranded at Schiphol airport, Ben Coates called up a friendly Dutch girl he’d met some months earlier. He stayed for dinner. Actually, he stayed for good. A personal portrait of a fascinating people, a sideways history, and an entertaining travelogue, Why the Dutch are Different is the story of an Englishman who went Dutch. And loved it.

Yellow Envelope

By Kim Dinan

After Kim and her husband decide to quit their jobs to travel around the world, they’re given a yellow envelope containing a check and instructions to give the money away. The only three rules for the envelope: Don’t overthink it; share your experiences; don’t feel pressured to give it all away. Through Ecuador, Peru, Nepal, and beyond, Kim and Brian face obstacles, including major challenges to their relationship. As she distributes the gift to people she encounters along the way she learns that money does not have a thing to do with the capacity to give, but that giving of ourselves is transformational.

Country Driving: A Chinese Road Trip

By Peter Hessler

This is currently one of Jim’s favorite authors. A life-long traveler with a curious mind and an open heart and a delightful way with words.

From the bestselling author of Oracle Bones and River Town comes the final book in his award-winning trilogy on the human side of the economic revolution in China. Peter Hessler, whom the Wall Street Journal calls “one of the Western world’s most thoughtful writers on modern China,” deftly illuminates the vast, shifting landscape of a traditionally rural nation that, having once built walls against foreigners, is now building roads and factory towns that look to the outside world.

How to Be a Family: The Year I Dragged My Kids Around the World to Find a New Way to Be Together

By Dan Kois

Inspiration and fun for every family that longs for more real “face time.” 

In this “refreshingly relatable” (Outside) memoir, perfect for the self-isolating family, Slate editor Dan Kois sets out with his family on a journey around the world to change their lives together. In this eye-opening, heartwarming, and very funny family memoir, the fractious, loving Kois’ go in search of other places on the map that might offer them the chance to live away from home-but closer together. Over a year the family lands in New Zealand, the Netherlands, Costa Rica, and small-town Kansas. The goal? To get out of their rut of busyness and distractedness and to see how other families live outside the East Coast parenting bubble.

The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World’s Happiest Country 

By Helen Russell

Supposedly the happiest people on earth. What’s their secret?

When she was suddenly given the opportunity of a new life in rural Jutland, journalist, and archetypal Londoner Helen Russell discovered a startling statistic: the happiest place on earth isn’t Disneyland, but Denmark, a land often thought of by foreigners as consisting entirely of long dark winters, cured herring, and pastries.

Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious

By Seth Kugel

An indispensable companion for rookie and veteran travelers alike that promises to revolutionize both how and why we vacation. By captivating millions during his six-year, fifty-country tenure as the New York Times’s “Frugal Traveler,” Seth Kugel has become one of our most internationally beloved travel writers. 

For the Love of Europe: My Favorite Places, People, and Stories

By Rick Steves

Beloved travel writer and TV personality who single-handedly has introduced the American public to the possibility and joys of travel and happens to live in our home town of Edmonds, just north of Seattle. What a guy!

After 40+ years of writing about Europe, Rick Steves has gathered 100 of his favorite memories together into one inspiring collection: For the Love of Europe: My Favorite Places, People, and Stories. With a brand-new, original introduction from Rick reflecting on his decades of travel, For the Love of Europe features 100 of the best stories published throughout his career. Covering his adventures through England, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and more, these are stories only Rick Steves could tell.

Death at La Fenice: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery

By Donna Leon 

This is the first book in a series of 29 and each year, we eagerly await Commissario Brunetti’s new adventures. Venice provides the backdrop for the lush film versions of these bestselling novels with excellent German actors and English subtitles. Look for them at your library or stream them on Youtube. 

Beautiful and serene Venice is a city almost devoid of crime. But that is little comfort to Maestro Helmut Wellauer, a world-renowned conductor whose intermission refreshment comes one night with a little something extra in it–cyanide. For Guido Brunetti, vice-commissario of police and genius detective, finding a suspect isn’t a problem; narrowing the large and unconventional group of enemies down to one is. As the suave and pithy Brunetti pieces together clues, a shocking picture of depravity and revenge emerges, leaving him torn between what is and what should be right–and questioning what the law can do, and what needs to be done.

Bruno, Chief of Police: A Mystery of the French Countryside

By Martin Walker

Another favorite series that allows us to experience a flavor of life in a small village in the Périgord, part of the Aquitaine region in south-west France.

Meet Benoît Courrèges, aka Bruno, a policeman in a small village in the South of France.  He’s a former soldier who has embraced the pleasures and slow rhythms of country life. He has a gun but never wears it; he has the power to arrest but never uses it.  But then the murder of an elderly North African who fought in the French army changes all that.  Now Bruno must balance his beloved routines—living in his restored shepherd’s cottage, shopping at the local market, drinking wine, strolling the countryside—with a politically delicate investigation.  

Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World 

 By Rita Golden Gelman

The true story of an ordinary woman living an extraordinary existence all over the world.“Gelman doesn’t just observe the cultures she visits, she participates in them, becoming emotionally involved in the people’s lives. This is an amazing travelogue” (Booklist). At the age of forty-eight, on the verge of a divorce, Rita Golden Gelman left an elegant life in L.A. to follow her dream of traveling the world, connecting with people all over the globe.

A Vineyard in Tuscany: A Wine Lover’s Dream

By Ferenc Máté 

Any of Máté’s books about starting a new life and crafting world-renowned wines in Tuscany are wonderful. Check out his story and wines here. »

In this laugh-out-loud tale, two adventurers discover that rare combination: joy and success. Candace, a painter, and Ferenc, a writer, begin a new life near the hill town of Montalcino. They restore a thirteenth-century friary, plant fifteen acres of vines, build a winery, tame a runaway tractor, excavate an Etruscan village, and battle volcanic fermenting vats while learning from famous vintner neighbor Angelo Gaja the secrets of growing the best grapes and making superb, award-winning wine. This extraordinary tale will enrich the lives of travelers and wine lovers alike.

Holy Cow: An Indian Adventure

By Sarah Macdonald

India was hands down the most magical and wonderful place for us to visit (not the least for the loveliness of its people), but also the most challenging. What a kaleidoscope of experiences!

Holy Cow is Macdonald’s often hilarious chronicle of her adventures in a land of chaos and contradiction, of encounters with Hinduism, Islam and Jainism, Sufis, Sikhs, Parsis and Christians, and a kaleidoscope of yogis, swamis, and Bollywood stars. From spiritual retreats to war zones and New Delhi nightclubs, it is a journey that only a woman on a mission to save her soul, her love life—and her sanity—can survive.

Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

By Bill Bryson

The first time I heard a friend laugh roaringly while reading this Bryson book, I was hooked on this irreverent traveler. Read all of his books!

In the early seventies, Bill Bryson backpacked across Europe—in search of enlightenment, beer, and women. He was accompanied by an unforgettable sidekick named Stephen Katz (who will be gloriously familiar to readers of Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods). Twenty years later, he decided to retrace his journey. The result is the affectionate and riotously funny Neither Here Nor There.

Jim and Magrit have been photographing professionally and traveling in Europe for the past 20 years. They started Photography Travel Tours in 2011 with the goal of educating and guiding photographers to some of the most beautiful and iconic scenes in Europe. The tours are not just about getting great photographs but also have the side benefits of doing so in wonderful environments. Great food, wine, people, and ambiance. Read more about Jim & Magrit and their wonderful photo tours here: (http://photographytraveltours.com/about/). Slow Travel Tours is an affiliation of small-group tour operators who offer personalized trips in Italy, France and other European countries.