TRAVEL: Around the World 2026

Grid Photo Gallery announces its 2026 open call, TRAVEL: Around the World, inviting photographers worldwide to submit individual works that reflect the breadth, complexity, and visual richness of travel photography today. This edition is open to images made across all kinds of places: distant landscapes, dense cities, remote territories, familiar streets, cultural spaces, routes, borders, interiors, and environments shaped by movement or belonging. The theme is not limited to the act of travelling itself; it is concerned with photographs that open a passage into the world and allow others to enter it through the image.

Travel photography has the ability to connect geography with experience, turning a single frame into an invitation to move beyond one’s immediate surroundings. It may lead us toward places we have never seen, or return our attention to places we thought we knew. A photograph can carry the scale of a mountain range, the rhythm of a market, the silence of an isolated road, the density of a neighbourhood, or the atmosphere of a room shaped by local life. The most compelling travel images do more than identify a location; they offer viewers a way to sense its character, its textures, its distances, and the lives that unfold within it.

For TRAVEL: Around the World, 2026, Grid Photo Gallery seeks photographs that convey a strong sense of place through visual clarity, composition, atmosphere, and intention. We welcome expansive views and intimate details, images of iconic destinations and overlooked corners, scenes of everyday life and encounters with extreme or inhospitable environments. The selection will value works that invite curiosity without simplifying the places they represent, allowing each photographer to guide viewers into a particular encounter with the world around them.

Selected works will be presented in a curated global online exhibition, accessible worldwide, bringing together diverse perspectives on place, movement, culture, and landscape. Photographers are invited to submit images that inspire attention, discovery, and a renewed desire to look beyond the familiar. Through this edition, Grid Photo Gallery welcomes photographs that act as invitations to travel through the eyes of others, expanding our understanding of the world and the many ways it can be experienced through contemporary photography.

Prizes

Selected photographs will be displayed in an online exhibition at Grid Photo Gallery.

In addition to this:

1st Place (“Photographer of the Month”)

• Featured prominently in our virtual exhibition
• Profile interview published on Grid Photo Gallery
• Priority placement on promotional banners and posters
• One free entry in the next open call

2nd & 3rd Places

• Highlighted in the virtual exhibition

All Selected Entries

• Displayed in our main-page exhibition for at least one month, then kept online permanently
• Promoted via our social-media channels
• Digital certificate of participation
• Personal profile page on our platform, including a link to your website
• The top three photographs from the Open Call will be eligible for the title “Photography of the Year”

Selected works may be published in a printed catalog that will be available for purchase. Depending on circumstances, this catalog might feature various exhibitions or its publication schedule may vary.

Dates

• Entry opens: September 1, 2026
• Submission Deadline: October 15, 2026
• Announcement of Winners: December 1, 2026

Entry Fees

The participation in the contest has a single fee of 7€ per image.
There is no limit to the number of images you can submit. Please note that entry fees are non-refundable.

How to Enter?

Participating in this open call for photography is very easy:

1. Click on the “Upload images Here” button a little above.
2. Register or log in to the platform.
3. Upload your photos following the specifications indicated in the rules (format, size, etc.).
4. Pay the entry fee to confirm your participation.
5. Done! Your art will be considered.

At Grid Photo Gallery, we are eager to discover the many ways in which photography can tell a story, spark a memory, or shift a point of view. Share your vision and be part of our next virtual exhibition!

We are waiting for your breathtaking images—of every kind!