Stanfords

For trip-​planning, whether it’s a round-​the world extravaganza or a gentle walk in some local woods, Stanfords is the best travel shop in Bristol.
Located on Corn Street in the city centre, the ground floor level is dedicated mainly to travel writing, beautiful coffee table-​style books of travel photography, and hundreds of guides books covering different continents, countries and cities around the world. You’d struggle to find a destination that’s not covered by at least one of the books here, and even the local vicinity is well-​catered for with a special section for books about Bristol and the surrounding area.
On the shop’s lower floor, you can find a huge stock of maps — ranging from local OS maps for hiking in the UK, to road maps of Spain or even world maps for your office wall. You can also get a customised map made up for you at the shop, centred around any location you wish, using the OS Select service.
Look out for the in-​shop posters advertising talks from authors and famous adventurers and travellers, too!

Standfords has pretty much anything you could ever want for that round the world trip, or that hike into the Somerset countryside. Either way, Standfords is the place to go. They sell your standard Lonely Planet and OS maps, but also some interesting books on the local area. My brother is a cyclist and has found they stock some good road guides for cyclists.
As Lisa B says, keep a look out for who is visiting; just a month ago the legend that is Sir David Attenborough did a book signing here in humble Bristol!

I love maps. I love travel. I love Stanfords.
With an enormous selection of travel guides, maps, globes and gifts, Stanfords is the best place to come for all of your map related needs, from local OS maps to maps of the whole world and individual countries.
Look out for who’s visiting the shop, they often have very interesting and well travelled guests, and make sure to bring you book along for an autograph.

As a secret geography nerd I’m a big fan of Stanford. This is (probably Bristol’s one and only) map shop, selling things like ordinance survey maps of North Gloucestershire, world atlases, and most things in between. Also a book shop, it’s got guide books for just about every obscure region you could think of.
They do events every now and then with various adventurer types coming in to wow you with stories of their travels. If you’re passionate about travelling come down for one of these for a bit of inspiration and signed book if you’re lucky.
Just browsing will probably give you itchy feet and looking to book the next plane out of Bristol (although just walking through Broadmead gives me that feeling sometimes). Stanford’s has the books and maps you need for more or less any trip anywhere.

Where am I?
Where am I going?
What shall I do when I get there?
Stanfords can help.
The place to go when you are going places, Stanfords houses maps of a trillion kinds from sightseeing in Las Vegas to walking in Andalucian hills (check out the staircase down to the lower floor for a huge map of Bristol as wallpaper) as well a wide selection of travel literature including all the Lonely Planet/​Rough Guide series.
They also handle the OS customised map service here — where you can have a map made of anywhere — say you want your favourite walk but it usually takes two maps to see the whole thing? You can get a customised map of the area you need. Also good to use as a moving-​in present as you can get a map centered around your house!
They often have authors signing books and talks by travellers and writers in store — David Attenborough is there next week, I’ll be the one weeping in the corner too afraid to say anything to him.

A great map shop in Bristol for maps of all kinds and sizes in all the different scales: laminated ones, paper, folded or in tubes. Helpful staff as well. It’s in the middle of the shopping centre, not far from the floating harbour. The shop has recently been refurbished as well.