To solve the shortcomings of wavelet transform and Hilbert Huang Transform (HHT) in fault traveling wave detection methods, a novel fault traveling wave detection based on Variational Mode Decomposition and Hilbert (VMD-Hilbert) transform is proposed. The fault signal collected by travelling sensor is decomposed by VMD and the initial traveling wave arriving time is determined by eigenvalues of modal component extracted by Hilbert transform. To eliminate the uncertainty of fault traveling wave velocity affects the location accuracy, a novel fault location method is proposed based on arriving time of fault initial traveling wave zero mode component and line mode component, which is not affected by traveling wave velocity. Results of ATP/EMTP simulation show that the detection method proposed can effectively determine the traveling wave time and the fault location method dispenses with the time of fault occurrence and arriving time of fault reflecting wave, which improves the location accuracy further. This work is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51425701 and No. 61233008), National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFB0900605 and No. 2017YFB0902903), and Hunan Provincial Key Research and Development Program (No. 2016GK2013).