quotations about travel
Of course, even foreign places grow familiar given enough time; even novelty grows old. Some would argue that this is what makes travel pointless. And in a sense, it's true--childhoods never last. But everyone deserves one.
WENDY DALE
Avoiding Prison and Other Noble Vacation Goals
Strong and content I travel the open road.
WALT WHITMAN
Song of the Open Road
If I'd learnt one thing from travelling, it was that the way to get things done was to go ahead and do them. Don't talk about going to Borneo. Book a ticket, get a visa, pack a bag, and it just happens.
ALEX GARLAND
The Beach
People travel to wonder at the height of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars; and they pass by themselves without wondering.
ST. AUGUSTINE
Confessions
It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end.
URSULA K. LE GUIN
The Left Hand of Darkness
Travel far enough, you meet yourself.
DAVID MITCHELL
Cloud Atlas
A traveller without observation is a bird without wings.
SAADI
attributed, Day's Collacon
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.
LAO TZU
attributed, A Kind of Knowing
Travel is like an endless university. You never stop learning.
HARVEY LLOYD
Cruise Travel, April 1985
Travel is intensified living--maximum thrills per minute and one of the last great sources of legal adventure. Travel is freedom. It's recess, and we need it.
RICK STEVES
Rick Steves' Europe Through the Back Door
To travel is to live.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
The Fairy Tale of My Life
All our journeys are rhapsodies on the theme of discovery. We travel as seekers after answers we cannot find at home, and soon find that a change of climate is easier than a change of heart. The bittersweet truth about travel is embedded in the word, which derives from the older word travail, itself rooted in the Latin tripalium, a medieval torture rack.
PHIL COUSINEAU
The Art of Pilgrimage
The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land.
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON
Tremendous Trifles
Every mile you travel, is like the one left behind.
LES HUGHES
A Young Australian Pioneer
Every mile of travel is like the disinterment of a buried city.
ANONYMOUS
Appleton's Journal, January-June 1878
What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? It's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.
JACK KEROUAC
A man who leaves home to mend himself and others is a philosopher; but he who goes from country to country, guided by the blind impulse of curiosity, is a vagabond.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH
Letters from a Citizen of the World
Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
I don't keep a travel diary. I did keep a travel diary once and it was a big mistake. All I remember of that trip is what I bothered to write down. Everything else slipped away, as though my mind felt jilted by my reliance on pen and paper. For exactly the same reason I don't travel with a camera. My holiday becomes the snapshots and anything I forget to record is lost.
ALEX GARLAND
The Beach
When one is traveling, everything looks brighter and lovelier. That does not mean it IS brighter and lovelier; it just means that sweet, kindly home suffers in comparison to tarted-up foreign places with all their jewels on.
CATHERYNNE M. VALENTE
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making