The Best Travel Quotes
Travel is empowering, it is mind-expanding, and it provides education about the world at large. Stepping out of our own reality and embarking on a sojourn to a foreign place heightens our awareness—of ourselves, of our surroundings—and can make us a better person and citizen of Earth.
I have always found travel to be transformative and take every opportunity to leave my four walls and seek out new places. When I can’t pack a suitcase, I enjoy reminding myself of all the great reasons to travel, and these travel quotes are some of the inspiration that I draw from and wanted to share them with you.
Here are the best travel quotes with travel photos to inspire you to get out and explore!
Happy trails wherever you may go!
Why We Travel
Not everyone travels for the same reason. Some find it exhilarating, some are challenging themselves, while others use it as an escape. There is no right or wrong reason to embark on a journey, just one that satisfies your heart and mind.
There is so much to see in the world and an equal number of reasons to see it. From 19th-century French novelist Gustave Flaubert to English philosopher and writer Aldous Huxley to modern-day adventurers like Bill Bryson, these travel quotes are a reminder of why I travel and what can be gained by a little adventure.
1. “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin
2. “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” – Anonymous
3. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert
4. “We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous
5. “To awaken alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark
6. “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
7. “Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain
8. “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta
9. “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination with reality, and instead of thinking of how things may be, see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson
10. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – Aldous Huxley
11. “When overseas you learn more about your own country, than you do the place you’re visiting.” – Clint Borgen
12. “To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson
13. “Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.” – Lawrence Block
14. “The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” – Shirley MacLaine
15. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
16. “Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone.” – Wendell Berry
17. “Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection.”- Lawrence Durrell
18. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert
19. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain
20. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
21. “When we get out of the glass bottle of our ego and when we escape like the squirrels in the cage of our personality and get into the forest again, we shall shiver with cold and fright. But things will happen to us so that we don’t know ourselves. Cool, unlying life will rush in.” – D.H. Lawrence
22. “For the born traveller, travelling is a besetting vice. Like other vices, it is imperious, demanding its victim’s time, money, energy and the sacrifice of comfort.” – Aldous Huxley
23. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
24. “We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfilment.” – Hilaire Belloc
25. “To get away from one’s working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one’s self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.” – Charles Horton Cooley
26. “The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at least to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” – G.K. Chesterton
27. “We live in a world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” –Jawaharial Nehru
28. “Half of the fun of travel is the aesthetic of lostness.” – Ray Bradbury
29. “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang
30. “Conventional wisdom tells us…we take our baggage with us. I’m not so sure. Travel, at its best, transforms us in ways that aren’t always apparent until we’re back home. Sometimes we do leave our baggage behind, or, even better, it’s misrouted to Cleveland and is never heard from again.” – Eric Weiner
31. “If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.” – Anthony Bourdain
32. “At its best, travel should challenge our preconceptions and most cherished views, cause us to rethink our assumptions, shake us a bit, make us broader minded and more understanding.” – Arthur Frommer
Inspirational Travel Quotes
There are some who need a push, a reason, an inspiration to engage in travel. Because, let’s face it, travel is more than packing a suitcase. It requires thought, planning, money, and a whole host of other ingredients.
Some can get lost in the details without seeing the bigger picture. At times this even happens to me. I need a reminder that there is a big world out there, that there is value in taking the time to travel, which is when I dig out these inspirational travel quotes to get the juices flowing.
33. “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill
34. “The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton
35. “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
36. “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” – Anonymous
37. “The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.” – Henry David Thoreau
38. “The life you have led doesn’t need to be the only life you have.” – Anna Quindlen
39. “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide
40. “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.” – Saint Augustine
41. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain
42. “Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” – Ray Bradbury
43. “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” – James Michener
44. “Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey.” – Fitzhugh Mullan
45. “Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you traveled.” – Mohammed
46. “He who would travel happily must travel light.” – Antoine de St. Exupery
47. “Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure.” – Irving Wallace
48. “Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
49. “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes
50. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Neale Donald Walsch
51. “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” – Alan Keightley
52. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” – Robert Frost
53. “There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.” – Charles Dudley Warner
54. “A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu
55. “Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” – Matsuo Basho
56. “I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” – Rosalia de Castro
57. “The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.” – G.K. Chesterton
58. “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes
59. “A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place.” – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
60. “Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” – Pat Conroy
61. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware.” – Martin Buber
62. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
63. “If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.” – Cesare Pavese
64. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” – Henry David Thoreau
65. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
66. “Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” – Jennifer Lee
67. “The most beautiful in the world is, of course, the world itself.” – Wallace Stevens
68. “And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” – Randy Komisar
69. “Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure.” – Irving Wallace
70. “You can shake the sand from your shoes, but it will never leave your soul.”
71. “When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” – Susan Heller
72. “There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.” – Jack Kerouac
73. “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
74. “Take every chance you get in life, because some things only happen once.” – Karen Gibbs
Short Travel Quotes
At times it only takes a few words to convey a big message. These short travel quotes are perfect to add as a tagline to your email signature, to hang on your cork board, and to feel at one with some of the greatest people and travelers that ever lived. (And if you are an avid traveler, they’re short enough for a tattoo!)
75. “Adventure is worthwhile.” – Aesop
76. “Live life with no excuses, travel with no regret” – Oscar Wilde
77. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” – Helen Keller
78. “People don’t take trips, trips take people.” – John Steinbeck
79. “Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions.” – Peter Hoeg
80. “You don’t have to be rich to travel well.” – Eugene Fodor
81. “Oh the places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss
82. “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Chief Seattle
83. “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag
84. “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” – Herman Melville
85. “Investment in travel is an investment in yourself.” – Matthew Karsten
86. “Travel far enough, you meet yourself” – David Mitchell
87. “Live your life by a compass not a clock.” – Stephen Covey
88. “Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.” – Paolo Coelho
89. “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca
90. “To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Andersen
91. “The journey is my home.” – Muriel Rukeyser
92. “Experience, travel – these are as education in themselves.” – Euripides
93. “To travel is worth any cost or sacrifice.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
94. “He travels fastest who travels alone.” – Proverb
95. “A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.” – Moslih Eddin Saadi
96. “Jet lag is for amateurs.” – Dick Clark
97. “I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.” – George Bernard Shaw
98. “Travel teaches toleration.” – Benjamin Disraeli
99. “…life is short and the world is wide.” – Simon Raven
Love and Couple Travel Quotes
The majority of my travels are undertaken with Peter, who is a wonderful traveling companion. We always seem to be on the same page about destinations, activities, and like me, he is up for a challenge. Traveling with a loved one or just loving travel in and of itself is the impetus behind these love and couple travel quotes and you also get some great travel photos along the way. This first photo from this post at the Grand Canyon South Rim continues to be one of my all-time favorite photos of Peter and me.
100. “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius
101. “Travel brings power and love back into your life.” – Jalaluddin Rumi
102. “A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.” – George A. Moore
103. “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.” – Ernest Hemingway
104. “In life, it’s not where you go, it’s who you travel with.” – Charles Schulz
105. “Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.” – Roy M. Goodman
106. “Wherever you go, go with all your heart!” – Confucius
107. “Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go, this is my station.’” – Lisa St. Aubin de Teran”
108. “Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone.” – The Dhammapada
Funny Quotes About Travel
One thing you must pack when traveling is a sense of humor. It is invaluable in the face of adversity, makes a mockery of any crisis, and takes the sting out of what could be a painful experience. These funny travel quotes are perfect expressions of the lighter side of travel and a reminder not to take everything on the road so seriously.
109. “No place is ever as bad as they tell you it’s going to be.” – Chuck Thompson
110. “If an ass goes travelling, he’ll not come home a horse.” – Thomas Fuller
111. “The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist.” – Russell Baker
112. “I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” – Mark Twain
113. “Two great talkers will not travel far together.” –Spanish Proverb
114. “Thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.” – Charles Kuralt
115. “Hey, people who travel with their bed pillow. You look insane.” – Jim Gaffigan
116. “Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers.” – George Carlin
117. “Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.” – Susan Sontag
118. “A good holiday is one that is spent among people whose notions of time are vaguer than yours.” – J.B. Priestley
119. “[Airline food] is the tiniest food I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Any kind of meat that you get — chicken, steak, anything — has grill marks on each side, like somehow we’ll actually believe there’s an open-flame grill in the front of the plane.” – Ellen de Generes
120. “Boy, those French. They have a different word for everything.” – Steve Martin
121. “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes
122. “You define a good flight by negatives: you didn’t get hijacked, you didn’t crash, you didn’t throw up, you weren’t late, you weren’t nauseated by the food. So you are grateful.” – Paul Theroux
123. “Travel is the name of a modern disease which became rampant in the mid-fifties and is still spreading. The disease – its scientific name is travelitis furiosus – is carried by a germ called prosperity.” – George Mikes
124. “A tourist is a fellow who drives thousands of miles so he can be photographed standing in front of his car.” –Emile Ganest
125. “There is nothing safer than flying – it’s crashing that is dangerous.” –Theo Cowan
126. “Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go.” –Truman Capote
127. “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” –Yogi Berra
128. “If you’ve seen one redwood tree, you’ve seen them all.” – Ronald Reagan
129. “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” –Paul Theroux
130. “Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God.” – Kurt Vonnegut
131. “I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.” – Caskie Stinnett
I hope these travel quotes have inspired you to hit the road and start on your journey to create your own travel quotes. Travel can bring you more than just to a new destination.
Here’s to stylish travels!
-V
