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47 Anthony Bourdain Quotes That Will Inspire You to Travel More, Eat Better, and Enjoy Life

From his best "Kitchen Confidential" quotes, to Anthony Bourdain's thoughts on life, his passionate search for new cultures and cuisines will inspire your next adventure.

I have a printed out copy of Anthony Bourdain's first New Yorker article, Don't Eat Before Reading This , in my desk drawer. Sometimes I forget it's there, and sometimes it gets crushed by external hard drives, travel brochures, or extraneous chords. But every so often, when I'm sick of working, I'll clean out my desk and start reading the crumpled pages. And almost instantly, I am thrown by the way Bourdain sculpts sentences , by his matter-of-fact humor, and by how timeless his words are. Bourdain's work hooks me instantly, and offers answers to questions I didn't even know I had. Much of Anthony Bourdain's writing advocates for experiencing culture through food, and exploring the lesser-known sights of new cities. And those ideas have helped informed how I travel.

Whether you're a fan of his written work and are searching for "Kitchen Confidential" quotes, or you're more partial to watching Parts Unknown , there's a piece of his wisdom to suit every appetite. These 52 Anthony Bourdain quotes about life will broaden your travel horizons and inspire you on your next journey.

Anthony Bourdain Travel Quotes

"It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn."

"Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you."

"The journey is part of the experience — an expression of the seriousness of one's intent. One doesn't take the A train to Mecca."

"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."

"If I'm an advocate for anything, it's to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else's shoes or at least eat their food, it's a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move."

"Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown."

"Travel isn't always pretty. It isn't always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that's okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind."

"It's an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu , for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after, you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you've been and what's happened. In the end, you're just happy you were there — with your eyes open — and lived to see it."

"I'm a big believer in winging it. I'm a big believer that you're never going to find perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one. Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss, I think, and I'm always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary."

"Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonald's? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria's mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head?"

"Drink heavily with locals whenever possible."

"Nothing unexpected or wonderful is likely to happen if you have an itinerary in Paris filled with the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower."

"Plans should be ephemeral, so be prepared to move away from them."

Anthony Bourdain Food Quotes

"You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together."

"Barbecue may not be the road to world peace, but it's a start."

"Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride."

"I, personally, think there is a real danger of taking food too seriously. Food should be part of the bigger picture."

"I think food, culture, people and landscape are all absolutely inseparable."

"The mishandling of food and equipment with panache was always admired; to some extent, this remains true to this day."

"I learned a long time ago that trying to micromanage the perfect vacation is always a disaster. That leads to terrible times."

"I've long believed that good food, good eating, is all about risk. Whether we're talking about unpasteurized Stilton, raw oysters or working for organized crime 'associates,' food, for me, has always been an adventure"

"Good food is very often, even most often, simple food."

"An egg in anything makes it better."

"But I do think the idea that basic cooking skills are a virtue, that the ability to feed yourself and a few others with proficiency should be taught to every young man and woman as a fundamental skill, should become as vital to growing up as learning to wipe one's own ass, cross the street by oneself, or be trusted with money."

"The way you make an omelet reveals your character."

"An ounce of sauce covers a multitude of sins."

"And now to sleep, to dream. . . perchance to fart."

"Food is everything we are. It's an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It's inseparable from those from the get-go."

"Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself."

"For me, the cooking life has been a long love affair, with moments both sublime and ridiculous."

"You have to be romantic to invest yourself, your money, and your time in cheese."

"Generally speaking, the good stuff comes in on Tuesday: the seafood is fresh, the supply of prepared food is new, and the chef, presumably, is relaxed after his day off."

"You can dress brunch up with all the focaccia, smoked salmon, and caviar in the world, but it's still breakfast."

Anthony Bourdain Quotes about Life

"I am not afraid to look like an idiot."

"There is no Final Resting Place of the Mind."

"I'm through being cool. Or, more accurately, I'm through entertaining the notion that anybody could even consider the possibility of coolness emanating from or residing anywhere near me."

"Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don't have."

"Luck is not a business model."

"But I'm simply not going to deceive anybody about the life as I've seen it. It's all here: the good, the bad and the ugly."

"I don't have to agree with you to like you or respect you."

"If you're a writer, particularly if you're a writer or a storyteller of any kind, there is something already kind of monstrously wrong with you."

"If I believe in anything, it is doubt. The root cause of all life's problems is looking for a simple f—ing answer."

"Perhaps wisdom. . . is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go."

"Without new ideas, success can become stale."

"What are our expectations? Which of the things we desire are within reach? If not now, when? And will there be some left for me?"

"Give the people you work with or deal with or have relationships with the respect to show up at the time you said you were going to. And by that I mean, every day, always and forever. Always be on time."

"I have a tattoo on my arm, that says, in ancient Greek, 'I am certain of nothing.' I think that's a good operating principle."

150 Best Travel Quotes To Inspire You To See The World

We’ve been putting together some of our favorite inspirational travel quotes as we continue to travel the world and experience new places and things abroad.

What follows is a complete collection of 150 of the best travel quotes, complete with adventure travel quotes from famous figures like Anthony Bourdain, John Muir, and Mark Twain.

Warning: some of these quotes may give you the travel itch! In any case, I hope you’ll find some of these short travel quotes inspirational for your own journey!

Table of Contents show 150 Best Travel Quotes • Famous Travel Quotes • Mark Twain Travel Quotes • Funny Travel Quotes • Short Travel Quotes • Misc Travel Quotes • Inspirational Travel Quotes • Travel With Friends Quotes • Adventure Travel Quotes • Solo Travel Quotes • Anthony Bourdain Travel Quotes More Travel Content & Tips  

150 Best Travel Quotes

• famous travel quotes.

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. — Unknown

Take only memories, leave only footprints. — Unknown

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. — Gustave Flaubert

Not all those who wander are lost. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Every man dies, but not every man really lives. — William Wallace

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. — Oscar Wilde

Life is a journey. Make the most of it. — Unknown

I’ve traveled every road in this here land… I’ve been everywhere, man, I’ve been everywhere. — Johnny Cash

Paris is always a good idea. — Audrey Hepburn

Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer. — Unknown

Collect moments, not things. — Unknown

Today is your day, your mountain is waiting. So get on your way. — Dr Seuss

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the things you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. — Unknown

I’m shaking the dust of this crummy little town off my feet and I’m gonna see the world. — George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life

It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to. — J.R.R. Tolkien

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. — Lao Tzu

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. — John Muir

The mountains are calling and I must go. — John Muir

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves. — John Muir

To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, to gain all while you give, to roam the roads of lands remote: To travel is to live. — Hans Christian Andersen

Oh the places you’ll go. — Dr. Seuss

I shall be telling this with a sigh, Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. — Robert Frost

When one is alone at night in the depths of the woods, the stillness is at once awful and sublime. — John Muir

Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own. — Charles Dickens

• Mark Twain Travel Quotes

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the Earth all one’s lifetime.

To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else — these are the things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial. Lifetimes of ecstasy crowded into a single moment.

It is the loveliest fleet of islands [ Hawaii ] that lies anchored in any ocean.

No alien land in all the world has any deep strong charm for me but that one [ Hawaii ], no other land could so longingly and so beseechingly haunt me, sleeping and waking, through half a lifetime, as that one has done. Other things leave me, but it abides; other things change, but it remains the same.   For me the balmy airs are always blowing, its summer seas flashing in the sun; the pulsing of its surfbeat is in my ear; I can see its garlanded crags, its leaping cascades, its plumy palms drowsing by the shore, its remote summits floating like islands above the cloud wrack; I can feel the spirit of its wildland solitudes, I can hear the splash of its brooks; in my nostrils still lives the breath of flowers that perished twenty years ago.

• Funny Travel Quotes

Airplanes may kill you, but they ain’t likely to hurt you. — Leroy Satchel Paige

Two great talkers will not travel far together. — George Borrow

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

I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine. — Caskie Stinnett

Did you ever notice that the first piece of luggage on the carousel never belongs to anyone? — Erma Bombeck

Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore. — Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz

• Short Travel Quotes

Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before. — Unknown

Better to see something once than hear about it a thousand times. — Asian Proverb

Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller. — Ibn Battutah

We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us. — Unknown

One travels to run away from routine, that dreadful routine that kills all imagination and all our capacity for enthusiasm. — Ella Maillart

Half the fun of travel is the esthetic of lostness. — Ray Bradbury

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. — Marcel Proust

There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign. — Robert Louis Stevenson

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. — Neale Donald Walsh

I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. — Unknown

And I think to myself, what a wonderful world. — Louis Armstrong

They say travel broadens the mind, but you must have the mind. — G.K. Chesterton

Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow. — Anita Desai

Life is short and the world is wide. — Unknown

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. — G.K. Chesterton

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. — Lao Tzu

If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere. — Vincent van Gogh

The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness. — John Muir

A wise traveler never despises his own country. — Carlos Osvaldo Goldoni

You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world. — William Hazlitt

I love to travel, but hate to arrive. — Albert Einstein

And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. — John Muir

A great way to learn about your country is to leave it. — Henry Rollins

Live your life by a compass, not a clock. — Stephen Covey

Some experiences simply do not translate, you have to go to know. — Kobi Yamada

I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world. — Mary Anne Radmacher

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

Travel is never a matter of money, but of courage. — Paulo Coelho

Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost. — Erol Ozan

Travel far enough, you meet yourself. — David Mitchell

The journey itself is my home. — Matsuo Basho

Live, travel, adventure, bless and don’t be sorry. — Jack Kerouac

The saddest journey in the world is the one that follows a precise itinerary. — Guillermo del Toro

A good traveler leaves no tracks. — Lao Tzu

It’s in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the Earth people who make you feel right at home. — Aaron Lauritsen

It is better to travel well than to arrive. — Unknown

The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life. — Agnes Repplier

• Misc Travel Quotes

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. — Albert Camus

To the lover of wilderness, Alaska is one of the most wonderful countries in the world. — John Muir

When we contemplate the whole globe as one great dewdrop, striped and dotted with continents and islands, flying through space with other stars all singing and shining together as one, the whole universe appears as an infinite storm of beauty. — John Muir

I’m in love with Montana. For other states I have admiration, respect, recognition, even some affection. But with Montana, it is love. — John Steinbeck

Yosemite Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, wasting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantages of both solitude and society. — John Muir

The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever. — Jacques Cousteau

The Mediterranean has the color of mackerel, changeable I mean. You don’t always know if it is green or violet, you can’t even say it’s blue, because the next moment the changing reflection has taken on a tint of rose or gray. — Vincent van Gogh

I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to have my senses put in order. — John Burroughs

No pain here, no dull empty hours, no fear of the past, no fear of the future. These blessed mountains are so compactly filled with God’s beauty, no petty personal hope or experience has room to be. — John Muir

On earth there is no heaven, but there are pieces of it. — Jules Renard

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. — Albert Einstein

Lighthouses are not just stone, brick, metal, and glass. There’s a human story at every lighthouse. — Elinor DeWire

To almost every man and woman there is something about a lighted beacon which suggests hope and trust and appeals to the better instincts of all mankind. — Edward Rowe Snowe

• Inspirational Travel Quotes

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. — Helen Keller

Never let your memories be greater than your dreams. — Douglas Ivester

All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. — Lawrence of Arabia

Do not dare not to dare. — C.S. Lewis

Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. — George Adair

Wherever you go, go with all your heart. — Unknown

It seems to be a law of nature, inflexible and inexorable, that those who will not risk cannot win. — John Paul Jones

This is what holidays, travels, vacations are about. It is not really rest or even leisure we chase. We strain to renew our capacity for wonder to shock ourselves into astonishment once again. — Shana Alexander

I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. — Henry Rollins

Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in an office or mowing your lawn. Climb that damn mountain. — Jack Kerouac

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints. — Robert Louis Stevenson

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

We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place. We stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there. — Pascal Mercier

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

Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground. — Judith Thurman

Once you have traveled, 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

No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet. — Patrick Rothfuss

It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return. Such are the melancolies du voyage: perhaps they are one of the most rewarding things about traveling. — Gustave Flaubert

The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown. — Paul Theroux

Although I deeply love oceans, deserts and other wild landscapes, it is only mountains that beckon me with that sort of painful magnetic pull to walk deeper and deeper into their beauty. They keep me continuously wanting to know more, feel more, see more. — Victoria Erickson

• Travel With Friends Quotes

A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles. — Tim Cahill

You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place. — Miriam Adeney

We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend. — Robert Louis Stevenson

• Adventure Travel Quotes

Adventure is worthwhile in itself. — Amelia Earhart

If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine; it is lethal. — Paulo Coelho

Most of us abandoned the idea of a life full of adventure and travel sometime between puberty and our first job. Our dreams died under the dark weight of responsibility. Occasionally the old urge surfaces, and we label it with names that suggest psychological aberrations: the big chill, a midlife crisis. — Tim Cahill

Only by going alone in silence, without baggage, can one truly get into the heart of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust and hotels and baggage and chatter. — John Muir

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. — Edward Abbey

Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless.   We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. — John Steinbeck

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 ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for. — J.A. Shedd

It’s a terrible thing, I think, in life to wait until you’re ready. I have this feeling now that actually no one is ever ready to do anything. There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. And you may as well do it now. Generally speaking, now is as good a time as any. — Hugh Laurie

Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the Earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white. — Mark Jenkins

The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. — Christopher McCandless

Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you. Exploration is experiencing what you have not experienced before. How can there be any adventure, any exploration, if you let somebody else – above all, a travel bureau – arrange everything before-hand? — Richard Aldington

Be careful because Cambodia is the most dangerous place you will ever visit. You will fall in love with it, and eventually it will break your heart. — Joel Brinkley

• Solo Travel Quotes

To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world. — Freya Stark

Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. — Unknown

I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses. — Bill Bryson

The true fruit of travel is perhaps the feeling of being nearly everywhere at home. — Freya Stark

When you’ve managed to stumble directly into the heart of the unknown – either through the misdirection of others, or better yet, through your own creative ineptitude – there is no one there to hold your hand or tell you what to do. In those bad lost moments, in the times when we are advised not to panic, we own the unknown, and the world belongs to us. The child within has full reign. Few of us are ever so free. — Tim Cahill

No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. — Lin Yutang

He travels the fastest who travels alone. — Rudyard Kipling

Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection. — Lawrence Durrell

When the traveler goes alone he gets acquainted with himself. — Liberty Hyde Bailey

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready. — Henry David Thoreau

I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone, because they reflect more. — Thomas Jefferson

Loving life is easy when you are abroad. Where no one knows you and you hold your life in your hands all alone, you are more master of yourself than at any other time. — Hannah Arendt

Personally I like going places where I don’t speak the language, don’t know anybody, don’t know my way around and don’t have any delusions that I’m in control. Disoriented, even frightened, I feel alive, awake in ways I never am at home. — Michael Mewshaw

I can speak to my soul only when the two of us are off exploring deserts or cities or mountains or roads. — Paulo Coelho

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road. Healthy, free, the world before me. The long brown path before me leading me wherever I choose. — Walt Whitman

• Anthony Bourdain Travel Quotes

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.

Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks — on your body or on your heart — are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.

It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu , for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about.   For a while after, you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you’ve been and what’s happened. In the end, you’re just happy you were there — with your eyes open — and lived to see it.

Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.

I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find the perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one. Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss, I think, and I’m always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary.

Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? … I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.

It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn.   Maybe that’s enlightenment enough – to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.

I think food, culture, people and landscape are all absolutely inseparable.

Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.

Southeast Asia has a real grip on me. From the very first time I went there, it was a fulfillment of my childhood fantasies of the way travel should be.

I wanted adventures. I wanted to go up the Nung river to the heart of darkness in Cambodia . I wanted to ride out into a desert on camelback, sand and dunes in every direction, eat whole roasted lamb with my fingers. I wanted to kick snow off my boots in a Mafiya nightclub in Russia. I wanted to play with automatic weapons in Phnom Penh, recapture the past in a small oyster village in France, step into a seedy neon-lit pulqueria in rural Mexico. I wanted to run roadblocks in the middle of the night, blowing past angry militia with a handful of hurled Marlboro packs, experience fear, excitement, wonder.   I wanted kicks – the kind of melodramatic thrills and chills I’d yearned for since childhood, the kind of adventure I’d found as a little boy in the pages of my Tintin comic books. I wanted to see the world – and I wanted the world to be just like the movies.

Without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, and moribund.

If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.

Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.

More Travel Content & Tips

That’s a roundup of our favorite adventure travel quotes! I hope you’ve found these travel quotes inspirational for your own journeys.

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95 most inspirational travel quotes ever penned

Our favourite inspirational travel quotes have encouraged us to travel with abandon over the years. Perhaps they will do the same for you…

For us, there is no such thing as luxury travel; travel is, by default, a luxury. It is a privilege provided by the country of our birth, a privilege that many are not as fortunate to enjoy.

Sometimes, we have to pinch ourselves at just how ridiculous our lives have become: an ex-teacher and jobbing writer travelling the world for a living. It is absurd, it is astonishing, it is luxury.

When I first went travelling at 21 years old, my father gave me this quote scrawled on a piece of card.

It infused me with wanderlust. It encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone, make the most of my time, see the world and enjoy the freedom that comes with being on the road. It remains one of the most inspirational travel quotes I’ve read (even if Twain did not actually say it).

Today, 20 years and almost 100 countries later, it’s still in my wallet. Despite its tattered and dishevelled appearance, it’s every bit as important to me now as it was then.

With that in mind, we’ve collated our most beloved inspirational travel quotes to encourage readers to “explore, dream and discover” for themselves.

inspirational travel quotes

1. “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

2. “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine

3. “Travel is never a matter of money, but of courage.” – Paulo Coelho

4. “With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding.” – Sandra Lake

5. “When overseas you learn more about your own country, than you do the place you’re visiting.” – Clint Borgen

6. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain

7. “Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” – Paul Brandt

8. “The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.” – Henry David Thoreau

9. “The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” – Rudyard Kipling

10. “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

11. “When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” – Susan Heller Anderson

12. “No place is ever as bad as they tell you it’s going to be.” – Chuck Thompson

13. “We live in a wonderful 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.” – Jawaharlal Nehru

14. “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu

15. “There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.” – Charles Dudley Warner

16. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships were built for.” – John A. Shedd

17. “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux

18. “Not all those who wander are lost.” – J. R. R. Tolkien

19. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

20. “Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” – Benjamin Disraeli

21. “Once a year, go somewhere you’ve never been before.” – The Dalai Lama

22. “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang

23. “What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re travelling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon

24. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveller only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

25. “Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” – Paul Theroux

26. “A traveller without observation is a bird without wings.” – Moslih Eddin Saadi

27. “Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” – Aldous Huxley

28. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

29. “All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.” – Samuel Johnson

30. “Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.” – Anatole France

31. “I can’t control the wind but I can adjust the sail.” – Ricky Skaggs

32. “We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfilment.” – Hilaire Belloc

33. “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes

34. “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” – James Michener

35. “The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson

36. “You don’t have to be rich to travel well.” – Eugene Fodor

37. “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – Maya Angelou

38. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

39. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” – Robert Frost

40. “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca

41. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

42. “Once the travel bug bites, there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life.” ― Michael Palin

43. “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill

44. “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck

45. “When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – Clifton Fadiman

46. “There are far, far better things ahead than we leave behind.” – C.S. Lewis

47. “Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.” – Freya Stark

48. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – Aldous Huxley

49. “All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveller learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell

50. “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

51. “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.” – G.K. Chesterton

52. “Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation.” – Elizabeth Drew

53. “People don’t take trips, trips take people.” – John Steinbeck

54. “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

55. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert

56. “The journey not the arrival matters.” – T. S. Eliot

57. “Time flies. It’s up to you to be the navigator.” – Robert Orben

58. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust

59. “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” – Oscar Wilde

60. “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

61. “If an ass goes travelling, he’ll not come home a horse.” – Thomas Fuller

62. “Travelling tends to magnify all human emotions.” – Peter Hoeg

63. “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote: To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Andersen

64. “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

65. “I am not the same having seen the moon shine from the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

66. “I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on earth. Then I ask myself the same question.” – Harun Yahya

67. “I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.” – George Bernard Shaw

68. “A wise traveler never despises his own country.” – Carlo Goldoni

69. “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide

70 “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

71. “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin

72. “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

73. “The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

74. “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

75. “He who would travel happily must travel light.” – Antoine de St. Exupery

76. “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

77. “The more I travelled the more I realised that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” – Shirley MacLaine

78. “Live your life by a compass, not a clock.” – Stephen Covey

78. “Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.” – Lawrence Block

80. “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Chief Seattle – or Si’ahl

81. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller

82. “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” – Herman Melville

83. “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.” – Jawaharlal Nehru

84. “The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself” – Wallace Stevens

85. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Neale Donald Walsch

86. “Paris is always a good idea.” – Julia Ormond (although it is often wrongly attributed to Audrey Hepburn)

87. “Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the trip.” – Babs Hoffman

88. “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain

89. “Jobs fill your pocket but adventures fill your soul.” – Jaime Lyn Beatty

90. “It is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown. The only true failure would be not to explore at all.” – Sir Ernest Shackleton

91. “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” –  Jack Kerouac

92. “Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things can not be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain

93. “Live with no excuses and travel with no regrets.” – Oscar Wilde

94. “Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.” – Roy M Goodman

95. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain (or possibly H Jackson Brown Jr )

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120 Travel Quotes to Inspire Your Next Journey

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Travel has played a crucial role in human lives for millennia. These travel quotes show it can play a role in yours too.

Though we see travel through the lens of our own experiences and the world around us, the desire to spend time in a place far from home is not new. People have been traveling across countries and continents for generations.

Travel is an exciting adventure . Though some of us travel for business, many of us are motivated by vacations, which give us the opportunity to recharge, reconnect, and understand our place in the world.

Whether you’re going to a new place for a week, embarking on a gap year before college, or making a big move, we’ve got the best travel quotes to inspire you to get there.

Page Contents

Travel Quotes

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime. Mark Twain

Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. Miriam Beard

He who is outside his door has the hardest part of his journey behind him. Dutch Proverb

Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember and remember more than I have seen. Benjamin Disraeli

To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries. Aldous Huxley

We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls. Anais Nin

Live with no excuses and travel with no regrets. Oscar Wilde

Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller. Ibn Battuta

Travel is glamorous only in retrospect. Paul Theroux

Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions. Peter Hoeg

All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware. Martin Buber

Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing in the pursuit of something else. Lawrence Block

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

One of the great things about travel is that you find out how many good, kind people there are. Edith Wharton

The only impossible journey is the one you never begin. Tony Robbins

Travel: the best way to be lost and found at the same time. Brenna Smith

Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s OK. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind. Anthony Bourdain

The journey not the arrival matters. T.S. Eliot

For the born traveller, traveling is a besetting vice. Like other vices, it is imperious, demanding its victim’s time, money, energy and the sacrifice of comfort. Aldous Huxley

Travel brings power and love back into your life. Rumi

Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. Gustave Flaubert

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

Why We Travel

We know that the urge to travel, explore, and see new things is not a new one for humankind, but what encourages us to pack our bags and leave home?

Whether you go by car, on foot, by rail, or air, these travel quotes are all about the forces that drive us to go new places and seek new experiences.

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. Andre Gide

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust

The journey itself is my home . Matsuo Basho

I would rather own a little and see the world than own the world and see a little of it. Alexander Sattler

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in you sail. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain

There’s something about arriving in new cities, wandering empty streets with no destination. I will never lose the love for the arriving, but I’m born to leave. Charlotte Erikkson

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

I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like the people or hate them than to travel with them. Mark Twain

A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. John Steinbeck

Focus on the journey, not the destination, joy is found not in finishing the activity, but in doing. Greg Anderson

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

We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel. We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered. Kahlil Gibran

Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere. Isabelle Eberhardt

The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. Christopher McCandless

I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. Susan Sontag

The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life. Agnes Repplier

Sometimes one day in a different place gives you more than ten years of life at home. Anatole France

Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed pope-mobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? Or do we want to eat without fear, tearing into the local stew, the humble taqueria’s mystery meat, the sincerely offered gift of a lightly grilled fish head? I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once. Anthony Bourdain

And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful , receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end. Pico Iyer

Solo Journey Quotes

Traveling alone is one of the scariest and most rewarding things you can do. Going where you want, when you want, without having to account for someone else… it sounds perfect, doesn’t it? Well, yes and no.

Taking a solo trip is liberating and reminds us how responsible and accountable we can be for our actions. We get to enjoy the journey, as well as the amazement of going somewhere we’ve never been before, with no distractions or drama.

Although traveling alone can be a little lonely, it’s also a great way to build confidence . It’s worth remembering that a solo trip might also introduce us to new friends, family we didn’t know we had, or even a significant other.

Traveling solo does not always mean you’re alone. Most often, you meet marvelous people along the way and make connections that last a lifetime. Jacqueline Boone

Some journeys can be only traveled alone. Ken Poirot

Don’t be scared to walk alone. Don’t be scared to like it. John Mayer

Travel far enough, you meet yourself. David Mitchell

A person susceptible to wanderlust is not so much committed to movement as committed to transformation. Pico Iyer

Traveling allows you to become so many different versions of yourself. Anonymous

The inner journey of travel is intensified by solitude . Paul Theroux

When preparing to travel, let out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money. Susan Heller

Half of the fun of travel is the aesthetic of lostness. Ray Bradbury

I love the feeling of being anonymous in a city I’ve never been to before. Anonymous

A person needs at intervals to separate himself from family and companions and go to new places. He must go without familiars in order to be open to new influences, to change . Katharine Butler Hathaway

To awaken alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown. Freya Stark

I am never happier than when I am alone in a foreign city; it is as if I had become invisible. Margaret Storm Jameson

Traveling alone will be the scariest, most liberating thing of your life, try it at least once. Anonymous

Loving life is easy when you are abroad. Where no one knows you and you hold your life in your hands all alone, you are more master of yourself than at any other time. Hannah Arendt

Some roads aren’t meant to be travelled alone. Chinese Proverb

Never go on trips with anyone you do not love . Ernest Hemingway

Business Travel Quotes

Some of us travel more than others, and for some travel is more about obligation than enjoyment. For businesspeople who have to travel from place to place, it doesn’t seem like much of a privilege at all.

However much of an obligation traveling for work may seem, there are always ways to make it more enjoyable, fulfilling, and rewarding.

Travel is never a matter of money but of courage. Paulo Coelho

One thing I love about traveling for work is growing and learning out of my comfort zone. Anonymous

But my sense in speaking to people when I travel is that the film business is not that dissimilar from a lot of other businesses. Steven Soderbergh

I have found adventure in flying, in world travel, in business, and even close at hand… adventure is a state of mind and spirit. Jacqueline Cochran

I am in a very peculiar business: I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know. David Randi

Better to see something once, than to hear about it a thousand times. Asian Proverb

No one traveling on a business trip would be missed if he failed to arrive. Thorstein Veblen

If you want to succeed you should strike out on new paths, rather than travel the worn paths of accepted success . John D. Rockefeller

Road Trip Quotes

Taking a road trip is a quintessential American dream for many, how many of us are brave enough to jump in the car, turn on the music, and drive for thousands of miles?

If this sounds like your idea of a perfect vacation, or something you’ve always wanted to do, make this the year that you plan it and do it!

Take the time to plan out a rough guideline for your adventure. Include must-see sights, places to stay, and experiences you just can’t live without. Making space for spontaneity is important, too, for some of the best times of our lives happen when we least expect them.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by. Robert Frost

I just go with the flow, I follow the yellow brick road. I don’t know where it’s going to lead me, but I follow it. Grace Jones

I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me. Walt Whitman

I climb behind the steering wheel… I drive off immediately without once looking back; it’s a long journey but it leads to freedom. Corinne Hoffman

Never underestimate the therapeutic power of driving and listening to very loud music. Unknown

Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life. Jack Kerouac

God made the world round so we would never be able to see too far down the road. Isak Dineson

If you’re on a road trip, you need driving music. Edgar Wright

Because the greatest part of a road trip isn’t arriving at your destination. It’s all the wild stuff that happens along the way. Emma Chase

Road trips are the equivalent of human wings. Ask me to go on one, anywhere. We’ll stop in every small town and learn the history and stories, feel the ground and capture the spirit. Then we’ll turn it into our own story that will live inside our history to carry with us, always. Because stories are more important than things. Victoria Erikson

Road trips required a couple of things: a well-balanced diet of caffeine, salt and sugar and an excellent selection of tunes—oh, and directions. Jenn McKinlay

What it takes to realize everything is fine around you? A road trip to the mountains where your soul dwells in the echoes of the winds that carry fragments of clouds with them. What it takes to realize world is going back to chaos and infinite hurry? End of the aforementioned road trip. Crestless Wave

A passenger on a road journey is in the hands of a driver; a reader embarking on a book is in the hands of a narrator. Romesh Gunesekera

Map out your future – but do it in pencil. The road ahead is as long as you make it. Make it worth the trip. Jon Bon Jovi

I love road trips. You get into this Zen rhythm; throw the sense of time out the window. Miriam Toews

Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason. Jerry Seinfeld

I love being on the road. I love that lifestyle, traveling city to city, rocking out and moving on to the next place. Caleb Johnson

You can be writing every day. When you go on a road trip, the trip itself becomes part of the story. Steve Rushin

The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating. Aaron Lauritsen

That’s why I love road trips, dude. It’s like doing something without actually doing anything. John Green

Wherever you get to is better than where you started. To stay on the road is a massive achievement. Anthony Joshua

All he needed was a wheel in his hand and four on the road. Jack Kerouac

If you come to a fork in the road, take it. Yogi Berra

I can speak to my soul only when the two of us are off exploring deserts or cities or mountains or roads. Paulo Coelho

Look for chances to take the less-traveled roads. There are no wrong turns. Susan Magsamen

When all’s said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it. Charles de Lint

The open road is a beckoning, a strangeness, a place where a man can lose himself. William Least Heat Moon

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

You know more of a road by having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world. William Hazlitt

The road must eventually lead to the whole world. Jack Kerouac

Wherever your next trip takes you, we hope you found a quote to inspire you on your journey! And if you’ve just returned home, now may be the perfect time to start planning your next adventure.

Travel has always been a transformative experience for those who dare to do it. Visiting different places, cultures, and lands can introduce us to parts of ourself we otherwise may never know.

Natalie Seale

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100 Best Travel Quotes To Inspire you in 2024 (with photos)

Inspiring travel quotes were always something I loved. Even before I travelled the world, I wrote many of the meaningful travel quotes I came across in my diary.

And today, they resonate with me as much as they did back then.

Hi, we’re Rach & Marty!

We’ve visited every country in the world and want to help you get the most out of your travels!

Whether you need an expertly planned itinerary , some experienced hints and tips , or just craving a delicious food adventure , we’ve got you covered!

We may earn affiliate commissions from websites we link to, at no cost to you. Click here for details.

There are many awesome travel quotes listed in this blog.

Also, my favourite ones in recent years are Anthony Bourdain travel quotes. That man was a huge travel inspiration.

How come so many of us look for travel quotes? They are the perfect way to daydream about travel or reflect on our past adventures.

Choosing your favourite travel quote is a hard task, but I have compiled 100 of the best travel quotes of all time right here with photos as well.

So feel free to share them with your friends or family or just pin them for later. 

100 Inspiring Travel Quotes that you’ll love!

Table of Contents

Best Travel Quotes of all times

1. “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark

2. “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller” – Ibn Battuta.

3. “Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited of what could go right” – Tony Robbins

4. “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.“ – Lao Tzu

5. “He who would travel happily must travel light” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

6. “Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you travelled.” – Muhammad

7. “Work, Travel, Save, Repeat” – Anonymous

8. “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.” – James A. Michener

9. “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” – Anonymous

10. “Quit your job, buy a ticket, get a tan, fall in love, never return.” – Anonymous

Short Travelling Quotes

• “To Travel is to Live” – Hans Christian Andersen  
• “Fear is only temporary. Regrets last forever” – Anonymous
• “Travel teaches toleration”– Benjamin Disraeli
• “Life is a journey, not a destination” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “People don’t take trips — trips take people”- John Steinbeck
• “Not all those who wander are lost.” – JRR Tolkien
• “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Chief Seattle
• ”Eat Well, Travel Often.”- Anonymous
• “Don’t listen to what they say. Go see.”– Chinese Proverb
• “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer”- Anonymous

Inspirational Travel Quotes

• “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
• “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – André Gide 
• “Travel is my therapy.” – Dalai Lama
• “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign” – Robert Louis Stevenson
• “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilization, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints” ― Robert Louis Stevenson
• “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by”- Robert Frost
• “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – Maya Angelou 
• “Investment in travel is an investment in yourself.”- Matthew Karsten  
• “Don’t call it a dream…call it a plan!” – Dr. Zelana Montminy
• “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – Aldous Huxley

Funny Travel Quotes

• “Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia” – Charles M. Schulz
• “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” – Jack Kerouac
• “It’s bad manners to let vacation wait!“ – Anonymous
• “I love my job, only when I’m on vacation.” – Anonymous
• “You know it’s time for a vacation when you start looking like the person on your driving license!“ -Anonymous
• “My favourite childhood memory is my parents paying for my holidays.“ – Anonymous
• Me: “I want to travel more”, the bank account: “Like, to the park?”
• “There should be sympathy cards for having to go back to work after vacation.“ – Anonymous
• “Physically I’m here. Mentally I’m in a pool in Bali ordering my third mojito.“- Anonymous
• “I need a six-month vacation, twice a year.” – Anonymous

Quotes For Travelling The World

• “Open your heart to the world. It’ll dazzle you in ways you never thought possible.” – Anonymous
• “The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself.“ – Wallace Stevens
• “The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion” – Paulo Coelho
• “We have nothing to lose and a world to see.” – Rainie Navarro
• “The World is a book and those who do not travel read only a page.” – St. Augustine
• “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert
• ”Life is short and the world is wide” – Simon Raven
• “Of all the books in the world. The best stories are found between the pages of a passport.”  – Anonymous
• “Let’s get lost.” – Adi Alsaid
• “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag

Travelling Quotes With Friends

• “Life was meant for great adventures and close friends.”- Anonymous
• “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
• “There is a whole world out there. Pack your backpack, your best friend, and go.”- Anonymous
• “A good friend listens to your adventures. Your best friend makes them with you.”- Anonymous
• “There is an unspoken bond you create with the friends you travel with.” – Kristen Sarah
• “Everyone needs this friend that calls and says, “Get dressed, we’re going on an adventure.” – Terry Allison
• “There are no strangers in this world, only friends I haven’t met yet.”- William Butler Yeats
• “Traveling is brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comforts of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things. -air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky. -all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese
• “Friendship isn’t about being inseparable…it’s being separated and knowing nothing will change.” – Anonymous
•  “A journey is best measured in friends, not in miles” –  Tim Cahill

Adventure Travel Quotes

• “Adventure can be an end in itself. Self-discovery is the secret ingredient.” – Grace Lichtenstein
• “Travel doesn’t become adventure until you leave yourself behind.“ – Marty Rubin
• “Then one day, when you least expect it, the great adventure finds you.” – Ewan McGregor
• “When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – Clifton Fadiman
• “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before” – Dalai Lama
• “Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure.” “The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Irving Wallace
• “The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams” – Oprah Winfrey
• “The danger of adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort.” – Paulo Coelho
• “Jobs fill your pockets, but adventures fill your soul.” – Jaime Lyn 
• “Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you.” – Marcus Purvis

Solo Travel Quotes

• “Traveling alone doesn’t always mean you’re alone. Most often, you meet marvelous people along the way and make connections that last a lifetime.” – Jacqueline Boone
• “I’m never happier than when I’m alone in a foreign city; it is as if I had become invisible.” – Storm Jameson
• “Don’t look back. You’re not going that way.” – Ragnar Lothbrok
• “Table for one, food for two, please.” – Anonymous
• “Fill your life with experiences, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show”- Anonymous
• “Solo travel not only pushes you out of your comfort zone, it also pushes you out of the zone of others’ expectations.”- Anonymous
• “You never really travel alone, the world is full of friends waiting to get to know you.”- Anonymous
• “The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me.” – Ayn Rand
• “If you have to wait for someone to travel with you, you may end up waiting a lifetime!”- Anonymous
• “Traveling alone will be the scariest, most liberating, life-changing experience of your life. Try it at least once!” – Anonymous

Anthony Bourdain Travel Quotes

1. “Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you.” 

2. “Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonald’s? … I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.”

3. “Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”

4. “If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.”

5. “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.”

6. “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.”

7. “Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.”

8. “The journey is part of the experience – an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.”

9. “Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”

10. “When dealing with complex transportation issues, the best thing to do is pull up with a cold beer and let somebody else figure it out.”

Wanderlust Travel Quotes that Inspire to Travel

• “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
• “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller
• “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Neale Donald Walsch
• “Traveling allows you to become so many different versions of yourself.” – Anonymous
• “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves.” – Pico Iyer 
• “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber 
• “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
• “Dare to live the life you’ve always wanted.“ – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “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

These are my 100 quotes for travelling the world that inspire to travel . Do you have any favourite travelling quotes? Let us know in the comments.

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100 Quotes About Travel to Inspire Your Next Adventure

Home | Travel | 100 Quotes About Travel to Inspire Your Next Adventure

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The best quotes about travel will inspire you to pack your bags, book that ticket, and start your journey in a new place. We’re always thinking about our next trip, and sometimes a saying or quote can remind us why we travel in the first place.

Traveling is a great opportunity to step out of your comfort zone, reflect on the bigger picture, and learn about the world and yourself. If you need some motivation, I’ve got a collection of inspirational travel quotes , quotes about traveling with friends , funny travel quotes , and more. With that and our step-by-step guide on planning a trip anywhere , you will have no excuses.

Short travel quotes

Most inspiring travel quotes, best quotes about traveling with friends, travel quotes for couples, best quotes about traveling with family, quotes for traveling alone & solo travel quotes.

Spend some time reading through these adventure travel quotes and see which ones resonate with you most. Keep your favorites handy, so you can revisit them when you want some insight or something to inspire your wanderlust !

These short travel quotes are simple but can inspire lofty ideas for your next journey!

1. A change of latitude would help my attitude. – Unknown

As this short travel quote suggests, going to a new place can give you a total attitude adjustment!

2. Adventure is out there. – Charles Muntz

This travel quote from the animated film Up has inspired kids and adults alike. Adventure is out there; go find it!

3. Live your life by a compass, not a clock. – Erica Jong

I appreciate travel life quotes like this one. It’s not about how long you live, it’s whether you live it to the fullest. And for me, that means seeing the world!

4. Oh, the places you’ll go! – Dr. Seuss

This simple travel quote is a good one for life in general. Whether you’re moving to a new city or taking a trip around the world, oh, the places you’ll go!

5. Take only memories, leave only footprints. – Chief Seattle

This poignant travel quote is a reminder to treat our planet with respect, especially while traveling. Things like eco-tourism, carbon offsets, and environmental footprints need more attention!

6. The journey, not the arrival, matters. – T.S. Eliot

This is a quote about trips that can encourage you to slow down and enjoy the journey. Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in where we’re going, that we forget to appreciate all that’s around us.

7. There is a world elsewhere. – Shakespeare

This poetic travel quote is short and sweet. It’s easy to become distracted by daily life, but there is so much more out there.

8. To travel is to live. – Hans Christian Andersen

This travel quote says it all: traveling truly is one of the best ways to experience life.

The best travel quotes will inspire you to take the leap and go on a new adventure! Check out these inspirational travel quotes for more insight and direction.

9. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Lao Tzu

This inspiring travel quote applies to life, too. Step by step, we can reach new destinations, as well as our goals.

10. A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for. – Gael Attal

Remember that you are the ship, and you’re meant to experience this beautiful, magical world while you’re here!

11. Better to see something once than hear about it a thousand times. – Asian proverb

No matter how many photos you see or stories you hear, nothing beats seeing a place in person!

12. Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled. – Mohammed

This travel saying reminds us that experiencing unfamiliar places and cultures is one of the best ways to learn.

13. Do not follow where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

This inspirational travel quote is about taking charge of your life and, as a traveler, getting off the beaten path to discover new places.

14. Investment in travel is an investment in yourself. – Matthew Karsten

A lot of people think about investing in their career or home, but the life experience you get through traveling is one of the greatest investments. The insight, perspective, and resilience you gain can help you in all facets of life.

15. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. – Neale Donald Walsch

This tried and true travel quote is another one that can inspire you to push past fears and embrace adventure! And remember, everyone’s comfort zone is different!

16. Travel is never a matter of money, but of courage. – Paulo Coelho

While taking a trip requires money, this inspirational travel quote reminds us that you also need the courage to leave behind familiarity for adventure.

17. Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. – Robert Frost

Frost was a poet who understood the importance of charting your own path rather than following the crowd. That principle applies to traveling too, as you can find all kinds of unique places when you venture away from the tourist traps.

18. We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us. – Anonymous

This is one of the best travel quotes because it sums up why so many people pack their bags. When we’re traveling, we’re fully living !

Quotes about traveling the world

These quotes about traveling to new places will ignite your desire to pack up and go somewhere new!

19. I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met. – Melody Truong

Here is a famous travel quote that can spark wanderlust in anyone, especially travel junkies like us!

20. It’s a big world out there, it would be a shame not to experience it. – J.D. Andrews

Even if you can only go to the next town over, it’s always worth it to visit a new place and see something different.

21. Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. – Andre Gide

This is another travel quote that points out how you need to face some fears to travel to new destinations. Of course, it’s totally worth it!

22. The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. – St. Augustine

Here is a wonderful metaphor that can motivate you to step out of your comfort zone and go someplace new. Travel always reminds us that the world doesn’t revolve around us, and there are so many different ways of life.

23. The most beautiful thing in the world, is, of course, the world itself. -Wallace Stevens

This simple travel quote truly needs no explanation. When you feel down or uninspired, the world is there in all its natural beauty.

24. There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign. – Robert Louis Stevenson

This quote about traveling the world can shift our perspective to see the big picture.

25. There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars. – Jack Kerouac

Some people live to travel, and they get bored when they’re in one place for too long. If that’s you, know that you’re not alone!

26. Travel because life is short, and the world is huge. – Anonymous

If you need an inspiring travel quote , here it is!

27. Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. – Gustave Flaubert

This travel quote is also about the big picture. If you’ve ever stood on the edge of a cliff or sailed in the middle of the ocean, you know that sensation of feeling ridiculously small in a big world.

28. Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow. – Anita Desai

A wonderful quote about traveling the world , this sentence captures the feeling of taking a piece of your travels with you while leaving a part of you behind .

Quotes about travel & adventure

These quotes are for travel lovers who crave their next adventure. If you’re ready to indulge your wanderlust, keep reading this adventure sayings !

29. Adventure may hurt you, but monotony will kill you. – Ghaniya Dewi Arassyi

This travel quote will resonate with many digital nomads and explorers. Waking up in a new place and experiencing a different culture may be jarring at first, but that kind of adventure is much better than doing the same thing every day.

30. All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. – Martin Buber

Anyone who has traveled will agree that this wanderlust quote is 100% true.

31. Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures. – Lovelle Drachman

Life is full of adventures and things to see, and if you’re curious enough, you’ll experience them all!

32. Fill your life with experiences, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show. – Unknown

Odds are, the most interesting and fulfilled people you’ve met have spent more time seeing the world than buying things.

33. If we were meant to stay in one place, we’d have roots instead of feet. – Rachel Wolchin

This is one of the best travel quotes for a burst of inspiration.

34. Jobs fill your pocket. Adventures fill your soul. – Unknown

While it’s pragmatic to have both, it’s true that you gain something when you travel that you don’t get anywhere else.

35. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. – Helen Keller

Helen Keller’s motivational travel quote applies to life in general, so whatever the word adventure means to you, go for it!

36. Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller. – Ibn Battuta

This is the perfect quote for travel lovers ! After a trip, you always come home with a story or two to tell, and those tales stay with you for life.

37. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. – Mark Twain

This is a simple travel quote to motivate you. Have you ever met anyone who said they regretted traveling?

Some of the best trips are the ones you take with good friends. I’m sure these travel quotes will inspire you to hit the road with your best friends. These are my favorite quotes about traveling with friends .

38. A good friend listens to your adventures. Your best friend makes them with you. – Unknown

Whoever said this trip quote knows what it’s like to have that best friend who will explore the world and navigate life with you.

39. Everyone needs this friend that calls and says, “Get dressed, we’re going on an adventure.” – Unknown

Here is another fun quote about traveling with friends . Do you have that bestie that’s always ready for the next adventure?

40. 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

I’m sure everyone can relate to this funny travel quote . When you take a trip with someone, you learn a lot about them, yourself, and your relationship!

41. It doesn’t matter where you’re going, it’s who you have beside you. – Unknown

As this travel quote suggests, one of the best parts of taking a trip isn’t the destination, but who you’re with.

42. Life is meant for good friends and great adventures. – Anonymous

I don’t think anyone can argue against the idea that adventure and friendship are two of the best things in life!

43. Sometimes all you need is a great friend and a tank of gas. – Thelma and Louise

This cute saying is the perfect travel quote to inspire your next road trip!

44. The more I travelled, the more I realized fear makes strangers of people who should be friends. – Shirley MacLaine

This life travel quote is an excellent reminder of how people can connect across cultures, countries, and languages. One of the best things about traveling is that it introduces you to diverse ways of seeing the world and living life, and of course, new friends.

45. Travel is better with friends. – Unknown

This travel quote needs no explanation. While a solo trip can be fun now and then, traveling with friends is one of the best experiences in life.

46. We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls. – Anais Nin

Those who love to explore will understand the depth of this quote. Traveling is the best way to find yourself, others, and new insights about the world.

Traveling with friends is great, but if you have a significant other, it’s a unique experience. Let these couples’ travel quotes encourage you to take a journey with your partner!

47. A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. – John Steinbeck

This couples’ travel quote is an important one. As with life and relationships, there are many things out of our control, and the same goes for traveling. However, that doesn’t mean the trip isn’t worthwhile!

48. Actually, the best gift you could have given her was a lifetime of adventures. – Lewis Carroll

This excerpt from Alice in Wonderland makes for a wonderful travel quote . Money gets spent, clothes get tattered, and cars break down, but adventures give you memories that last forever.

49. I would like to travel the world with you twice. Once, to see the world. Twice to see the way you see the world. – Unknown

I love this quote about traveling together because you can share perspectives and gain even more from your trip.

50. In life, it’s not where you go – it’s who you travel with. – Charles M. Schulz

Here is a beautiful quote about traveling with a partner or friend that I 100% agree with!

51. Never go on trips with anyone you do not love. – Hemingway

Although it’s a funny travel quote , it’s quite true!

52. No road is long with good company. – Turkish proverb

I love this proverb about travel because no matter where you’re going, as long as you have a loved one beside you, it’ll be okay.

53. Sharing adventures means enjoying them 100% more. – Unknown

This is another great travel quote for couples or friends. A solo adventure can be fun, but it’s different from sharing travel experiences with someone you love.

54. Together is our favorite place to be. – Unknown

This quote about travel and love is so heartwarming. Having your partner by your side can make any trip more magical, although simply being in each other’s presence is often enough.

55. 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

This longer travel quote is an interesting analogy that frequent travelers might relate to. Visiting new lands and meeting new people is like flirting; as soon as you start to connect, you move onto a different location.

56. What we find in a soulmate is not something wild to tame, but something wild to run with. – Robert Brault

Whether or not you believe in soulmates, it’s true that the best partner is the one we can go on adventures with.

Taking a trip as a family can be a bonding experience, as well as frustrating and memorable! These quotes about family vacations are funny and heartwarming, so they perfectly capture all facets of traveling with your kids.

57. A family that travels together stays together. – Unknown

Some travel quotes and sayings are cute and sweet, like this one. Family trips can be a wonderful opportunity to spend quality time together and strengthen bonds.

58. I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine. – Caskie Stinnett

While it’s a funny travel quote , this saying can also correspond to family life. Sometimes families get tied into a routine and lose touch with each other. Taking a trip together disrupts the monotony and brings everyone closer.

59. Love is the food of life, travel is dessert. – Anonymous

If you ask any adventurous spirit, they’ll agree that love and travel is all you need!

60. Not all classrooms have 4 walls. – Unknown

I think this is one of the top travel quotes , and it’s especially pertinent to families. Sometimes, parents get nervous about letting their kids travel, but seeing a new place and a unique way of life is one of the most fulfilling ways to educate oneself.

61. Travel. Your money will return. Your time won’t. – Unknown

A contemplative quote about travel and life , this simple sentence encourages us to go on adventures while we can. After all, when we’re old, it’ll be easier to work than to hop on a plane!

62. Traveling in the company of those we love is home in motion. – Leigh Hunt

This is such a cute couples’ travel quote to remind us that home is the people we love, not a specific place.

63. Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings. – Hodding Carter

This is one of the sweetest travel quotes for families . While kids need stability, they also have vivid imaginations. Traveling with their parents can awaken their childlike wonder and instill in them a sense of adventure.

If you’ve ever taken a solo trip, you know that it’s one of the most life-changing experiences. And if you haven’t had the pleasure of traveling alone yet, hopefully, these quotes about solo trips can inspire you!

64. I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world. – Mary Anne Radmacher

This is a beautiful travel quote about how you change as a person when you wake up in an unfamiliar environment. Going through daily life in a different place truly alters the way you view the bigger picture.

65. I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone. – Daphne du Maurier

If you’re thinking of going on a solo adventure and need a nudge, consider this quote about traveling alone . Sometimes, going on a trip with people we know can distract us from the full experience of discovering a new place.

66. Not until we are lost do, we begin to find ourselves. – Henry David Thoreau

Here is another simple travel quote that has a deeper meaning. Sometimes, we have to get lost and break away from what’s familiar in order to truly meet ourselves.

67. To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world. – Freya Stark

Something that digital nomads crave is the feeling of being lost or a stranger in a new land. For these people, there is no other feeling like it!

68. Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life—and travel—leaves marks on you. – Anthony Bourdain

Anthony Bourdain was one of the most beloved world travelers, so his adventure travel quote resonates deeply. The best thing about traveling is that you sprinkle a bit of yourself everywhere you go, and you bring a bit of that place back with you.

69. Travel far enough, you meet yourself. – David Mitchell

Read between the lines of this travel quote , and it makes so much sense. The more you stray from what you know, the more you learn about yourself, and the world!

70. When the traveler goes alone, he gets acquainted with himself. – Liberty Hyde Bailey

I agree that taking a trip with friends or a partner is awesome, but when you travel alone, you have so much time to get to know yourself.

Funny travel quotes

The deep, motivational sayings are great, but sometimes a funny travel quote is all you need to inspire your next adventure!

71. I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. – Susan Sontag

This is the perfect quote for travel lovers ! Where is your next adventure going to be?

72. I love to travel but hate to arrive. – Albert Einstein

This short and sweet saying is another reminder that it’s often the journey – not the destination – that matters most.

73. I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself. – James Baldwin

It could be Europe or a few miles from your house, but when you travel, you gain new insights into yourself – your personality, quirks, likes, dislikes, everything.

74. I need a vacation of 6 months. Twice a year! – Unknown

This silly travel quote is funny , but all too true!

75. If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it’s lethal. – Paulo Coelho

Yes, stability is important, but adventure is fulfilling and just as essential.

76. It’s bad manners to let vacation wait! – Unknown

Here’s another lighthearted travel quote to remind you to book that vacation!

77. To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries. – Aldous Huxley

This travel quote is funny yet wise. Even though we are more connected than ever, you truly don’t understand a place until you step foot there yourself.

78. You know it’s time for a vacation when you start looking like the person on your driving license… – Unknown

You can’t deny that this funny travel vacation quote is true !

Quotes about wanderlust

The best travel quotes plant a seed in your mind, a will in your heart, and a spark in your spirit. I’m sure these motivational quotes about traveling the world will awaken your inner wanderer!

79. A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. – Lao Tzu

This one is for the wanderers and frequent travelers. While there is a place for planning and preparation, some of the best trips are those with limited foresight.

80. One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. – Henry Miller

One of the best quotes on traveling , this saying gets to the root of why so many people love to travel. Visiting a new destination opens us up to all kinds of sights, sounds, smells, people, and lessons.

81. People don’t take trips, trips take people. – John Steinbeck

This is another travel quote that’s funny and deep. You can plan your trip, but things never go 100% according to plan, and you often end up with experiences you didn’t expect!

82. Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination. – Roy M. Goodman

Goodman’s quote about travel and happiness reminds us that the journey is more important than the destination.

83. Wanderlust: (n) a strong desire or urge to explore the world.

Does this definition of wanderlust resonate with you? Which part of the world do you want to see next?

84. The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust

Proust’s motivational quote about traveling rings true. The more you travel, the more you open your mind and heart.

85. Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer. – Unknown

Forget souvenirs; this travel quote reminds us that the best thing you gain from a trip is the richness of the experience.

86. You don’t need magic to disappear, all you need is a destination. – Unknown

It doesn’t matter if that destination is near or far, as long as it’s someplace new .

Quotes about wandering

Similar to the wanderlust quotes , these sayings appeal to those with a nomadic spirit. Which one is your favorite?

87. It is better to travel than to arrive. – Buddha

The Buddha’s quote points out that the true treasure is the journey itself.

88. Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkien

Tolkien’s words remain one of the most popular quotes about wandering . Some people are simply born to travel and visit different lands!

89. This wasn’t a strange place; it was a new one. – Paulo Coelho

Sometimes, a destination can seem strange and intimidating, but it’s simply a new adventure waiting for you!

90. Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. – Anatole France

I think this travel quote about nature makes a good point. When we explore all the beautiful natural places in the world, we gain a deeper appreciation for this planet.

91. The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands. – Sir Richard Burton

This travel quote is self-explanatory, but travel lovers will agree that the best moments of their lives were probably while they were exploring.

92. We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. – Hilaire Belloc

There is something to this quote about travel and life . It describes how we can wander, either by hopping from one place to another or by changing up certain aspects of our lives. However, these are usually distractions, and it’s when we travel wholeheartedly that we feel fulfilled .

Other travel quotes for Instagram

This last section of trip quotes is perfect for sharing on social media or keeping around the house.

93. Forget champagne and caviar – Taste the world instead! – Hostelgeeks

Would you rather see the world than have fancy things? Me too!

94. Measure life by countries, not years. – Unknown

If you love to travel, you’ll appreciate this one. It’s a quote for travel and life and says that it’s not about how long you live; it’s about how well you live!

95. Of all the paths you take in life make sure a few of them are sandy. – Unknown

I bet you don’t need more convincing to take a tropical vacation, but this beachy travel quote is a good one!

96. The only people who ever get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost. – Henry David Thoreau

When you have the courage to step out of your comfort zone and get off the beaten path, you find yourself having experiences of which you wouldn’t even dream!

97. There’s no time to be bored in a world as beautiful as this. – Anonymous

This travel quote doesn’t need an explanation; there are so many gorgeous places to see in this world.

98. Travel – the best way to be lost and found at the same time. – Brenna Smith

This short travel quote is straight to the point!

99. With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding. – Sandra Lake

This inspirational travel quote is definitely worth sharing. The more we travel, the more we learn about different people and ways of life. And that leads to more understanding and tolerance, which is a beautiful thing!

100. You can’t have a narrow mind and a thick passport. – Pauline Frommer

Piggybacking off the previous travel quote , this sentence encapsulates the idea that adventuring requires an open mind.

I hope you loved these travel quotes and sayings! If they inspired you to go on an adventure or sparked your wanderlust, let me know. Also, what are some good travel quotes you’ve heard? Leave me a comment below to share your favorites!

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10 replies on “ 100 Quotes About Travel to Inspire Your Next Adventure ”

Traveling opens doors to new perspectives and unforgettable experiences. These quotes ignite my wanderlust and remind me of the endless adventures awaiting discovery. Let’s explore

Hi Tapu, Thanks so much! I 100% agree…travel is the best way to learn new things about the world and ourselves. Happy travelling 😉

I have liked the content because it really reveals to me that travelling is the therapy for peace of mind whenever it is practiced.

Hi Janane, Yes, I 100% agree! 🙂

Just wanted these.

Hi Chakravarthy, Thanks! I hope they inspire your next trip! 🙂

Great work on your blog post! It was evident that you put effort into structuring the content in a logical manner. I enjoyed the clarity of your explanations and the practical applications you discussed. To learn more, click here .

Thanks for the feedback, Bharti! So glad you enjoyed these travel quotes. 🙂

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30 Travel Quotes That’ll Inspire You to Pack Up and Go Somewhere

There’s something about travel quotes that can inspire even the most reluctant of us to hit the road. Maybe it’s the way they distill the complexities and challenges of travel into a few evocative sentences. Or maybe it’s because they remind us that we’re not alone in our wanderlust. Whatever the reason, there’s no denying the power of a great travel quote.

Whether you’re looking for the perfect Instagram quote, a reason to travel , or a little inspiration, we’ve got a list of travel quotes that’ll inspire you to pack up and go!

Inspirational Travel Quotes

#1 – why we travel.

“We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.” – Pico Iyer

#2 – The Beauty of Travel

“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. ” – Lin Yutang

#3 – Travel Broadens the Mind

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – Mark Twain

#4 – The Right Direction

“It feels good to be lost in the right direction.” – Unknown

#5 – Keep Leaning Forward

“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

#6 – Travel is Wealth

“Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” – Anonymous

#7 – Always Seeking

“We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us. Even while the earth sleeps we travel . We are the seeds of the tenacious plant, and it is in our ripeness and our fullness of heart that we are given to the wind and are scattered.” – Kahlil Gibran

#8 – Never Stop Traveling

“Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life.” – Michael Palin

#9 – Searching to Belong

“Cities were always like people, showing their varying personalities to the traveler. Depending on the city and on the traveler, there might begin a mutual love, or dislike, friendship, or enmity. Where one city will rise a certain individual to glory, it will destroy another who is not suited to its personality. Only through travel can we know where we belong or not, where we are loved and where we are rejected.” – Roman Payne

#10 – Making Memories

“It is not the destination where you end up but the mishaps and memories you create along the way!” –  Penelope Riley

#11 – To Find Oneself

“No man is brave that has never walked a hundred miles. If you want to know the truth of who you are, walk until not a person knows your name. Travel is the great leveler, the great teacher, bitter as medicine, crueler than mirror-glass. A long stretch of road will teach you more about yourself than a hundred years of quiet.” – Patrick Rothfuss

#12 – The Storyteller

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.”  – Ibn Battuta

#13 – Walk in Someone Else’s Shoes

“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.” – Anthony Bourdain

#14 – To Travel is to Live

“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote: To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Andersen

#15 – Travel to Experience

“The value of your travels does not hinge on how many stamps you have in your passport when you get home — and the slow nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.” – Rolf Potts

#16 – Travel Fills Your Soul

“Jobs fill your pockets, adventures fill your soul.” – Jamie Lyn Beatty

#17 – Travel Changes You

“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” – Anthony Bourdain

#18 – Those Who Wander

“Not all those who wander are lost”  – J.R.R. Tolkien

#19 – Forget the Past

“What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat-Moon

#20 – The World is a Book

“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”  – Saint Augustine

#21 – We Are All Just People

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – Maya Angelou

#22 – To Be Different

“It is a big and beautiful world. Most of us live and die in the same corner where we were born and never get to see any of it. I don’t want to be most of us.” – Oberyn Martell

#23 – Twenty Years From Now

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain

#24 – Get Up and Go

“To those who stay put, the world is but an imaginary place. But to the movers, the makers, and the shakers, the world is all around, an endless invitation.” – Anonymous

#25 – The Art of Travel

“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown and accept whatever comes in the spirit in which the gods may offer it.” – Freya Stark

#26 – Wherever You Go

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius

#27 – I Encountered Myself

“I have traveled many roads in my life. Some were imbued with pain and I needed to avert my gaze. Others were so beautiful that I would have remained there forever. But always, at some point in these routes, I reached a place where I encountered myself.” – Pablo Holmberg

#28 – A Matter of Courage

“Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.” – Paulo Coelho

#29 – Childlike Wonder

“But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.” ― Bill Bryson

#30 – Life Is an Adventure

“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey

Final Thoughts

There’s definitely something about travel quotes that just resonate with us. Maybe it’s because they speak to our wanderlust spirit, or maybe it’s because they capture the feeling of exploration and discovery. Whatever the reason, we can’t get enough of them.

Alexandrea Sumuel is a nationally syndicated travel writer and founder of the Wander With Alex travel blog. Her work has appeared on MSN, YAHOO!, Euronews, and FOX, ABC, and NBC affiliates across the United States. 

Alex travels to experience, eat, explore, and occasionally escape! She collaborates with destinations, vacation property management companies, and hospitality technology firms to provide her readers with exclusive insights and information.

160 Inspirational Quotes That Will Change The Way You Travel (With Photos!)

I used to think all quotes were cliché. People would always mention them like overused pieces of advice to throw their wisdom at people. The thing is, all the quotes you keep hearing over and over don’t resonate with you. You need to find phrases that will inspire your heart and motivate your mind. You have to keep the ones that you can relate to and discard the ones you disagree with. Now I use quotes as an inspiring way to tell someone to follow their dreams.

As cliché as it sounds, life is short. Even if you always say that you want to travel, time gradually creeps up on you. So I hope that my favorite travel quotes will make you want to travel today because now is the time to pursue your travel goals.

In a hurry? Pin this post for later!

Famous Travel Quotes

Travel quotes that will fuel your wanderlust, brutally honest travel quotes, motivational journey quotes, tourists vs travellers quotes, inspirational quotes about travelling the world, my favorite travel quotes.

Those quotes will show you that travel changes you. Not always in the way you would imagine. Travel can be uncertain, even lonely. But overall travel experiences are unlike anything else. Because travel has the power to transform your life . That being said I hope the following quotes will impact you as much as they impacted me.

All of those quotes (more than 150!) are also perfect for Instagram captions so do not hesitate to get some inspiration with those travel quotes for Instagram!

1. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” ―  Marcel Proust 2. “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” ― Susan Sontag 3. “He who must travel happily must travel light.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupery 4. “Actually, the best gift you could have given her was a lifetime of adventures.” ― Lewis Carroll 5. “If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal.” ― Paulo Coelho 6. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” ― 老子 (Laozi) 7. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” ― Henry Miller

8. “Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have travelled.” ― Mohammed 9. “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” ― Chief Si’ahl 10. “Great things are done when men and mountains meet.” ― William Blake 11. “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” ― Dr. Seuss 12. “Not all those who wander are lost.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien 13. “It is better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times.” ― Asian Proverb 14. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” ― Gustave Flaubert

15. “Live life with no excuses, travel with no regret.” ― Oscar Wilde 16. “Jobs fill your pocket. Adventures fill your soul.” ― Jaime Lyn Beatty 17. “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” ― André Gide 18. “I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met.” ― John Green 19. “Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.” ― Roy M. Goodman 20. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” ― Aldous Huxley

21. “Make voyages. Attempt them. There’s nothing else.” ― Tennesse Williams 22. “Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.” ― Ryū Murakami 23. “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 24. “If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.” ― Anthony Bourdain 25. “Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.” ― Anthony Bourdain 26. “Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.” ― Anthony Bourdain

27. “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” ― Christopher McCandless 28. “Never hesitate to go far away, beyond all seas, all frontiers, all countries, all beliefs.” ― Amin Maalouf 29. “To travel is worth any cost or sacrifice.” ― Elizabeth Gilbert 30. “Without new experiences, something inside of us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.” ― Frank Herbert 31. “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 32. “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world.” — Freya Stark

33. “We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” ― John Hope Franklin 34. “Travel brings power and love back into your life.” ― Rumi 35. “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” ― Jack Kerouac 36. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore, Dream, Discover.” – H. Jackson Brown Jr. 37. “We live in a wonderful 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.” ― Jawaharlal Nehru 38. “Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” ― Jeniffer Lee

39. “Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.” ― Walt Whitma 40. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” — Muriel Strode 41. “Human beings are more alike than unalike, and what is true anywhere is true everywhere, yet I encourage travel to as many destinations as possible for the sake of education as well as pleasure.” ― Maya Angelou 42. “The universe is a sort of book, whose first page one has read when one has seen only one’s own country.” — Louis Charles Fougeret de Monbron 43. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” — Mark Twain 44. “All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.” ― Samuel Johnson 45. “I travel because it makes me realize how much I haven’t seen, how much I’m not going to see, and how much I still need to see.” ― Carew Papritz

46. “It is a bitter-sweet thing, knowing two cultures. Once you leave your birthplace nothing is ever the same.” ― Sarah Turnbull 47. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comforts of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things. -air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky. -all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” ― Cesare Pavese 48. “We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there.” ― Pascal Mercier 49. “Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty – his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure.” ― Aldous Huxley 50. “The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown.” ― Paul Theroux 51. “Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” ― Paul Theroux 52. “The farther you go, however, the harder it is to return. The world has many edges, and it’s easy to fall off.” ― Anderson Cooper

53. “The value of your travels does not hinge on how many stamps you have in your passport when you get home — and the slow nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.” ― Rolf Potts 54. “Travel is the only context in which some people ever look around. If we spent half the energy looking at our own neighborhoods, we’d probably learn twice as much.” ― Lucy R. Lippard 55. “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 56. “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” ― Samuel Johnson 57. “Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you. Exploration is experiencing what you have not experienced before. How can there be any adventure, any exploration, if you let somebody else – arrange everything before-hand?” ― Richard Aldington 58. “All this hurrying from place to place won’t bring you any relief, for you’re traveling in the company of your own emotions, followed by your troubles all the way.” ― Seneca 59. “I have wandered all my life, and I have traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.” ― Hilaire Belloc

60. “Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation.” ― Elizabeth Drew 61. “It is always sad to leave a place to which one knows one will never return. Such are the mélancolies du voyage : perhaps they are one of the most rewarding things about traveling.” ― Gustave Flaubert 62. “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 63. “I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one. Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss, I think, and I’m always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary.” ― Anthony Bourdain 64. “It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn. Maybe that’s enlightenment enough – to know that there is no final resting place of the mind, no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom, at least for me, means realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.” ― Anthony Bourdain 65. “As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life – and travel – leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks – on your body or on your heart – are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.” ― Anthony Bourdain 66. “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” ― Miriam Beard

67. “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” ― Dagobert D. Runes 68. “People don’t take trips—trips take people.” ― John Steinbeck 69. “When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” ― Clifton Fadiman 70. “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 71. “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. ” ― Lin Yutang 72. “Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” ― Mark Jenkins 73. “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

74. “Your comfort zone is a place where you keep yourself in a self-illusion and nothing can grow there but your potentiality can grow only when you can think and grow out of that zone.” ― Rashedur Ryan Rahman 75. “All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” ― Paul Fussell 76. “Travel makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.” ― Thomas Fuller 77. “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” ― Terry Pratchett 78. “What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do — especially in other people’s minds. When you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don’t have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” ― William Least Heat Moon 79. “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home.” ― James A. Michener 80. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

81. “The trouble is, you think you have time.” ― Jack Kornfield 82. “Adventure rewrites the routine of our lives and wakes us sharply from the comforts of the familiar. It allows us to see how vast the expanse of our experience. Our ability to grow is no longer linear but becomes unrestricted to any direction we wish to run.” ― Josh Gates 83. “You can’t control the past, but you can control where you go next.” ― Kirsten Hubbard 84. “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.” ― G.K. Chesterton 85. “A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.” ― Moslih Eddin Saadi

86. “Journeys are the midwives of thought. Few places are more conducive to internal conversations than moving planes, ships or trains.” ― Alain de Botton 87. “Travellers understand, instinctively and by experience, that travel and adventure change and elongate time, even while navigating the deadlines of airline and train departures.” ― Paul Sheehan 88. “A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our doorstep once again. It starts much earlier and is really never over, because the film of memory continues running on inside of us long after we have come to a physical standstill. Indeed, there exists something like a contagion of travel, and the disease is essentially incurable.” ― Ryszard Kapuściński 89. “Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.” ― Pat Conroy 90. “I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.” ― Lillian Smith 91. “Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.” ― Anatole France

92. “Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey! ” ― Barbara Hoffman 93. “Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.” ― Ray Bradbury 94. “A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” ― 老子 (Laozi) 95. “The journey is part of the experience – an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.” ― Anthony Bourdain 9 6. “Everything I was I carry with me, everything I will be lies waiting on the road ahead.” ― Ma Jian 97. “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” ― John Steinbeck

98. “Traveling outgrows its motives. It soon proves sufficient in itself. You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making you – or unmaking you.” ― Nicolas Bouvier 99. “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” ― Ursula K. Le Guin 100. “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson 101. “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” ― Anais Nin 102. “The most important reason for going from one place to another is to see what’s in between, and they took great pleasure in doing just that.” ― Norton Juster 103. “Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it.” ― Greg Anderson

104. “I love to travel, but hate to arrive.” ― Albert Einstein 105. “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” ― Jack Kerouac 106. “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote, To travel is to live.” ― Hans Christian Andersen 107. “It is not the destination where you end up but the mishaps and memories you create along the way!” ― Penelope Riley 108. “For me, becoming isn’t about arriving somewhere or achieving a certain aim. I see it instead as forward motion, a means of evolving, a way to reach continuously toward a better self. The journey doesn’t end.” ― Michelle Obama 109. “You take people, you put them on a journey, you give them peril, you find out who they really are.” ― Joss Whedon 110. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” ― Martin Buber

111. “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travellers don’t know where they’re going.” ― Paul Theroux 112. “Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.” ― Rick Warren 113. “Tourists went on holidays while travelers did something else. They traveled.” ― Alex Garland 114. “Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.” ― Lawrence Block 115.  “The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.” ― G.K. Chesterton

116. “Whenever you go on a trip to visit foreign lands or distant places, remember that they are all someone’s home and backyard.” ― Vera Nazarian 117. “Anyone who needs more than one suitcase is a tourist, not a traveler” ― Ira Levin 118. “Move to a new country and you quickly see that visiting a place as a tourist, and actually moving there for good, are two very different things.” ― Tahir Shah 119. “A tourist can’t help but have a distorted opinion of a place: he meets unrepresentative people, has unrepresentative experiences, and runs around imposing upon the place the fantastic mental pictures he had in his head when he got there.” ― Michael Lewis 120. “It makes a difference how you feel on this planet Earth: a citizen, a temporary tourist, or an exotic cast-away.” ― Talismanist Giebra

121. “A mind that is stretched by new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” ― Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 122. “I can speak to my soul only when the two of us are off exploring deserts or cities or mountains or roads.” ― Paulo Coelho 123. “Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.” ― Freya Stark 124. “Surely, of all the wonders of the world, the horizon is the greatest.” ― Freya Stark 125. “The man who goes alone can start today, but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.” ― Henry David Thoreau 126. “Maybe you had to leave in order to miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.” ― Jodi Picoult

127. “Wherever you go, you take yourself with you.” ― Neil Gaiman 128. “There’s something about arriving in new cities, wandering empty streets with no destination. I will never lose the love for the arriving, but I’m born to leave.” ― Charlotte Eriksson 129. “No place is ever as bad as they tell you it’s going to be.” ― Chuck Thompson 130. “I wandered everywhere, through cities and countries wide. And everywhere I went, the world was on my side.” ― Roman Payne 131. “I travel a lot. I hate having my life disrupted by routine.” ― Caskie Stinnett 132. “Traveling is not something you’re good at. It’s something you do. Like breathing.” ― Gayle Foreman

133. “We travel initially to lose ourselves; and we travel next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe where riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again – to slow time down and get taken in, and to fall in love once more.” ― Pico Iyer 134. “It is not down on any map; true places never are.” ― Herman Melville 135. “Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground.” ― Judith Thurman 136. “Travel teaches toleration.” ― Benjamin Disraeli 137. “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 138. “Like all great travellers, I have seen more than I remember and remember more than I have seen.” ― Benjamin Disraeli

139. “Travel has a way of stretching the mind. The stretch comes not from travel’s immediate rewards, the inevitable myriad new sights, smells and sounds, but with experiencing firsthand how others do differently what we believed to be the right and only way.” ― Ralph Crawshaw 140. “Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life.” ― Michael Palin 141. “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” ― Mary Anne Radmacher 142. “If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.” ― Glenn Clark 143. “The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life. ” ― Agnes Repplier 144. “Maps encourage boldness. They’re like cryptic love letters. They make anything seem possible.” ― Mark Jenkins

145. “Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.” ― Erol Ozan 146. “Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.” ― Lovelle Drachman 147. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” ― Mae West 148. “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” ― Maya Angelou 149. “Being exposed to the existence of other languages increases the perception that the world is populated by people who not only speak differently from oneself but whose cultures and philosophies are other than one’s own.” ― Maya Angelou 150. ”Don’t let your luggage define your travels, each life unravels differently.” ― Shane L. Koyczan

151. “Travel empties out everything you’ve into the box called your life, all the things you accumulate to tell you who you are.” ― Claire Fontaine 152. “Traveling is more than having a destination in mind; it’s discovering a place in your heart.” ― Mark Amend 153. “Travel sparks our imagination, feeds our curiosity, and reminds us how much we all have in common.” ―  Deborah Lloyd 154. “And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.” ―  Pico Iyer 155. “Travelling 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

156. “Travel is like knowledge. The more you see, the more you know you haven’t seen.” ― Mark Hertsgaard 157. “Wanderlust is incurable.” ― Mark Jenkins 158. “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” ― Anthony Bourdain 159. “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” ―  Tim Cahill 160. “Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.” ―  Anita Desai

I truly hope these travel quotes have given you some inspiration to travel and explore the world. Do you have any favorite quotes? What about travel quotes? Share with me your favorites in the comments down below!

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124 Inspirational Travel Quotes That’ll Make You Want to Travel in 2022

This is the ultimate list of inspirational travel quotes. Let wordsmiths such as Stephen King, Mark Twain and the Dalai Lama transport you around the world from your armchair.

Not all inspirational travel quotes are created equal. “You have to look through the rain to see the rainbow.” Ugh! Case and point. With so many of these clichés flying around, we forget the real purpose of an inspirational quote. The best travel quotes are meant to inspire. To resonate with and encourage you to take action.

Whether you’re stuck in a rut, hungry for change and adventure, lacking motivation or self-confidence, the right inspirational quote can give you a well-needed kick up the butt to get you on the right track towards achieving your goals

My favourite kind of inspirational quotes is travel related, obviously! They remind me that following my dreams will always lead to happiness and fulfilment. So, I’ve collated a rather epic list of not just any inspirational travel quotes, but the best travel quotes. Many of these travel quotes describe wanderlust perfectly. You’re going to love them!

There’s a mix of short travel quotes, some would even make perfect travel captions for Instagram, some are funny quotes about travelling with friends, but most of all they are all awesome trip quotes.

Ok, so the length of this list is probably a little overkill, but they are all beautiful travel quotes from some really inspiring authors and legends including Stephen King, John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Samuel Johnson, John Steinbeck, Lao Tzu, Euripides, Seneca, Dalai Lama, Bill Bryson, T.S Eliot, Oscar Wilde and so so many more.

Here is the ultimate travel quotes list and the only one you’ll ever need. Save and Pin your favourites.

1. You need not even listen, just wait…the world will offer itself freely to you, unmasking itself. – Franz Kafka

2. We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfilment. – Hilaire Belloc

3. We live in a wonderful 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

4. Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. – Gustave Flaubert

5. Travel expands the mind and fills the gap. – Sheda Savage

6. time flies. it’s up to you to be the navigator. – robert orben, 7. the world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper. – w.b. yeats, 8. the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. – marcel proust, 9. the biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams. – oprah winfrey, 10. take the time to put the camera away and gaze in wonder at what’s there in front of you. – erick widman.

11. May your adventures bring you closer together, even as they take you far away from home. – Trenton Lee Stewart

12. living on earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun every year. – unknown, 13. it doesn’t matter where you are. you are nowhere compared to where you can go. – bob proctor, 14. if we travel simply to indulge ourselves we are missing some of the greatest lessons life has to offer. – unknown, 15. it is probably a pity that every citizen of each state cannot visit all the others, to see the differences, to learn what we have in common, and come back with a richer, fuller understanding of america – in all its beauty, in all its dignity, in all its strength, in support of moral principles. – dwight d. eisenhower, 16. travelling tends to magnify all human emotions – peter hoeg, 17. when a man is a traveller, the world is his house and the sky is his roof, where he hangs his hat is his home, and all the people are his family.- drew bundini brown, 18. ‘i’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen non-percent of. – louis c.k..

19. I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. – Susan Sontag

20. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must already have understood what these Ithacas mean. – Constantine Cavafy

21. Travel not to escape life, but so life doesn’t escape you. – Unknown

22. Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life – and travel – leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks – on your body or on your heart – are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt. – Anthony Bourdain

23. To see the world, things dangerous to come to. To see behind the walls, draw closer. To find each other. And to feel. That is the purpose of life. – The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

24. To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam the roads of lands remote: To travel is to live. – Hans Christian Andersen

25. To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist. – Oscar Wilde

26. though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.- ralph waldo emerson.

27. This is your planet. You really should come see it sometime. – G Adventures

28. there is freedom waiting for you, on the breezes of the sky. and you ask “what if i fall” oh but my darling, what if you fly – erin hanson.

29. The traveller sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. – G.K. Chesterton

30. The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. – Albert Einstein

31 .the best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart. – helen keller.

32. Still round the corner, there may wait, a new road or a secret gate. – J. R. R. Tolkien

33. paris is always a good idea. – audrey hepburn, 34. own only what you can always carry with you: know languages, know countries, know people. let your memory be your travel bag. – alexander solzhenitsyn, 35. our footprints always follow us on days when it’s been snowing. they always show us where we’ve been, but never where we’re going. – winnie the pooh, 36. once the travel bug bites, there is no known antidote, and i know that i shall be happily infected until the end of my life. ― michael palin..

37. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before. – Dalai Lama

38. nothing lasts forever, except the day before you start your vacation. – gayland anderson, 39. life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments and places that take our breath away – unknown, 40. it is a big and beautiful world. most of us live and die in the same corner where we were born and never get to see any of it. i don’t want to be most of us. – oberyn martell, game of thrones, 41. if you are lucky enough to have lived in paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for paris is a movable feast. – hemingway, 42. if we were meant to stay in one place, we’d have roots instead of feet. – anon, 43. i’m not lost, i’ve just temporarily lost sight of my destination. – unknown.

44. I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train. – Oscar Wilde

45. i love to travel, but hate to arrive. – albert einstein.

46. I am not the same having seen the moon shine from the other side of the world. – Mary Anne Radmacher

47. how is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world i never knew – ernesto che guevara., 48. experience, travel – these are as education in themselves. – euripides.

49. A year from now, you will wish you had started today. – Karen Lamb

50. A river cuts through rock not because of its power, but its persistence. – Jim Watkins

51. when you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. it is designed to make its own people comfortable. – clifton fadiman, 52. what you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in other people’s minds. when you’re traveling, you are what you are right there and then. people don’t have your past to hold against you. no yesterdays on the road.” – william least heat moon, 53. travel is glamorous only in retrospect. – paul theroux.

54. Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art. – Freya Stark

55. to travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries. – aldous huxley, 56. the real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. – marcel proust, 57. the first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it. – rudyard kipling, 58. not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves. – henry david thoreau.

59. I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within. – Lillian Smith

60. i have worn the dust of many foreign streets, but to brush it off would surely be a crime. i have the memories of many foreign adventures, but to forget them, would surely be a sin. so, breath in the dust, and keep the memories in. – rowland waring-flood.

61. I always wonder why birds stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on earth. Then I ask myself the same question. – Harun Yahya.

62. adventure is a path. real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. the world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. in this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. this will change you. nothing will ever again be black-and-white. – mark jenkins, 63. a wise traveler never despises his own country. – carlo goldoni.

64. A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not why ships were built – John A. Shedd

65. Your true traveler finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty-his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure. – Aldous Huxley

66. why do you go away so that you can come back. so that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colours. and the people there see you differently, too. coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. – terry pratchett, a hat full of sky, 67. 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, 68. we travel initially to lose ourselves; and we travel next to find ourselves. we travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. we travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe where riches are differently dispersed. and we travel, in essence, to become young fools again – to slow time down and get taken in, and to fall in love once more. – pico iyer, why we travel, 69. we must not cease from exploration. and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time. – t. s. eliot.

70. We live in a wonderful 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

71. Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. – Anatole France

72. Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by and that has made all the difference. – Robert Frost

73. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

74. trust me, it’s paradise. this is where the hungry come to feed. for mine is a generation that circles the globe and searches for something we haven’t tried before. so never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite and never outstay the welcome. just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. and if it hurts, you know what it’s probably worth it. – richard, ‘the beach’ (alex garland), 75. travelling is a brutality. it forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. you are constantly off balance. nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it. – cesare pavese, 76. travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. – miriam beard, 77. travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind. – seneca, 78. tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going. – paul theroux, 79. too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversation. – elizabeth drew, 80. to those who stay put, the world is but an imaginary place. but to the movers, the makers, and the shakers, the world is all around, an endless invitation. – unknown, 81. 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, 82. to awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. – freya stark, 83. there is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it. – charles dudley warner.

84. There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign. – Robert Louis Stevenson

85. the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. – st. augustine, 86. the use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. – samuel johnson, 87. the journey, not the arrival matters. – t. s. eliot, 88. stuff your eyes with wonder,’ he said, ‘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, 89. to travel is to live. – hans christian anderson, 90. so much of who we are is where we have been. – william langewiesche 91. somewhere on your journey don’t forget to turn around and enjoy the view. – unknown, 92. there are no shortcuts to any place worth going. – beverly sills, 93. perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. – maya angelou, 94. people travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home. – dagobert d. runes, 95. don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you traveled. – mohammed, 96. our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. but no matter, the road is life. – jack kerouac, 97. one’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. – henry miller.

98. Once you have traveled , 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 99. Not all those who wander are lost. – J. R. R. Tolkien

100. no one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. – lin yutang, 101. never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life. – dolly parton, 102. man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. – andre gide..

103. Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen. – Benjamin Disraeli

104. life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “wow what a ride” – hunter s. thompson, 105. blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures. – lovelle drachman., 106. if you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home. – james michener, 107. i want to shake off the dust of this one-horse town. i want to explore the world. i want to watch tv in a different time zone. i want to visit strange, exotic malls. – homer simpson, 108. 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.

109. I am not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land. – Seneca

110. he who does not travel does not know the value of men. – moorish proverb, 111. travel is the only thing you can buy that makes you richer, 112. for my part, i travel not to go anywhere, but to go. i travel for travel’s sake. the great affair is to move. – robert louis stevenson, 113. do not follow where the path may lead. go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. – ralph waldo emerson, 114. all travel has its advantages. if the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it. – samuel johnson, 115. all the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time. – paul fussell, 115. all journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. – martin buber.

116. A traveler without observation is a bird without wings. – Moslih Eddin Saadi

117. a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. – lao tzu, 118. a journey is like marriage. the certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. – john steinbeck, 119. a journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles. – tim cahill, 120. a good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. – lao tzu.

121. Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. – Mark Twain

122. you will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. that is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place. – miriam adeney.

123. 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. – G. K. Chesterton

124. travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown. – gaby basora.

We made it! I spent waaay to many hours in photoshop bringing together this post on the best travel quotes. What did you think? I would love to hear your comments. Want more? Then you’re going to love my list of travel words that describe wanderlust perfect.

If you’re learning a language, then you’ll love these inspirational language quotes .

Over to you!

Which of these travel quotes are your favourites? Did I miss any? What else would you add? Let me know using the comments section below or join me on social media to start a conversation.

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28 Beautiful Travel Words that Describe Wanderlust Perfectly

How to say i love you in italian ❤️ plus free pdf cheat-sheet, 16 comments.

Thanks for the travel quotes. I’m going to save some and print them out. My favorite is like a lot of people here. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. This year has proven that. We can’t sit around all day and be happy. Let’s make it an adventure

Cant really travel due to the pandemic so ill just read travel quotes 🙂

Hi, there are some great quotes here, all make you stop and think – which is always a good thing! I think my favourite is ‘I haven’t been everywhere but it’s on my list’

To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world :)) I saw it on profile on Worldee.com and its my favourite one!

That’s beautiful 🙂 Thanks for sharing Tomas

Yes, it’s really inspiring, but it’s a sad thing you can’t go anywhere at the moment…

Thanks Jenny 🙂 When borders open up again, we will be able to appreciate travel even more 🙂

You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart always will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place. – Miriam Adeney

I love this a lot, thanks for sharing Love from Indonesia

This is so true. Thanks for sharing Adi 🙂

My favourite is Anderson’s “to travel is to live” . In a lack of travel opportunities sometimes i feel i just exist ,not live. Crying:'((((

Thank you for this post. I loved it. Reading the quotes made me reflect on the feelings and experiences of my travels and made me long for more 🙂

Thank you, Allison, it’s my pleasure. It’s so wonderful to hear that you enjoyed it. I get a tad emotional myself every time I look back through this post. It’s definitely one of my favourites 🙂

The Winnie the Pooh one was good. Clever little bear , isn’t he. ?

Thanks for the amazing post. Some made me laugh, some made me think but all of them makes me want to travel more.

Thanks Basil 🙂 Did you have a favourite?

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How Travel Changes you According to Anthony Bourdain

By Dan Elias Bliss . June 20, 2018

Anthony Bourdain was a beloved chef, storyteller, and world traveler. Through the course of his television career, he spent nearly 250 days a year traveling and visiting almost every country on earth.

The chef shared meals with people from all different backgrounds and in each episode, he was able to take his viewers to a new city, country, and culture. With his honest voice, Bourdain depicted the importance of travel.

The gorgeousness of the unknown

“Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”

No one faced the unknown more than Anthony Bourdain. The famous chef spent most of the year traveling around the world and even named his show “Parts Unknown.” He went to every corner of the world experiencing culture , getting to know locals, and of course, eating local delicacies along the way.

When traveling you’ll face the unknown nearly every day -- from something small like not knowing how to pronounce the name of a meal, to something big like trying to navigate around a new city. But whatever the unknown, don’t fear it, face it. Putting yourself in the unknown can be scary, but by facing it, you’ll learn you can handle more than you ever thought possible.

Also, many will say by traveling somewhere new, you learn so much more about yourself. You’ll gain a deeper understanding of who you are, what you want out of life, and what fulfills you.

Travel changes you

“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks — on your body or on your heart — are beautiful.”

Out of all the fantastic quotes Anthony Bourdain has, this is the truest. The experiences you have when traveling will shape you and your wanderlust stories will stay with you forever. Once you go abroad, we can attest you will be eager to want to learn and see more.

By experiencing a new culture and seeing the way others live you gain a whole new perspective. Exploring new places teaches you to live in the moment. When almost everything around you is new and awe-inspiring, you learn to stop for a moment, a minute, or even just a second to appreciate the right now.

Once you travel you notice it’s not things that make you happy, but experiences that do. Immersing yourself in culture and making memories abroad are what lead to true happiness. No two places live the same. You’ll notice differences between countries and even cities. No matter where you go you’ll find a lesson to learn and an experience that will shape you.

Let the moment guide you

If there was one thing Bourdain despised, it was over planning. To Bourdain, being in a city and only seeing the sights wasn’t the way to truly travel. Rushing through a city was a sin, taking a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower was boring, going to tourist traps was wrong, and using the internet to plan a trip was just plain dumb.

“Nothing unexpected or wonderful is likely to happen,” Bourdain once said about not living in the moment.

Instead, he encouraged his readers, watchers, and listeners to let the moment guide them and go with the flow. It was the unplanned moments and experiences that Bourdain considered real and built the memories you could never forget. If you’re willing to experiences new things and step outside your comfort zone you’ll find the moments that you come to cherish aren’t hard to find.

Don’t flock to the places with the best internet reviews or ones that speak English. Instead find the hole in the wall restaurants and cafes that locals pack into. Sit down next to a local , order whatever they’re having, and talk to them, you never know the type of incredible memory it will make.

Now is the time to travel

It might sound cliché to say that you should travel when you’re young, but it’s true. Take it from a guy who’s been all over the world.

“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.”

You can probably think up excuses not to travel, but the truth is, travel is a must when you’re young . At this point in your life, most will not have the responsibilities that limit you later on. Later in life, you won’t regret traveling, but if you sit around and stay in your comfort zone, you will regret letting the world pass by.

You might think you’ll learn to be independent by getting a job and getting an apartment, but travel is the true way to learn how to be independent. Traveling while young is the crash course in independence that you can’t learn any other way. Not only is traveling an experience that helps you grow, but it’s also full of moments that will define the rest of your life.

Have your own Anthony Bourdain travel experience by interning abroad with Global Experiences! Set up a call with a member of our team to discuss our internship opportunities and host cities.

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15 Inspirational Travel Quotes That Will Change The Way You Travel

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Lots of people love a good travel quote. In fact, over 5 million people mistakenly type “travel wuotes” into Pinterest per month—it’s almost as if they’re so excited to find awesome travel quotes that they can’t help but type too quickly!

Travel quotes can, in a strange way, make one feel fulfilled even if they’re not currently traveling. Vicarious travel is a real thing. For others, travel quotes can give them confidence or emotional justification to purchase that cheap pair of plane tickets they’ve been eyeballing for some time.

Other people like travel quotes because of the lessons they can learn from them, And, conversely, others find travel quotes a bit empty and meaningless; lofty sounding words that are actually just a kind of pseudo-wisdom. The old stereotypical adage, of course, is that you find yourself by traveling. To be honest, that kind of motto, if meant definitively, ruffles my feathers too! Travel is what you make it to be, and I hardly think it’s necessary to leave your country in order to become a better person.

Travel can change you for the better, and sometimes for the worse. The key thing to realize it’s that it’s up to you . Travel can be life-changing if you do it properly. So I guess, after all, there is some truth to the “find yourself by traveling” motto.

Here are 15  slightly nuanced travel quotes that, while we hope still inspires your travels, more importantly, will change how you think about travel and how you do it.  

1. “Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.” – Paul Theroux

2. “the world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – st. augustine of hippo.

3. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky—all things tending towards the eternal…” – Cesare Pavese

4. “i travel not to go anywhere, but to go. i travel for travel’s sake. the great affair is to move.” – robert louis stevenson, 5. “the traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see. 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.

6. “Jobs fill your pocket, but adventures fill your soul.” – Jamie Lyn Beatty

7. “not all those who wander are lost.” – j. r. r. tolkien, 8. “we travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost.” – ray bradbury, 9. “the journey not the arrival matters.” – t.s. eliot.

10. “I travel because it makes me realize how much I haven’t seen, how much I’m not going to see, and how much I still need to see.” – Carew Papritz

11. “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – lao tzu.

12. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustav Flaubert

13. “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” – mark twain.

14. “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag

15. “it feels good to be lost in the right direction.” – unknown.

  Suggested next reading:  Why You Need To Ditch The Noise & Escape Into Silence ASAP

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Published by Chris Newton

Hi, I'm Chris - a web developer who likes to travel. My favourite travel destinations are Italy and France; Italy because I loved seeing all the religious history in Rome, and France because I met my beautiful wife there! While becoming a dad has kept me from travelling lately, I still enjoy learning French and learning from different cultures. If you'd like to know more, you can read more about me here . View all posts by Chris Newton

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What time the 2024 solar eclipse started, reached peak totality and ended

By Sarah Maddox

Updated on: April 9, 2024 / 5:04 AM EDT / CBS News

The 2024 solar eclipse will be visible across North America today. As the moon's position between the Earth and sun casts a shadow on North America, that shadow, or umbra, will travel along the surface from west to east at more than 1,500 miles per hour along the path of totality . 

That means the eclipse will start, peak and end at different times — as will the moments of total darkness along the path of totality — and the best time to view the eclipse depends on where you are located. Some places along the path will have more totality time than others.

In Texas, the south-central region had clouds in the forecast , but it was better to the northeast, according to the National Weather Service. The best eclipse viewing weather was expected in New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, as well as in Canada's New Brunswick and Newfoundland.

What time does the 2024 total solar eclipse start?

The total solar eclipse will emerge over the South Pacific Ocean before the shadow falls across North America, beginning in parts of Mexico. The path of totality , where onlookers can witness the moon fully blocking the sun (through eclipse viewing glasses for safety ), is expected to first make landfall near the city of Mazatlán around 9:51 a.m. MT. 

The total solar eclipse will cross over the U.S.-Mexico border into Texas, where it will emerge over Eagle Pass at 12:10 p.m. CT and then peak at about 1:27 p.m. CT.

In Dallas, NASA data shows the partial eclipse will first become visible at 12:23 p.m. CT and peak at 1:40 p.m. CT. The next states in the path of totality are Oklahoma and Arkansas, where the eclipse begins in Little Rock at 12:33 p.m. CT. 

Cleveland will see the beginning of the eclipse at 1:59 p.m. ET. Darkness will start spreading over the sky in Buffalo, New York, at 2:04 p.m. ET. Then, the eclipse will reach northwestern Vermont, including Burlington, at 2:14 p.m. ET. Parts of New Hampshire and Maine will also follow in the path of totality before the eclipse first reaches the Canadian mainland  at 3:13 p.m. ET.

Although the experience won't be exactly the same, viewers in all the contiguous U.S. states outside the path of totality will still be able to see a partial eclipse. Some places will see most of the sun blocked by the moon, including Washington, D.C., where the partial eclipse will start at 2:04 p.m. ET and peak at about 3:20 p.m. ET.

In Chicago, viewers can start viewing the partial eclipse at 12:51 p.m. CT, with the peak arriving at 2:07 p.m. CT.  In Detroit, viewers will be able to enjoy a near-total eclipse beginning at 1:58 p.m. ET and peaking at 3:14 p.m. ET.

New York City will also see a substantial partial eclipse, beginning at 2:10 p.m. ET and peaking around 3:25 p.m. ET.

In Boston it will begin at 2:16 p.m. ET and peak at about 3:29 p.m. ET.

The below table by NASA shows when the eclipse will start, peak and end in 13 cities along the eclipse's path.

What time will the solar eclipse reach peak totality?

Millions more people will have the chance to witness the total solar eclipse this year than during the last total solar eclipse , which was visible from the U.S. in 2017. 

The eclipse's peak will mean something different for cities within the path of totality and for those outside. Within the path of totality, darkness will fall for a few minutes. The longest will last more than 4 minutes, but most places will see between 3.5 and 4 minutes of totality. In cities experiencing a partial eclipse, a percentage of the sun will be obscured for more than two hours.

Mazatlán is set to experience totality at 11:07 am PT. Dallas will be able to see the moon fully cover the sun at 1:40 p.m. CT. Little Rock will start to see the full eclipse at 1:51 p.m. CT, Cleveland at 3:13 p.m. ET and Buffalo at 3:18 p.m. ET. Totality will reach Burlington at 3:26 p.m. ET before moving into the remaining states and reaching Canada around 4:25 p.m.

Outside the path of totality, 87.4% of the sun will be eclipsed in Washington, D.C. at 3:20 p.m. ET, and Chicago will have maximum coverage of 93.9% at 2:07 p.m. CT. New York City is much closer to the path of totality this year than it was in 2017; it will see 89.6% coverage at 3:25 p.m. EDT. 

Detroit is another city that will encounter a near-total eclipse, with 99.2% maximum coverage at 3:14 p.m. ET. Boston will see 92.4% coverage at 3:29 p.m. ET.

What time will the solar eclipse end?

The eclipse will leave continental North America from Newfoundland, Canada, at 5:16 p.m. NT, according to NASA.

At the beginning of the path of totality in Mazatlán, the eclipse will be over by 12:32 p.m. PT, and it will leave Dallas at 3:02 p.m. CT. The eclipse will end in Little Rock at 3:11 p.m. CT, Cleveland at 4:29 p.m. CDT and Buffalo at 4:32 p.m. ET. Burlington won't be far behind, with the eclipse concluding at 4:37 p.m. ET.

Meanwhile, the viewing will end in Chicago at 3:21 p.m. CT, Washington, D.C. at 4:32 p.m. ET, and New York City at 4:36 p.m. ET. 

In Detroit, the partial eclipse will disappear at 4:27 p.m. ET, and in Boston, it will be over at 4:39 p.m. ET.

How long will the eclipse last in total?

The total solar eclipse will begin in Mexico at 11:07 a.m. PT and leave continental North America at 5:16 p.m. NT. From the time the partial eclipse first appears on Earth to its final glimpses before disappearing thousands of miles away, the celestial show will dazzle viewers for about 5 hours, according to timeanddate.com . 

The length of the total solar eclipse at points along the path depends on the viewing location. The longest will be 4 minutes and 28 seconds, northwest of Torreón, Mexico. Near the center of the path, totality takes place for the longest periods of time, according to NASA.

Spectators will observe totality for much longer today than during the 2017 eclipse , when the longest stretch of totality was 2 minutes and 32 seconds.

The moon's shadow seen on Earth today, called the umbra, travels at more than 1,500 miles per hour, according to NASA. It would move even more quickly if the Earth rotated in the opposite direction.

What is the longest a solar eclipse has ever lasted?

The longest known totality was 7 minutes and 28 seconds in 743 B.C. However, NASA says this record will be broken in 2186 with a 7 minute, 29 second total solar eclipse. The next total solar eclipse visible from parts of the U.S. won't happen until Aug. 23, 2044.

Sarah Maddox has been with CBS News since 2019. She works as an associate producer for CBS News Live.

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25 Questions (and Answers!) About the Great North American Eclipse

The McDonald Observatory’s guide to one of nature’s most beautiful and astounding events: What you might see, how to view it safely, how astronomers will study it, how animals might react, and some of the mythology and superstitions about the Sun’s great disappearing act.

1. What’s happening?

The Moon will cross directly between Earth and the Sun, temporarily blocking the Sun from view along a narrow path across Mexico, the United States, and Canada. Viewers across the rest of the United States will see a partial eclipse, with the Moon covering only part of the Sun’s disk.

2. When will it happen?

The eclipse takes place on April 8. It will get underway at 10:42 a.m. CDT, when the Moon’s shadow first touches Earth’s surface, creating a partial eclipse. The Big Show—totality—begins at about 11:39 a.m., over the south-central Pacific Ocean. The shadow will first touch North America an hour and a half later, on the Pacific coast of Mexico. Moving at more than 1,600 miles (2,575 km) per hour, the path of totality will enter the United States at Eagle Pass, Texas, at 1:27 p.m. CDT. The lunar shadow will exit the United States and enter the Canadian province of New Brunswick near Houlton, Maine, at 2:35 p.m. (3:35 p.m. EDT).

3. How long will totality last?

The exact timing depends on your location. The maximum length is 4 minutes, 27 seconds near Torreon, Mexico. In the United States, several towns in southwestern Texas will see 4 minutes, 24 seconds of totality. The closer a location is to the centerline of the path of totality, the longer the eclipse will last.

4. What will it look like?

Eclipse veterans say there’s nothing quite like a total solar eclipse. In the last moments before the Sun disappears behind the Moon, bits of sunlight filter through the lunar mountains and canyons, forming bright points of light known as Baily’s beads. The last of the beads provides a brief blaze known as a diamond ring effect. When it fades away, the sky turns dark and the corona comes into view— million-degree plasma expelled from the Sun’s surface. It forms silvery filaments that radiate away from the Sun. Solar prominences, which are fountains of gas from the surface, form smaller, redder streamers on the rim of the Sun’s disk.

5. What safety precautions do I need to take?

It’s perfectly safe to look at the total phase of the eclipse with your eyes alone. In fact, experts say it’s the best way to enjoy the spectacle. The corona, which surrounds the intervening Moon with silvery tendrils of light, is only about as bright as a full Moon.

During the partial phases of the eclipse, however, including the final moments before and first moments after totality, your eyes need protection from the Sun’s blinding light. Even a 99-percent-eclipsed Sun is thousands of times brighter than a full Moon, so even a tiny sliver of direct sunlight can be dangerous!

To stay safe, use commercially available eclipse viewers, which can look like eyeglasses or can be embedded in a flat sheet that you hold in front of your face. Make sure your viewer meets the proper safety standards, and inspect it before you use it to make sure there are no scratches to let in unfiltered sunlight.

You also can view the eclipse through a piece of welder’s glass (No. 14 or darker), or stand under a leafy tree and look at the ground; the gaps between leaves act as lenses, projecting a view of the eclipse on the ground. With an especially leafy tree you can see hundreds of images of the eclipse at once. (You can also use a colander or similar piece of gear to create the same effect.)

One final mode of eclipse watching is with a pinhole camera. You can make one by poking a small hole in an index card, file folder, or piece of stiff cardboard. Let the Sun shine through the hole onto the ground or a piece of paper, but don’t look at the Sun through the hole! The hole projects an image of the eclipsed Sun, allowing you to follow the entire sequence, from the moment of first contact through the Moon’s disappearance hours later.

6. Where can I see the eclipse?

In the United States, the path of totality will extend from Eagle Pass, Texas, to Houlton, Maine. It will cross 15 states: Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, Tennessee, and Michigan (although it barely nicks the last two).

In Texas, the eclipse will darken the sky over Austin, Waco, and Dallas—the most populous city in the path, where totality (the period when the Sun is totally eclipsed) will last 3 minutes, 51 seconds.

Other large cities along the path include Little Rock; Indianapolis; Dayton, Toledo, and Cleveland, Ohio; Erie, Pennsylvania; Buffalo and Rochester, New York; and Burlington, Vermont.

Outside the path of totality, American skywatchers will see a partial eclipse, in which the Sun covers only part of the Sun’s disk. The sky will grow dusky and the air will get cooler, but the partially eclipsed Sun is still too bright to look at without proper eye protection. The closer to the path of totality, the greater the extent of the eclipse. From Memphis and Nashville, for example, the Moon will cover more than 95 percent of the Sun’s disk. From Denver and Phoenix, it’s about 65 percent. And for the unlucky skywatchers in Seattle, far to the northwest of the eclipse centerline, it’s a meager 20 percent.

The total eclipse path also crosses Mexico, from the Pacific coast, at Mazatlán, to the Texas border. It also crosses a small portion of Canada, barely including Hamilton, Ontario. Eclipse Details for Locations Around the United States • aa.usno.navy.mil/data/Eclipse2024 • eclipse.aas.org • GreatAmericanEclipse.com

7. What causes solar eclipses?

These awe-inspiring spectacles are the result of a pleasant celestial coincidence: The Sun and Moon appear almost exactly the same size in Earth’s sky. The Sun is actually about 400 times wider than the Moon but it’s also about 400 times farther, so when the new Moon passes directly between Earth and the Sun—an alignment known as syzygy—it can cover the Sun’s disk, blocking it from view.

8. Why don’t we see an eclipse at every new Moon?

The Moon’s orbit around Earth is tilted a bit with respect to the Sun’s path across the sky, known as the ecliptic. Because of that angle, the Moon passes north or south of the Sun most months, so there’s no eclipse. When the geometry is just right, however, the Moon casts its shadow on Earth’s surface, creating a solar eclipse. Not all eclipses are total. The Moon’s distance from Earth varies a bit, as does Earth’s distance from the Sun. If the Moon passes directly between Earth and the Sun when the Moon is at its farthest, we see an annular eclipse, in which a ring of sunlight encircles the Moon. Regardless of the distance, if the SunMoon-Earth alignment is off by a small amount, the Moon can cover only a portion of the Sun’s disk, creating a partial eclipse.

9. How often do solar eclipses happen?

Earth sees as least two solar eclipses per year, and, rarely, as many as five. Only three eclipses per two years are total. In addition, total eclipses are visible only along narrow paths. According to Belgian astronomer Jean Meuss, who specializes in calculating such things, any given place on Earth will see a total solar eclipse, on average, once every 375 years. That number is averaged over many centuries, so the exact gap varies. It might be centuries between succeeding eclipses, or it might be only a few years. A small region of Illinois, Missouri, and Kentucky, close to the southeast of St. Louis, for example, saw the total eclipse of 2017 and will experience this year’s eclipse as well. Overall, though, you don’t want to wait for a total eclipse to come to you. If you have a chance to travel to an eclipse path, take it!

10. What is the limit for the length of totality?

Astronomers have calculated the length of totality for eclipses thousands of years into the future. Their calculations show that the greatest extent of totality will come during the eclipse of July 16, 2186, at 7 minutes, 29 seconds, in the Atlantic Ocean, near the coast of South America. The eclipse will occur when the Moon is near its closest point to Earth, so it appears largest in the sky, and Earth is near its farthest point from the Sun, so the Sun appears smaller than average. That eclipse, by the way, belongs to the same Saros cycle as this year’s.

11. When will the next total eclipse be seen from the United States?

The next total eclipse visible from anywhere in the United States will take place on March 30, 2033, across Alaska. On August 22, 2044, a total eclipse will be visible across parts of Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota. The next eclipse to cross the entire country will take place on August 12, 2045, streaking from northern California to southern Florida. Here are the other total solar eclipses visible from the contiguous U.S. this century:

March 30, 2052 Florida, Georgia, tip of South Carolina May 11, 2078 From Louisiana to North Carolina May 1, 2079 From Philadelphia up the Atlantic coast to Maine September 14, 2099 From North Dakota to the Virginia-North Carolina border

12. What is the origin of the word ‘eclipse?’

The word first appeared in English writings in the late 13th century. It traces its roots, however, to the Greek words “ecleipsis” or “ekleipein.” According to various sources, the meaning was “to leave out, fail to appear,” “a failing, forsaking,” or “abandon, cease, die.”

13. Do solar eclipses follow any kind of pattern?

The Moon goes through several cycles. The best known is its 29.5-day cycle of phases, from new through full and back again. Other cycles include its distance from Earth (which varies by about 30,000 miles (50,000 km) over 27.5 days) and its relationship to the Sun’s path across the sky, known as the ecliptic (27.2 days), among others. These three cycles overlap every 6,585.3 days, which is 18 years, 11 days, and 8 hours.

This cycle of cycles is known as a Saros (a word created by Babylonians). The circumstances for each succeeding eclipse in a Saros are similar—the Moon is about the same distance from Earth, for example, and they occur at the same time of year. Each eclipse occurs one-third of the way around Earth from the previous one, however; the next eclipse in this Saros, for example, will be visible from parts of the Pacific Ocean.

Each Saros begins with a partial eclipse. A portion of the Moon just nips the northern edge of the Sun, for example, blocking only a fraction of the Sun’s light. With each succeeding eclipse in the cycle, the Moon covers a larger fraction of the solar disk, eventually creating dozens of total eclipses. The Moon then slides out of alignment again, this time in the opposite direction, creating more partial eclipses. The series ends with a grazing partial eclipse on the opposite hemisphere (the southern tip, for example).

Several Saros cycles churn along simultaneously (40 are active now), so Earth doesn’t have to wait 18 years between eclipses. They can occur at intervals of one, five, six, or seven months.

The April 8 eclipse is the 30th of Saros 139, a series of 71 events that began with a partial eclipse, in the far north, and will end with another partial eclipse, this time in the far southern hemisphere. The next eclipse in this Saros, also total, will take place on April 20, 2042.

First eclipse May 17, 1501

First total eclipse December 21, 1843

Final total eclipse March 26, 2601

Longest total eclipse July 16, 2186,  7 minutes, 29 seconds

Final partial eclipse July 3, 2763

All eclipses 71 (43 total, 16 partial, 12 hybrid)

Source: NASA Catalog of Solar Eclipses: eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsaros/SEsaros139.html

14. What about eclipse seasons?

Eclipses occur in “seasons,” with two or three eclipses (lunar and solar) in a period of about five weeks. Individual eclipses are separated by two weeks: a lunar eclipse at full Moon, a solar eclipse at new Moon (the sequence can occur in either order). If the first eclipse in a season occurs during the first few days of the window, then the season will have three eclipses. When one eclipse in the season is poor, the other usually is much better.

That’s certainly the case with the season that includes the April 8 eclipse. It begins with a penumbral lunar eclipse on the night of March 24, in which the Moon will pass through Earth’s outer shadow. The eclipse will cover the Americas, although the shadow is so faint that most skywatchers won’t notice it.

This article was previously published in the March/April 2024 issue of StarDate  magazine, a publication of The University of Texas at Austin’s McDonald Observatory. Catch StarDate’s daily radio program on more than 300 stations nationwide or subscribe online at  stardate.org .

15. How can astronomers forecast eclipses so accurately?

They’ve been recording eclipses and the motions of the Moon for millennia. And over the past half century they’ve been bouncing laser beams off of special reflectors carried to the Moon by Apollo astronauts and Soviet rovers. Those observations reveal the Moon’s position to within a fraction of an inch. Using a combination of the Earth-Moon distance, the Moon’s precise shape, Earth’s rotation and its distance from the Sun, and other factors, astronomers can predict the timing of an eclipse to within a fraction of a second many centuries into the future.

Edmond Halley made the first confirmed solar eclipse prediction, using the laws of gravity devised only a few decades earlier by Isaac Newton. Halley forecast that an eclipse would cross England on May 3, 1715. He missed the timing by just four minutes and the path by 20 miles, so the eclipse is known as Halley’s Eclipse.

16. What are the types of solar eclipses?

Total : the Moon completely covers the Sun.

Annular : the Moon is too far away to completely cover the Sun, leaving a bright ring of sunlight around it.

Partial : the Moon covers only part of the Sun’s disk.

Hybrid : an eclipse that is annular at its beginning and end, but total at its peak.

17. What are Baily’s beads?

During the minute or two before or after totality, bits of the Sun shine through canyons and other features on the limb of the Moon, producing “beads” of sunlight. They were first recorded and explained by Edmond Halley, in 1715. During a presentation to the Royal Academy of Sciences more than a century later, however, astronomer Frances Baily first described them as “a string of beads,” so they’ve been known as Baily’s beads ever since. Please note that Baily’s beads are too bright to look at without eye protection!

18. Will Earth always see total solar eclipses?

No, it will not. The Moon is moving away from Earth at about 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) per year. Based on that rate of recession, in about 600 million years the Moon would have moved so far from Earth that it would no longer appear large enough to cover the Sun. The speed at which the Moon separates from Earth changes over the eons, however, so scientists aren’t sure just when Earth will see its final total solar eclipse.

19. How will the eclipse affect solar power?

If your solar-powered house is in or near the path of totality, the lights truly will go out, as they do at night. For large power grids, the eclipse will temporarily reduce the total amount of electricity contributed by solar generation. During the October 14, 2023, annular eclipse, available solar power plummeted in California and Texas. At the same time, demand increased as individual Sun-powered homes and other buildings began drawing electricity from the power grid. Both networks were able to compensate with stations powered by natural gas and other sources.

The power drop during this year’s eclipse could be more dramatic because there will be less sunlight at the peak of the eclipse.

20. What are some of the myths and superstitions associated with solar eclipses?

Most ancient cultures created stories to explain the Sun’s mysterious and terrifying disappearances.

In China and elsewhere, it was thought the Sun was being devoured by a dragon. Other cultures blamed a hungry frog (Vietnam), a giant wolf loosed by the god Loki (Scandinavia), or the severed head of a monster (India). Still others saw an eclipse as a quarrel (or a reunion) between Sun and Moon. Some peoples shot flaming arrows into the sky to scare away the monster or to rekindle the solar fire. One especially intriguing story, from Transylvania, said that an eclipse occurred when the Sun covered her face in disgust at bad human behavior.

Eclipses have been seen as omens of evil deeds to come. In August 1133, King Henry I left England for Normandy one day before a lengthy solar eclipse, bringing prophesies of doom. The country later was plunged into civil war, and Henry died before he could return home, strengthening the impression that solar eclipses were bad mojo.

Ancient superstitions claimed that eclipses could cause plague and other maladies. Modern superstitions say that food prepared during an eclipse is poison and that an eclipse will damage the babies of pregnant women who look at it. None of that is true, of course. There’s nothing at all to fear from this beautiful natural event.

21. How do animals react to solar eclipses?

Scientists haven’t studied the topic very thoroughly, but they do have some general conclusions. Many daytime animals start their evening rituals, while many nighttime animals wake up when the eclipse is over, perhaps cursing their alarm clocks for letting them sleep so late!

During the 2017 total eclipse, scientists observed 17 species at Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, South Carolina. About three-quarters of the species showed some response as the sky darkened. Some animals acted nervous, while others simply headed for bed. A species of gibbon had the most unusual reaction, moving excitedly and chattering in ways the zookeepers hadn’t seen before.

Other studies have reported that bats and owls sometimes come out during totality, hippos move toward their nighttime feeding grounds, and spiders tear down their webs, only to rebuild them when the Sun returns. Bees have been seen to return to their hives during totality and not budge until the next day, crickets begin their evening chorus, and, unfortunately, mosquitoes emerge, ready to dine on unsuspecting eclipse watchers.

A NASA project, Eclipse Soundscapes, is using volunteers around the country to learn more about how animals react to the changes. The project collected audio recordings and observations by participants during the annular eclipse last year, and will repeat the observations this year. Volunteers can sign up at eclipsesoundscapes.org

22. How will scientists study this year’s eclipse?

Astronomers don’t pay quite as much professional attention to solar eclipses as they did in decades and centuries past. However, they still schedule special observations to add to their knowledge of the Sun and especially the inner edge of the corona.

Sun-watching satellites create artificial eclipses by placing a small disk across the face of the Sun, blocking the Sun’s disk and revealing the corona, solar prominences, and big explosions of charged particles known as coronal mass ejections.

Because of the way light travels around the edges of an eclipsing disk, however, it’s difficult to observe the region just above the Sun’s visible surface, which is where much of the action takes place. The corona is heated to millions of degrees there, and the constant flow of particles known as the solar wind is accelerated to a million miles per hour or faster, so solar astronomers really want to see that region in detail. The eclipsing Moon doesn’t create the same effects around the limb of the Sun, so a solar eclipse still provides the best way to look close to the Sun’s surface.

For this year’s eclipse, some scientists will repeat a series of experiments they conducted in 2017 using a pair of highaltitude WB-57 aircraft to “tag team” through the lunar shadow, providing several extra minutes of observations.

Other scientists will use the eclipse to study Earth’s ionosphere, an electrically charged layer of the atmosphere that “bends” radio waves, allowing them to travel thousands of miles around the planet. Sunlight rips apart atoms and molecules during the day, intensifying the charge. At night, the atoms and molecules recombine, reducing the charge.

Physicists want to understand how the ionosphere reacts to the temporary loss of sunlight during an eclipse. They will do so with the help of thousands of volunteer ham radio operators, who will exchange messages with others around the planet. During last October’s annular eclipse, when the Moon covered most but not all of the Sun, the experiment showed a large and immediate change in the ionosphere as the sunlight dimmed.

NASA also will launch three small “sounding” rockets, which loft instruments into space for a few minutes, to probe the ionosphere shortly before, during, and shortly after the eclipse.

Another project will use radar to study changes in the interactions between the solar wind and Earth’s atmosphere, while yet another will use a radio telescope to map sunspots and surrounding regions as the Moon passes across them.

One project will piece together images of the eclipse snapped through more than 40 identical telescopes spaced along the path of totality to create a one-hour movie of the eclipse. The telescopes will be equipped with instruments that see the three-dimensional structure of the corona, allowing solar scientists to plot how the corona changes.

23. What have astronomers learned from eclipses?

Solar eclipses have been powerful tools for studying the Sun, the layout of the solar system, and the physics of the universe.

Until the Space Age, astronomers could see the Sun’s corona only during eclipses, so they traveled around the world to catch these brief glimpses of it.

Eclipses also offered a chance to refine the scale of the solar system. Watching an eclipse from different spots on Earth and comparing the angles of the Moon and Sun helped reveal the relative sizes and distances of both bodies, which were important steps in understanding their true distances.

During an eclipse in 1868, two astronomers discovered a new element in the corona. It was named helium, after Helios, a Greek name for the Sun. The element wasn’t discovered on Earth until a quarter of a century later.

An eclipse in 1919 helped confirm General Relativity, which was Albert Einstein’s theory of gravity. The theory predicted that the gravity of a massive body should deflect the path of light rays flying near its surface. During the eclipse, astronomers found that the positions of background stars that appeared near the Sun were shifted by a tiny amount, which was in perfect agreement with Einstein’s equations.

Today, astronomers are using records of eclipses dating back thousands of years to measure changes in Earth’s rotation rate and the distance to the Moon.

24. How did astronomers study eclipses in the past?

With great effort! From the time they could accurately predict when and where solar eclipses would be visible, they organized expeditions that took them to every continent except Antarctica, on trips that lasted months and that sometimes were spoiled by clouds or problems both technical and human.

During the American Revolution, for example, a group of Harvard scientists led by Samuel Williams received safe passage from the British army to view an eclipse from Penobscot Bay, Maine, on October 21, 1780. Williams slightly miscalculated the eclipse path, though, so the group missed totality by a few miles. (The expedition did make some useful observations, however.)

In 1860, an expedition headed by Simon Newcomb, one of America’s top astronomers, journeyed up the Saskatchewan River, hundreds of miles from the nearest city, braving rapids, mosquitoes, and bad weather. After five grueling weeks, they had to stop short of their planned viewing site, although at a location still inside the eclipse path. Clouds covered the Sun until almost the end of totality, however, so the expedition came up empty.

King Mongkut of Siam invited a French expedition and hundreds of other dignitaries to view an eclipse from present-day Thailand in 1868. He built an observatory and a large compound to house his guests at a site Mongkut himself had selected as the best viewing spot. The eclipse came off perfectly, but many visitors contracted malaria. So did Mongkut, who died a few weeks later.

An expedition in 1914, to Russia, was plagued by both clouds and the start of World War I. The team abandoned its instruments at a Russian observatory and escaped through Scandinavia.

The eclipse of July 29, 1878, offered fewer impediments. In fact, it was a scientific and social extravaganza. The eclipse path stretched from Montana Territory to Texas. Teams of astronomers from the United States and Europe spread out along the path. Thomas Edison stationed his group in Wyoming, where he used a tasimeter, a device of his own creation, to try to measure the temperature of the corona. Samuel Pierpoint Langley, a future secretary of the Smithsonian, was atop Pikes Peak in Colorado. Maria Mitchell, perhaps America’s leading female scientist, decamped to Denver. And Asaph Hall, who had discovered the moons of Mars just the year before, journeyed to the flatlands of eastern Colorado.

Thousands of average Americans joined the festivities, paying outrageous prices for some of the best viewing spots. Some things, it seems, never change.

25. What about lunar eclipses?

While solar eclipses happen during new Moon, lunar eclipses occur when the Moon is full, so it aligns opposite the Sun in our sky. The Moon passes through Earth’s shadow. In a total eclipse, the entire lunar disk turns orange or red. In a partial eclipse, Earth’s inner shadow covers only a portion of the Moon. And during a penumbral eclipse, the Moon passes through the outer portion of Earth’s shadow, darkening the Moon so little that most people don’t even notice it.

Lunar eclipses happen as often as solar eclipses—at least twice per year. This is a poor year for lunar eclipses, however. There is a penumbral eclipse on the night of March 24, with the Moon slipping through Earth’s faint outer shadow, and a partial eclipse on the night of September 17, in which the Moon barely dips into the darker inner shadow. Both eclipses will be visible from most of the United States.

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