LAST UPDATED: 5/26/23 – Travel Quotes to Inspire Your Wanderlust
If you are like me and travel is always on your mind, then you probably get as restless as I do in between trips. Travel is that whisper in the back of your mind reminding you of how much you feel alive when you are visiting foreign places, learning about different cultures, and sharing new adventures. Like the authors of these travel quotes, something deep inside of you awakens each time you embark on a new trip. Something wonderful.
Travel is one of those things that transcends boundaries and cultures and is something that we can all share a passion for as human beings. No matter where you live, you are likely as curious about my homeland as I am about yours. By sharing and learning thru travel, we all get a little bit closer. I think these wonderful travel quotes capture the essence of that.
If you aren’t like me and you don’t constantly dream about travel, then fear not. I have put together a collection of some of the most inspiring travel quotes that I could find that are sure to stir the wanderlust within you. Hopefully these travel quotes help awaken the wanderlust within you.
If these travel quotes from some of the most adventurous spirits to walk this planet don’t stir your soul, then nothing will. If you have a favorite travel quote that I have left off this list, please be sure to share it in the comments section below for others to enjoy!
1.
“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag
2.
“The core of mans’ spirit comes from new experiences.” – Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp)
3.
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
4.
“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 or what we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese
5.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Lao Tzu
6.
“Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.” – Anthony Bourdain
7.
“You don’t have to be rich to travel well.” – Eugene Fodor
8.
“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
9.
“Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Mary Ritter
10.
“The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton
11.
“Oh, the places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss
12.
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
13.
“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
14.
“Conventional wisdom tells us… we take our baggage with us. I’m not so sure. Travel, at its best, transforms us in ways that aren’t always apparent until we’re back home. Sometimes we do leave our baggage behind, or, even better, it’s misrouted to Cleveland and is never heard from again.” – Eric Weiner
15.
“A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill
16.
“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” – Jennifer Lee
17.
“…there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” – Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp)
18.
“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – Aldous Huxley
19.
“People do not decide to become extraordinary. They decide to accomplish extraordinary things.” – Edmund Hillary
20.
“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
21.
“To Travel is to Live.” – Hans Christian Andersen
22.
“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
23.
“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin
24.
“Two years he walks the earth. No phone, no pool, no pets, no cigarettes. Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road. Escaped from Atlanta. Thou shalt not return, ’cause the West is the best’. And now after two rambling years comes the final and greatest adventure. The climactic battle to kill the false being within and victoriously conclude the spiritual pilgrimage. Ten days and nights of freight trains and hitchhiking bring him to the Great White North. No longer to be poisoned by civilization he flees and walks alone upon the land to become lost in the wild.” – Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp)
25.
“I learned a long time ago that trying to micromanage the perfect vacation is always a disaster. That leads to terrible times.” – Anthony Bourdain
26.
“Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.” – Paul Theroux
27.
“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.” – Jack Kerouac
28.
“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” – Rudyard Kipling
29.
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide
30.
“A ship in a harbor is safe, but it not what ships are built for.” – John A. Shedd
31.
“Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” – Dalai Lama
32.
“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
33.
“Own only what you can always carry with you: known languages, known countries, known people. Let your memory be your travel bag.” – Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
34.
“If you want something in this life, reach out and grab it.” – Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp)
35.
“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta
36.
“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. Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody.” – Anthony Bourdain
37.
“It is not down in any map; true places never are.” – Herman Melville
38.
“Adventure is a path. Real adventure, self-determined, self-motivated, often risky, forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world.” – Mark Jenkins
39.
“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustav Flaubert
40.
“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” – Susan Heller
41.
“Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Chief Seattle
42.
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost
43.
“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
44.
“The travel bug gets in you, and it’s got you.” – Scott Wilson (Departures)
45.
“Live life with no excuses, travel with no regret.” – Oscar Wilde
46.
“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
47.
“Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.” – Roy M. Goodman
48.
“I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met.” – John Green
49.
“I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.” – Caskie Stinnett
50.
“Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” – Benjamin Disraeli
51.
“Paris is always a good idea.” – Audrey Hepburn
52.
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller
53.
“If you think adventures are dangerous, try routine: It’s Lethal.” – Paul Coelho
54.
“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
55.
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu
56.
“Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.” – Lovelle Drachman
57.
“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
58.
“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark
59.
“Traveling’s not something you’re good at. It’s something you do. Like Breathing.” – Gayle Foreman
60.
“One day I hope to say I have seen the world, but that day is not here yet.” – Scott Wilson (Departures)
61.
“Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.” – Paolo Coelho
62.
“The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.” – Alain de Botton
63.
“It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau
64.
“Ultimate freedom. An extremist. An aesthetic voyager whose home is the road.” – Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp)
65.
“Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.” – Anthony Bourdain
66.
“All you need to know is that it’s possible.” – Wolf, an Appalachian Trail Hiker
67.
“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
68.
“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
69.
“The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
70.
“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
71.
“Travel doesn’t become adventure until you leave yourself behind.” – Marty Rubin
72.
“Life is an unfoldment, and the further we travel the more truth we can comprehend. To understand the things that are at our door is the best preparation for understanding those that lie beyond.” – Hypatia
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.
“Adventure is worthwhile.” – Aesop
75.
“We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.” – Hilaire Belloc
76.
“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous
77.
“We travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost.” – Ray Bradbury
78.
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” – James Michener
79.
“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
80.
“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” – David Mitchell
81.
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – Augustine of Hippo
82.
“I will go anywhere, provided it is forward.” – Dr. David Livingstone
83.
“A great way to learn about your country is to leave it.” – Henry Rollins
84.
“Every day is a journey, and the journey itself is home.” – Matsuo Basho
85.
“People don’t take trips, trips take people.” – John Steinbeck
86.
“Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.” – Ernest Hemmingway
87.
“To travel is to take a journey into yourself.” – Danny Kaye
88.
“I always encourage people to get out there, travel the world, see new things, experience new people, experience new food, experience new culture. What happens is that helps you to grow and be your best self.” – Karamo Brown
89.
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” – T.S. Eliott
90.
“The most beautiful in the world is, of course, the world itself.” – Wallace Stevens
91.
“The journey not the arrival matters.” – T.S. Eliot
92.
“The life you have led doesn’t need to be the only life you have.” – Anna Quindlen
93.
“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
94.
“Jobs fill your pocket, but adventures fill your soul.” – Jamie Lyn Beatty
95.
“Make each day a new horizon.” – Christopher McCandless (Alexander Supertramp)
96.
“A person susceptible to “wanderlust” is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation.” – Pico Iyer
97.
“Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.” – Roy M. Goodman
98.
“It is better to travel well than to arrive.” – Buddha
99.
“Live your life by a compass not a clock.” – Stephen Covey
100.
“One travels more usefully when alone, because he reflects more.” – Thomas Jefferson
Avid traveler and photographer who loves to see new places, meet new people, and experience new things. There is so much this world can teach us, we just need to explore!
View all posts by Josh Hewitt
Love this post!! So many great ones, especially # 35, 49, 53, and 83. Laughed out loud at #40! Also love #51 – “Paris is always a good idea” – couldn’t agree more. And then there’s my all-time favorite, #81: The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. Very inspiring Josh. Thank you.
A compilation of best travel quotes. My favorite one is from – Alain de Botton “The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to” Looking forward to hearing from you more
I love so many of these quotes, no matter how many times I see them.
Me too! Some of them are absolutely classic. Timeless.
Love this post!! So many great ones, especially # 35, 49, 53, and 83. Laughed out loud at #40! Also love #51 – “Paris is always a good idea” – couldn’t agree more. And then there’s my all-time favorite, #81: The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. Very inspiring Josh. Thank you.
That one is my favorite one too!! I posted that one to Facebook. Thanks for the kind words, as always!
Brilliant — hard to pick but my favourites include 1,30,35,40,67 and 81!!!
Those are some of my favorites too! 😀
Traveler or Tourist?
https://www.kdexplorer.com/2019/05/tourist-or-traveler.html
A compilation of best travel quotes. My favorite one is from – Alain de Botton “The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to” Looking forward to hearing from you more
That is a fantastic quote Steve! Thank you sir! 😀
wow Nice travel quotes
Thank you so much!! 😀