quotations about travel
Travel is an attitude, a state of mind. It is not residence, it is motion.
PAUL THEROUX
introduction, The Best American Travel Writing
When I was at home, I was in a better place; but travellers must be content.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
Travel not too fast, if you would learn.
PETER RAMUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
New situations inspire new thoughts. Here is the benefit of travelling, much more than in mere sight-seeing. We lose ourselves in the streets of our own city, and go abroad to find ourselves.
CHRISTIAN NESTELL BOVEE
Intuitions and Summaries of Thought
On journeys it has happened many times before that something I especially desire withholds itself. Travel is like knowledge: much remains unknown and imperfectly seen, a situation not always remedied by checking museum hours, which are, in any case, changeable. And, too, the direct gaze, for all its virtues, can obscure: some things can simply not be seen head-on in the sun's glare.
EMILY HIESTAND
The Very Rich Hours
To me, travel is a great way of bringing in fresh ideas. Since nature is my muse, I get bigger and better ideas when I see more of the world.
RANGA VOONA
"PhotoSparks", YourStory, May 6, 2017
For many of us, change is the biggest motivation for travel. We have a need for novel scenery, routine, weather or even people.
BLAKE SNOW
"Off The Grid: Why Do We Travel?", Paste Magazine, May 16, 2017
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
Travel is like a game; there is always gain or loss, and mostly from the unexpected side; you receive more or less than you hope for; you can, with impunity, loiter along for a while, then you are again obliged to gather yourself up a moment. For natures like mine, that like to establish themselves firmly and hold fast to things, a journey is invaluable; it animates, instructs and cultivates.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
letter to Friedrich Schiller, October 14, 1797
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
Travels with a donkey in the Cevenne
A wise traveller never despises his own country.
CARLO GOLDONI
attributed, Day's Collacon
You should visit before you pass judgement on a place.
TANITH LEE
The Castle of Dark
Every mile of travel is like the disinterment of a buried city.
ANONYMOUS
Appleton's Journal, January-June 1878
A man who has travelled and seen the world, brings all countries to his fireside.
GEORGE REDFORD
attributed, Day's Collacon
A wise man travels to discover himself.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Fireside Travels
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
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
Long-term travel doesn't require a massive bundle of cash; it requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way.
ROLF POTTS
Vagabonding
Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one's own country.
ANATOLE BROYARD
attributed, Voyages of Discovery
There are several other sources of enjoyment in a long voyage, which are of a more reasonable nature. The map of the world ceases to be a blank; it becomes a picture full of the most varied and animated figures.
CHARLES DARWIN
The Voyage of the Beagle
Our object in traveling should be, not to gratify curiosity, and seek mere temporary amusement, but to learn, and to venerate, to improve the understanding and the heart.
NIGEL GRESLEY
attributed, American Medical Association Bulletin, 1933