I’ve sometimes found it difficult to convey what travel means to me, especially when talking to people whose only image of travel involves a resort vacation spent entirely by the pool. For some people it’s deeply personal, and for others it’s just for the sense of adventure. Whatever travel might mean to you, chances are it means a whole lot.
And on that note, here are some of the best travel quotes around, to spark the wanderlust of even the most jaded of travel extraordinaire. Enjoy!
1.
We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us. (Spissky Hrad, Slovakia)
2.
Travel is the frivolous part of serious lives, and the serious part of frivolous ones. -Anne Sophie Swetchine. (Aukstaitija National Park, Lithuania)
3.
You do not travel if you are afraid of the unknown. You travel for the unknown, that reveals you within yourself. -Ella Maillart. (St. Petersburg, Russia)
4.
A little step may be the beginning of a great journey. (Lublin, Poland)
5.
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has courage to lose sight of the shore. -André Gide. (Christmas decorations in Thessaloniki, Greece)
6.
The world is a book, and those who don’t travel read only one page. -St. Augustine. (Rovinj, Croatia)
7.
We travel, initially, to lose ourselves. We travel, next, to find ourselves. -Pico Iyer. (Exploring the hills in Kosovo)
8.
You lose sight of things, and when you travel, everything balances out. -Daranna Gidel. (Napping at Spissky Hrad, Slovakia)
9.
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. (Dragon hunting in Ljubljana, Slovenia)
10.
Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. -Gustave Flaubert. (Beaches of Corfu, Greece)
11.
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 we only seek them with our eyes open. -Jawahal Nehru. (Wandering the old town streets in Romania)
12.
Not all who wander are lost. -J. R. R. Tolkien. (Lake Ohrid, Macedonia)
13.
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. -Marcel Proust. (Wandering the old town streets of Montenegro)
14.
Adventure is worthwhile. -Aristotle. (In Albania)
15.
Travel is the only thing that makes you richer. (Greece)
16.
Go at least once a year to a place you’ve never been before. -Dalai Lama. (Crete, Greece)
17.
To travel is to take a journey into yourself. -Danny Kaye. (Sculpture in Bulgaria)
18.
I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. -Susan Sontag. (Amphitheater in Pula, Croatia)
19.
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 safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. -Mark Twain. (Turns out this was misattributed; Twain never said it. Take a look here for real Mark Twain travel quotes!)
20.
Tourists don’t know where they’ve been. Travelers don’t know where they’re going. -Paul Theroux. (Riding the rails in Slovenia)
21.
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. (New friends in Cusco, Peru)
22.
A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles. -Tim Cahill. (New friends in Albania)
23.
Life is a great adventure or nothing. -Helen Keller. (Sunset in Croatia)
24.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I––I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. -Robert Frost. (Delphi, Greece)
25.
Dreams may be sexy, but planning is the condom that makes it all possible. -Eytan Levy. (Mostar, Bosnia)
Yup, that last one is me.
Well, that’s all for now! Got any favorite travel quotes? Feel free to chime in.