Quotes

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

--Paulo Coelho, Aleph

"A journey, after all, neither begins in the instant we set out, nor ends when we have reached our door step 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, Travels with Herodotus

“I saw in their eyes something I was to see over and over in every part of the nation- a burning desire to go, to move, to get under way, anyplace, away from any Here. They spoke quietly of how they wanted to go someday, to move about, free and unanchored, not toward something but away from something. I saw this look and heard this yearning everywhere in every states I visited. Nearly every American hungers to move.”

--John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

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

--Thomas Jefferson, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Vol.11

"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, No Reservations: Around the World on an Empty Stomach

"The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail. Travel too fast,and you miss all you are traveling for."

--Louis L'Amour

"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, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography

"And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take? I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it. We are not creatures of destinations. It is the journey that shapes us. Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived."

--Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings

"I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found."

--John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America

"Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing!"

--Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

"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. Henceforth, I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune.
Henceforth, I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing."

--Walt Whitman, Songs for the Open Road: Poems of Travel and Adventure