120 of the Best Travel Quotes

“Everyone likes travel quotes” – Matthew Bailey

That’s right. I just started an article about the best travel quotes by making up my own quote…about a quote.

Isn’t it true though? There’s something beautiful about a good quote, whether it be about travel or not. A great quote is often inspiring, funny, or just has a special poetic way of summing up a unique feeling in just a few words.

Quotes can inspire us to make a change in our lives and can provide some meaning for experiences we’ve had. Quotes can be funny, entertaining, and can bring a slice of joy to our lives.

In this article, I’ve researched a number of websites and books to pick some of the best travel quotes that you can use to inspire your next trip or adventure or for your life in general. Maybe you can use them to sum up the experiences you’ve already had.

Although it can be very hard to separate the quotes into specific types, I’ve tried my best to put them into categories as a way to make them easier to read. Without making up a category for blocks of quotes, it can be quite difficult to read through them and even harder to come back to your favourite one from time to time. By separating them out, it’ll make it easier for you to follow this article and return.

I hope you enjoy this list of 120 travel quotes.

My 15 Favourite Quotes about Travel

Let’s start with my personal favourites. I’ve always loved quotes, whether travel-related or not. It can be really tough to pick the ones I love the best, but these are the ones that stood out the most.

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

The first blog I created, which is now called Live Limitless, has this quote embedded in the hero image, which is my bungy jumping in Washington. It’s a quote I live by and I can truly say that all of the best memories and adventures I’ve created came from pushing past my comfort zone.

2. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do” – H. Jackson Brown Jr.

This quote is often attributed to Mark Twain, but it’s actually from author H. Jackson Browne Jr. in his book PS I Love You, about letters written to his mom. Think back on your own life and I think you’ll quickly see how true this quote really is. People always regret things they didn’t do.

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

The world is the greatest book there is. So many stories. So many characters. But if you don’t travel, it’s like being stuck on the first page.

4. “If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it’s lethal” – Paul Coelho

This is another one I can firmly attest to. There are many people out there who think everything is dangerous. Whether it’s travelling to a developing country, sky-diving, scuba diving, or even a simple hike, they shy away from it while calling it “dangerous”, not realizing how dangerous it is to just sit at home. Either way, life passes you by.

5. “When was the last time you did something for the first time?” – Anonymous

I love this quote because it’s a question you can ask yourself each day and it doesn’t just apply to travel. Novelty is the spice of life. One of the very first things I did to get beyond my comfort zone was to simply sign up for salsa dancing lessons. It didn’t require me to board a plane or spend lots of money, but that “first time experience” led to many more “first times”. I learned to say “yes” to anything that sparked my curiosity.

6. “Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and think of what could go right.” – Anonymous

How true is this? As human beings, we seem hardwired to focus on what could go wrong. We worry about things that will likely never happen. What if we switched that around?

7. “You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Gandhi

This is also a very true quote. Talk is cheap. Anyone can say things, but only those who act can really inspire a movement.

8. “Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – George Bernard Shaw

I find this quote to be so inspiring in today’s world. Well, at any time really. Too many people go through life waiting to “find” themselves. To find meaning. That’s not how it works. You create yourself. If you want to be a certain someone one year from now, create a plan to get you there. That’s how you find yourself.

9. You go away for a long time and return a different person – you never come all the way back – Paul Theroux

This quote stands out because it’s exactly how I felt when I returned home after a 6-month solo journey to Australia and Indonesia back in 2009. It really did change me. Everything at home was exactly the same but it felt so different. It took me a while to figure out what it was. It was me. I was different.

10. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” – Mae West

What’s great about this quote is that it fits with something almost everyone says from time to time. Life is short. We’ve all heard that. But what’s really important is making those years count.

11. “Death is more universal than life. Everyone dies, but not everyone lives.“ – Andrew Sachs

How true is this? I know so many people who went through life without actually living. It’s a miracle to be alive when you think about it. Do you really want to waste it?

12. “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

As an avid traveller, I really resonated with this. Travel has opened me up in so many ways but it has also broken my heart. Seeing street dogs and cats roaming the streets in search of food, seeing kids begging for change, or just seeing people that really were just born into bad circumstances truly breaks my heart. It hurts to see but I think it’s better for society if we realize it exists.

13. “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

This is easier said than done, but wouldn’t life so much better if we could stop taking so many things for granted? This is one of the things I’ve loved about long-term travel. Every day feels like an adventure. Doing something as simple as taking a taxi feels exciting. What if we could format the mind to think like this on a daily basis. That’s how you slow down life.

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

This is such a great quote by Indian novelist Anita Desai. Whatever we do becomes a part of us. We’re all shaped by our experiences. After a decade of travel and adventure, I can tell you that I am a completely different person than I was as a teenager. Each experience and adventure will shape you for the better. Get out there and explore.

14. “Drink Heavily with locals whenever possible.” ~ Anthony Bourdain

I hesitated to add this one because I didn’t find it that “inspiring” at first. It’s also not something I recommend in certain situations. But as I thought about it, I think it can apply to all situations as a mindset. Yes, if you can drink with locals, it’s a great way to “break the ice” and truly experience a culture. But even if the actual task of drinking is not suitable, the main takeaway is to really sit down with locals and have a good time. Maybe it’s dancing, playing a game, or just sitting around drinking tea and sharing stories, take it all in.

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

Yes. Yes. Yes. If you’re not willing to leave your biases at home and truly engage with different cultures, perhaps you should stick to watching movies.

Travel Quotes with Friends

Travel is great solo but it can also be very rewarding to do with friends and family. Here are some of my favourite travel quotes with friends.

16. “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.” – Hemmingway

Can you imagine going somewhere beautiful with someone you don’t care for? What a waste of time.

17. “It doesn’t matter where you’re going, it’s who you have beside you.” – Anonymous

This is such a great quote that can be applied to life in general. Also, the opposite is true. If you hang out with bad people, everywhere you go will suck.

18. “Happiness is only real when shared.” – Christopher McCandless

This is one of my favourite quotes from the movie Into the Wild. It’s a true quote written by Christopher McCandless after living in a bus in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness. While I do think there are plenty of great solo happiness moments, it is sort of true that if you have no one to ever share it with, what’s the point?

19. “The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” – Shirley MacLaine

This one is not directly related to travelling with friends but it’s such a true statement for people who travel the world with open minds. Too often, fear makes “enemies” out of people we actually have a lot in common with. Travel breaks this down quickly.

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

This quote is perhaps the opposite of this category but I wanted to share it because it really applies to my first big adventure overseas. Travelling with a good friend or loved one is amazing, but all too often, people put off their big dreams to wait for others. Don’t do this. I did this for many years and finally, I got the nerve to just go alone. It was one of the best things I ever did.

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

This is also such a great quote. You can travel the world endlessly, but if in the end, you didn’t even make any friends, was it even worth it? Meet the people where you travel and enjoy friendships from around the world.

Short Travel Quotes

These quotes are short and sweet, but nonetheless powerful.

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

23. “We travel not to escape life but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous

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

25. “Don’t listen to what they say, go see” – Chinese Proverb

26. “Don’t Quit Your Day Dream” – Anonymous

27. “To Travel is to Live” – Hans Christian Anderson

28. “Jet Lag is for Amateurs.” – Dick Clark

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

30. “Travel has a way of stretching the mind.” – Ralph Crawshaw

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

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

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

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

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

36. “Jobs fill your pocket but adventures fill your soul.” – Jamie Lyn Beatty

Wanderlust Quotes

Let’s wander! Let’s move without a fixed course or goal. Let’s just go and see what happens. We’ll choose the path less travelled and enjoy the journey itself.

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

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

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

40. “Take only memories, leave only footprints” – Chief Seattle

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

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

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

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

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

46. “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

47. “I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake.” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Quotes for Exploring

When you need a little inspiration to start exploring the world, these travel quotes should help.

48. “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

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

50. “Adventure is worthwhile.” – Aesop

51. “I wish I had never gone traveling. Said no one ever” – Anonymous

52. “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

53. “Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey” – Babs Hoffman

54. “Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so the world can see you. – David McCullough

55. “Don’t worry about the world ending today, it’s already tomorrow in Australia.” – Charles M. Schulz

56. “I have found out that there aint’s no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate people than to travel with them.” – Mark Twain

57. “Life is short and the world is wide, the sooner you start exploring it, the better.” – Simon Raven

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

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

60. “So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality, nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. 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. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty.” – Jon Krakauer

61. “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

Inspirational Quotes for Travelling

These quotes below can be inspiring, not just for travel, but for life itself.

62. “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 Kerouak

63. “The life you have led doesn’t need to be the only life you have.” – Anna Quindlen

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

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

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

67. “It’s Better to Travel Well than to Arrive” – Buddha

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

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

70. “It is better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times.” – Anonymous

71. “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

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

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

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

Meaningful Travel Quotes

These quotes have such deep and wonderful meanings behind them.

75. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” – Mark Twain

76. “Fear is only temporary. Regrets last forever.” – Anonymous

77. “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” – Maya Angelou

78. “The important thing is to never stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing” – Albert Einstein

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

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

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

82. “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel next, to find ourselves.” – Pico Iyer

83. “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

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

85. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain

86. “The world is changed by your example, not your opinion.” – Paul Coelho

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

88. “There’s a sunrise and sunset every single day, and they’re absolutely free. Don’t miss so many of them.” – Joe Watson

89. “If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to it.” – Johnathan Winters

90. “Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure.” – Irving Wallace

91. “It’s not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.” – Jon Krakauer

92. “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

93. “Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat. “I don’t much care where …” said Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat. – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland.

94. “You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us and the world will be as one.” – John Lennon

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

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

Happy and Funny Travel Quotes

These quotes below come across as either happy, funny, or both.

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

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

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

100. “Your body is not a temple. It’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride” – Anthony Bourdain

101. “Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud” – Maya Angelou

102. “Doing what you like is freedom, liking what you do is happiness.” – Sudha Murty

103. “I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met.” – John Green

104. “Travel…the best way to be lost and found at the same time.” – Brenna Smith

105. “Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions.” – Peter Hoeg

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

107. “We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.” – Hilaire Belloc

108. “Traveling is not something you’re good at. It’s something you do, like breathing.” – Gayle Foreman

109. “Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.” – Walt Whitman

110. “I told the doctor I broke my leg in two places. He told me to quit going to those places” – Henny Youngman

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

Unique Travel Quotes

In a way, all quotes are unique but here are some of the ones that stood out.

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

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

114. “Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.” – Rick Watson

115. “Without new experiences, something inside us sleeps. The sleeper must awaken.” – Frank Herbert

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

117. “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

118. “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

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

120. “I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning not knowing what’s gonna happen or, who I’m gonna meet, where I’m gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figure life’s a gift and I don’t intend on wasting it. You don’t know what hand you’re gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you… to make each day count.” – Jack Dawson, Titanic.

This quote above is a bit of a bonus as it just popped up as something we shared years ago on Facebook. It’s from the movie Titanic and it sums up how we feel most days travelling the world. We often don’t know what adventures we’ll get into or who we’ll meet.

Travel Quotes ReCap

I hope you had as much fun reading this article as I had to put it together. It took a surprising amount of time but now that it’s complete, I am going to constantly come back to it for inspiration. I hope you do too. In the comments below, I’d love to know if any quotes stand out to you and if there’s another quote you love that’s not in the article. Please share.

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