The 50 Most Inspiring Travel Quotes
The Most Inspiring Travel Quotes Around
The only thing more inspiring than quotes and travel to me, are inspiring travel quotes. For a long time, I've been obsessed with collecting travel quotes that genuinely inspire me, and I ended up with a filled up Moleskine notebook that clearly denotes that obsession.
I decided that I wanted to share those inspiring travel quotes with a broader audience than just myself. Sharing is caring, right? I suppose referencing that old quote won't inspire much confidence in my ability to adequately choose quotes, but trust me, I'm a quote person.
I actually put together another post on quotes not all that long ago, Ancient Travel Quotes Worth Remembering. So, if it turns out that you're totally loving this set of inspiring travel quotes, then I'm sure you'll love that post to.
My pal Gary Arndt, whom I met at TBEX (Travel Blog Exchange Conference), also put together an absolute behemoth of a list of inspirational travel quotes if you're looking for more after you stop here.
The list before me (or below this paragraph, depending on how you look at it) is what I consider to be the most inspiring travel quotes around. Over the years, I've collected hundreds and hundreds of inspirational travel quotes, but these are the ones that truly hit me deep. I've bolded those travel words that I felt were really deep words about life.
I should note that these inspirational travel quotes also make great travel instagram captions for all those out there into that. By the way, I heard this guy travelingmitch is pretty into Instagram.
Inspiring Travel Quotes #1-10
Let's get this started with the first ten travel quotes, that, for the most part, fall under the category of short inspirational quotes.
1. "I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move." ~ Robert Louis Stevenson
2. "Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe." ~ Anatole France
3. "No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." ~ Lin Yutang
4. "Half the fun of the travel is the aesthetic of lostness." ~ Ray Bradbury
5. "If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home." ~ James Michener
6. "I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself." ~ James Baldwin
7. "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." ~ Mark Twain
8. "I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad." ~ George Bernard Shaw
9. "I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine." ~ Caskie Stinnett
10. "To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries." ~ Aldous Huxley
If you like this post, you’ll also like “Ancient Travel Quotes Worth Remembering”
Inspiring Travel Quotes #11-20
The next 10 are really "journey quotes" in a sense, but obviously still fall under the umbrella of inspiring travel quotes.
11. "The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see." ~ G.K. Chesterton
12. "All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware." ~ Martin Buber
13. "Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God." ~ Kurt Vonnegut
14. "I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list." ~ Susan Sontag
15. "A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships are built for." ~ Gael Attal
16. "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
17. "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
18. "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
19. "Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves." ~ Henry David Thoreau
20. "Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it." ~ Eudora Welty
If you’re enjoying this post, you’ll also appreciate “30 Incredible Quotes to Keep you Afloat”
Inspiring Travel Quotes #21-30
The next ten are a selection of deeply meaningful travel quotes, at least to me that is!
21. "The great difference between voyages rests not with the ships, but with the people you meet on them." ~ Amelia E. Barr
22. "I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference." ~ Robert Frost
23. "To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world." ~ Freya Stark
24. "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes." ~ Marcel Proust
25. "We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment." – Hilaire Belloc
26. "Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey." ~ Pat Conroy
27. "When overseas you learn more about your own country, than you do the place you’re visiting." ~ Clint Borgen
28. "Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." ~ Miriam Beard
29. "One of the gladdest moments of human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of habit, the leaden weight of routine, the cloak of many cares and the slavery of home, man feels once more happy." ~ Richard Burton
30. "You do not travel if you are afraid of the unknown, you travel for the unknown, that reveals you with yourself." ~ Ella Maillart
If you're feeling this post, you’ll also love my post on 101 travel tips!
Inspiring Travel Quotes #31-40
The next ten are, in my humble opinion, a good selection of adventure quotes, which, of course, are also rather inspiring travel quotes.
31. "When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable." ~ Clifton Fadiman
32. "Travel has a way of stretching the mind. The stretch comes not from travel’s immediate rewards, the inevitable myriad of new sights, smells, and sounds, but with experiencing firsthand how others do differently what we believed to be the right and only way." ~ Ralph Crawshaw
32. "People don’t take trips . . . trips take people." ~ John Steinbeck
33. "Not I – Not anyone else, can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself." ~ Walt Whitman
34. "You don’t choose the day you enter the world and you don’t chose the day you leave. It’s what you do in between that makes all the difference." ~ Anita Septimus
35. "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." ~ St. Augustine
36. "The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are." ~ Samuel Johnson
37."A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it." ~ John Steinbeck
38. "Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going." ~ Paul Theroux
39. "A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." ~ Lao Tzu
40. "A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles." ~ Tim Cahill
Check out my article on “50 Things Travel Has Taught Me About life,” if you’re enjoying this.
Inspiring Travel Quotes #41-50
I happen to think that a handful of the next ten would make some solid travel Instagram captions.
41. "Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen." ~ Benjamin Disraeli
42. "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
43. "Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white." ~ Mark Jenkins
44. "It is better to travel well than to arrive." ~ Buddha
45. "Travel teaches toleration." ~ Benjamin Disraeli
46. "I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them." ~ Mark Twain
47. "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." ~ Helen Keller
48. "Not all those who wander are lost." ~ J.R.R. Tolkien
49."No matter where you go - there you are." ~ Confucius
And last, but not least, the quote that I have tattooed on my ribs as a strong reminder of what life means to me. That's probably also an indication of how deeply I believe in the written word and travel itself.
50. "Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore" ~ Andre Gide
If you appreciated this post, please leave a comment below and let me know what quote in particular resonated with you! Or, conversely, let me know what quote you might add!