Most of us bitten by the travel bug don’t need to be convinced to get out there are rack up some memories. We know these sojourns away from home can be the greatest source of joy, wonder and adventure in life. Sure, you can read books and watch films about faraway cities and foreign lands, but it’s not like being there with all fives senses engaged. Nothing jostles perspectives, expands horizons or challenges expectations like travel. Here are 20 of our favorite inspirational travel quotes to get you globetrotting – or at least make you think. Even Homer Simpson weighs in on the topic!
1. “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
2. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
3. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” – Mark Twain
4. “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux
5. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
6. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
7. “A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
8. “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
9. “People travel to faraway places to watch, in fascination, the kind of people they ignore at home.” – Dagobert D. Runes
10. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
11. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” – Robert Frost
12. “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” – James Michener
13. “Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
14. “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu
15. “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
16. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – Aldous Huxley
17. “Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” – Paul Theroux
18. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
19. “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck
20. “I want to shake off the dust of this one-horse town. I want to explore the world. I want to watch TV in a different time zone. I want to visit strange, exotic malls” – Homer Simpson
So which of these inspirational travel quotes resonate with you?