A list of inspiring travel quotes (with graphics!) to fuel your wanderlust. Some are short and sweet and to-the-point, while others are poetic and make you really think on a deeper level.
Whenever I hear an inspirational quote, I have a habit of jotting it down in a notebook (or let’s be real… typing it into “Notes” on my phone). Anyone else do the same thing?!
I have an ongoing list of travel quotes that just speak to me. Some are short and sweet and to the point, while others are poetic and make me really think on a deeper level. Some are famous, while others are seldom-known. I even carry a couple scraps of paper with quotes in my passport. #truestory
I love reading through travel quotes to stoke my wanderlust or comfort me when I’m feeling nostalgic after an incredible trip. Somehow it’s nice knowing there have been others before me who have put my feelings into words.
I’ve gone ahead and rounded up my iPhone notes, my scraps of paper, and those fortunes I’ve been hanging onto to create a beautiful list of travel quotes.
I hope they speak to you and bring you as much inspiration as they’ve brought to me.
Psst! If you’re a fan of road tripping (you know we are!) we have a separate article full of road trip quotes to get you motivated and inspired to hit the road and explore.
1. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” —Helen Keller
2. “Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure.” —Anonymous
3. “Traveling— it leaves you speechless, then makes you a storyteller.” ―Ibn Battua
4. “I knew that if I allowed fear to overtake me, my journey was doomed. Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story from the one women are told. I decided I was safe. I was strong. I was brave. Nothing could vanquish me.” ―Excerpt from Wild by Cheryl Strayed
5. “We must take adventures to find out where we truly belong.” ―Unknown
6. “The greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time.” ―Bill Bryson
7. “If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it is lethal.” ―Paulo Coelho
8. “Travel sparks your imagination, feeds your curiosity and reminds us how much we all have in common.” ―Deborah Lloyd
9. “Actually, the best gift you could have given her was a lifetime of adventures.” ―Lewis Carrol
10. “A ship is safe in the harbor, but that’s not what ships were built for.” ―Gael Attal
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
12. “There’s no passion to be found in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.” ―Nelson Mandela
13. “I urge you; go find buildings and mountains and oceans to swallow you whole. They will save you, in a way nothing else can.” ―Christopher Poindexter
14. “Because in the end you won’t remember the time you spend in the office or mowing the lawn…Climb. That. Damn. Mountain.” ―Jack Keroac
15. “And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” ―Randy Komisar
16. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky. All things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” ―Cesare Pavese
17. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ―Mark Twain
18. “If we don’t offer ourselves to the unknown, our senses dull. Our world becomes small and we lose our sense of wonder. Our eyes don’t lift to the horizon; our ears don’t hear the sounds around us. The edge is off our experience, and we pass our days in a routine that is both comfortable and limiting. We wake up one day and find that we have lost our dreams in order to protect our days. Don’t let yourself become one of these people. The fear of the unknown and the lure of the comfortable will conspire to keep you from taking the chances the traveler has to take. But if you take them, you will never regret your choice.” ― Excerpt from Letters to My Son by Kent Nerburn
19. “Life was not meant to be just survived, life was meant to be embraced!” ―Unknown
20. It’s better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times. Asian proverb
21. “Please be a traveler, not a tourist. Try new things, meet new people and look beyond what’s right in front of you. Those are the keys to understanding this amazing world we live in.” ―Andrew Zimmerman
22. “There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.” ― Except from Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela
23. “I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.” ―Bill Bryson
24. “Life is an adventure. Dare it.” ―Mother Theresa
25. “Travel makes one modest. You’ll see what a tiny place you occupy in this world.” ―Gustave Flaubert
26. “As you move through this life you leave marks on the world, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you.” ―Anthony Bourdain
27. “Instead of trying to make your life perfect, give yourself the freedom to make it an adventure, and go ever upward.” —Drew Houston
28. “And then there is the most dangerous risk of all – the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” ― Excerpt from The Monk & The Riddle by Randy Komisar
29. “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been.” ― Advice from the Dalai Lama
30. “The person you will spend the most time with in your life is yourself, so better try to make yourself as interesting as possible.” —Unknown
31. “Travel is that gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.” —Unknown
32. “I’ve been absolutely terrified every moment of my life – and I’ve never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.” ―Georgia O’Keeffe
33. “The earth has music for those who will listen.” ―George Santayana
34. “Don’t forget: Beautiful sunsets need cloudy skies.” ―Paulo Coehlo
35. “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” ―Jane Goodall
36. “I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one. Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss, I think, and I’m always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary.” ―Anthony Bourdain
37. “Every one of a hundred thousand cities around the world had its own special sunset, and it was worth going there, just once, if only to see the sun go down.” ―Ryū Murakami
38. “If we were meant to stay in one place, we’d have roots instead of feet.” ―Rachel Wolchin
39. “Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.” ―Ernest Hemingway
40. “Earth does not belong to us, we belong to Earth. Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints.” —Chief Seattle
41. “We travel because we need to, because distance and difference are the secret tonic of creativity. When we get home, home is still the same. But something in our mind has been changed, and that changes everything.” ―Jonah Lehrer
42. “Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” ―Jennifer Lee
43. “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”―Mary Anne Radmacher
44. “Feel fear and do it anyway.” —Unknown
45. “The life you have lead doesn’t need to be the only life you have.” ―Anna Quindlen
46. “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
47. “A person susceptible to ‘wanderlust’ is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation.” —Pico Iyer
48. “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” —Andre Gide
49. May the road rise up to meet you and may the wind be ever at your back. Irish Blessing
50. “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
51. “It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same. Even smells the same. You realize what’s changed is you.” ―F. Scott Fitzgerald
52. “Life was meant for spectacular adventures. Let your feet wander, your eyes marvel, and your soul ignite.” ―Unknown
53. “Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” ―Dolly Parton
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One of the most enchanting aspects of travel is the opportunity to step outside the boundaries of everyday life and into a realm of endless possibilities. Whether it’s hiking through mist-shrouded forests, sampling exotic cuisines in bustling markets, or simply watching the sun sink below the horizon from a remote beach, every moment is a chance to write a new chapter in the story of one’s life. With each step taken in a foreign land, one can’t help but feel a sense of liberation, as if the weight of the world has been lifted from their shoulders, leaving only the promise of adventure in its wake.
Nice Article!!
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the update
Great Article. Awesome quotes. thanks for sharing.
Lovely quotes, thanks for making the roundup!