Quotes about traveling

Never have a plan it'll just get in your way.

No need to queue up step forward and count yourself in.

The ride back to Kathmandu was comfortable and relaxing. There were more overturned trucks (the gas-powered ones seem to tip the most often, I’m surprised there weren’t more explosions), goats being herded across the highway by ancient women, children playing games in traffic, private cars and buses alike pulling over in the most inconvenient places for a picnic or public bath, and best of all the suicidal overtaking maneuvers (or what we would call ‘passing’) by our bus and others while going d

irony is for a traveler while traveling, happiness increases as the distance increases.

In my travels I found no answers, only wonders.

Every story is a ride to some place and time other than here and now. Buried in an armchair, reclined on a couch, prostrate on your bed, or glued to your desk, you can go places and travel through time.

The past is buried deep within the ground in Rabat, although the ancient walls in the old city are still standing, painted in electrifying variations of royal blue that make the winding roads look like streamlets or shallow ocean water.

Sometimes a bus is your bus, and sometimes it ain't, and it's important that you can tell the difference.

Every place is a goldmine. You have only to give yourself time, sit in a teahouse watching the passers-by, stand in a corner of the market, go for a haircut. You pick up a thread – a word, a meeting, a friend of a friend of someone you have just met – and soon the most insipid, most insignificant place becomes a mirror of the world, a window on life, a theatre of humanity.

There are countries of the world, and regions of one's own mind, where it is unwise to travel.

The most amazing travellers were to humble to write about it

Those who say traveling is expensive, are just ill-informed.

Life is short and the older you get, the more you feel it. Indeed, you begin to realize how short life is. Almost everyone has at least one friend who left the planet too soon. People lose their capacity to walk, run, think, and experience life. I realize how important it is to use the time I have to see as much of the world as I can.

Traveling leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller

What sort of adventures?' I asked him, astonished. ‘All sorts, Monsieur. Getting on the wrong train. Stopping in an unknown city. Losing your briefcase, being arrested by mistake, spending the night in prison. Monsieur, I believe the word adventure could be defined: an event out of the ordinary without being necessarily extraordinary.

The Wanderlust has got me... by the belly-aching fire

Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life

You thought too hard. Same with travel. You can't work too much at it, or it feels like work. You have to surrender yourself to the chaos. To the accidents.

what he sought was always something lying ahead, and even if it was a matter of the past it was a past that changed gradually as he advanced on his journey, because the traveller's past changes according to the route he has followed: not the immediate past, that is, to which each day that goes by adds a day, but the more remote past. Arriving at each new city, the traveller finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies

I probably did too much thinking in India. I blame it on the roads, for they were superb...

Journeys to relive your past?' was the Khan's question at this point, a question which could also have been formulated: 'Journeys to recover your future?'And Marco's answer was: 'Elsewhere is a negative mirror. The traveller recognizes the little that is his, discovering the much he has not had and willnever have.

All of us,' he said, 'have hopes of being poet, artist, discoverer, philospoher, scientist; of possessing the attributes of all these simultaneously. Few are permitted to achieve any of them in daily life. But in travel we attain them all. Then we have our day of glory, when all our dreams come true, when we can be anything we like, as long as we like, and, when we are tired of it, pull up stakes and move on. Travel -- the solitude of the mountains, the emptiness of the desert, the delicacy of t

No doubt you are wondering what you will find, out there.' The Commandant said it for me.'Well, it would be useless for me to try and tell you. The desert tells a different story every time one ventures on it...

I wish she’d said something different, but patriarchy is as prevalent around the world as racism and xenophobia are. We can’t hide from it, not even here.

Globalization by the way of McDonald’s and KFC has captured the hearts, the minds, and from what I can see through the window, the growing bellies of the folks here.

...all the disadvantages of good roads: high speed, and almost total lack of that inspiring factor in travel -- the welcoming hand of the interested stranger.

We all seek that somewhere to which we belong and that somewhere is surely not here!

Travel, for me, is a breathtaking experience. A humbling for the soul and the realization that we are all in this together.

Human migration is an important part of our ancestral story. The places we live shape us, the places we leave behind forges our history, and the places we might travel to becomes our mysterious future.

Real traveling is not about visiting places but 're-visiting' our inner-self.

Hip-hop...has been the proverbial key that’s opened the door for me to roam this breathtaking planet.

His action of joining them, which would have been rude in a restaurant that was not moving at three hundred kilometers an hour, was perfectly acceptable on a train, which mimicked the entirely random joinings of life but revealed their true nature by making them last only hours or days, rather than years and decades. People on a train form an alliance, as if the world that surrounded the parallel rails were hostile and and they refugees from it. The dining car, humming and rocking gently in the

But wherever there is man, there must be some sort of route

In London it had seemed impossible to travel without the proper evening clothes. One could see an invitation arriving for an Embassy ball or something. But on the other side of Europe with the first faint tinges of faraway places becoming apparent and exciting, to say nothing of vanishing roads and extra weight, Embassy balls held less significance.

Horizons, cheap whisky straight from the bottleand your hands in mine.

Pack your bags and move cities and countries. Nothing will enrich you than travel does.

If we were meant to stay in one place, we would have roots instead of feet.

Spain is more vegan-friendly than you've been led to believe. The truth is, most places are.

My love for languages and my love for travel really go hand in hand and feed off of each other. There’s no better way to learn a language than by immersing yourself in a culture where it’s spoken, and there’s no better way to immerse yourself in a culture than by learning to speak the local language.

Sicily is paradise. I live in paradise. Now pass the pasta please.

Travel is the best teacher. The only way to an open mind is by taking a plane out into the open world.

Everywhere you travel to, be fully there.

If you think it's bad now, my friend, wait till we reach a town!' He shook his head and brushed at his tattered, dirty shirtsleeve. 'Do try to remember we're visitors-and not welcome ones-if you should feel moved to reason with anyone.

Find your path in life and travel on it.

I was forced to wander, having no one, forced by my nature to keep wandering because wandering was the only thing that I believed in, and the only thing that believed in me.

The gift of solo moments is that they are wholly ours. On or off the road, solo moments connect us inward to ourselves with heightened clarity and insight. They also direct our energies out into the world, magnetizing us to new people and experiences we may not have encountered under any other circumstance.

Saying good-bye to a city is harder than breaking up with a lover. The grief and regret are more piercing because they are more complex and unmixed, changing from corner to corner, with each passing vista, each shift of the light. Breaking up with a city is unclouded by the suspicion that after the affair ends, you'll learn something about the beloved you wished you never knew. The city is as it will remain: gorgeous, unattainable, going on without you as if you'd never existed. What pain and lo

Travel is such a wonderful experience! Especially when you forget you are traveling. Then you will enjoy whatever you see and do. Those who look into themselves when they travel will not think about what they see. In fact, there is no distinction between the viewer and the seen. You experience everything with the totality of yourself, so that every blade of grass, every mountain, every lake is alive and is a part of you. When there is no division between you and what is other, this is the ultima

After all, one travels in order for things to happen and change; otherwise you might as well stay at home.

What I’ve learned from my travels is that people are more alike than they are different. Yes, I may have a different home or lifestyle than a mom living in Shanghai, but deep down we are still mothers who hope for the best in our children. I always find so much in common with those I meet on my travels – and that provides a genuine connection that cultural differences can’t erase.

What I’ve learned in my travels is that people are more alike than they are different. Yes, I may have a different home or lifestyle than a mom living in Shanghai, but deep down we are still mothers who hope for the best in our children. I always find so much in common with those I meet on my travels – and that provides a genuine connection that cultural differences can’t erase.

...That's the difference between backpackers and holiday makers. The former can't help but invite hassle whilst the latter pay to escape it.

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.

Not without a wound in the spirit shall I leave this city.

. . . it's part of the adventure!

If traveling was free, you'd never see me again.

Until that rainy Sunday at the movies 31 years ago, for me, companionship had been a mandate for life’s good times. After Orca, it became a choice. My trip to the theater helped me to distinguish between loneliness (experienced by default), and solitude (choosing when and how to enjoy my own company), as I began a journey of engaging the world on my own terms. Over the years, that journey deepened as I traveled life’s roads with increasing independence and confidence, whether I was attending gra

Because travel was an area of my life where I felt most vital, I wanted to continue to invest in that, too. I had quit a full time job, drained my retirement account to invest in a long-held dream, and used the realization of that dream to enter a void with no guarantees. I didn’t want financial struggle to be the sole outgrowth of the risks I had taken. More than money, I had put my belief systems on the line.

No matter. I was single, no children, a handful of plants and at 39, young enough to regroup. If I hit ground before I finished building my wings, I would not take anyone with me.

I knew I could always earn money from a job. What I didn’t know was could I extend the dream of writing beyond my trip?

Putting the dream in motion involved significant personal downsizing, moving three times to trim housing expenses and continuing to freelance. I sold one piece to The New York Times Magazine, many more to The Courant, and another to The St. Petersburg Times.

Ten years ago I wondered, “How does one travel around the world? How does one step out of a well-established life to follow the dream?” I’ve answered those questions. But now new ones emerge.

In the aftermath of the attacks on the United States – that included chaotic overall of airline security – and the exploding tensions in Nepal, friends thought it ill-advised for me to board a flight to Kathmandu. Yet my existence at home felt so tenuous and unpredictable that political unrest in Asia barely registered. Also, it seemed more important than ever for me to keep going, not only overseas but also in the direction of a more satisfying life. Somehow the two felt connected.

The trip changed all that. Stirring the murk of a life ill-fitting, Something More was perceptible though without name or form. Something More was the genesis of a map, not one handed to me but rendered with each step taken, a skill seasoned by a cruise gone bad.

In 2006 I had begun the discernment process for locating my rightful geographic home. By the time my corporate pink slip arrived I had spent two years researching and taking recon trips to five different cities in southern California. Having crossed them off my list, in February 2008 I visited Sarasota, Florida, at the urging of a friend who winters in a neighboring town. Though Florida had never been on my radar, only minutes in Sarasota I knew I’d found home.

The cruise was the conduit for what would become my third book. While I was traveling and writing for ctnow.com, women across the United States and from the Caribbean emailed not to ask about my geographic journey but my existential one. “How do you find the courage to travel on your own?” they wondered. “How do you keep from getting lonely? Don’t you feel self-conscious eating out alone?” After the first 30 emails like these I thought, There’s a book here. It would be eight years before I publi

My post-cruise sabbatical would spark the idea for my first book, Cheaper Than Therapy: How to Keep Life’s Small Problems from Becoming Big Ones – The Lesson of the Paper Clips. How? In my data entry job all I did for 20 hours a week was paper clip printouts of computer screens. For three years. I loved it.

Wandering is not limited to geography. Also an altered state of consciousness, it allows a disembodied self to drift on currents of collective awareness with minimal attachment to the physical world. This state of wander tapped imaginative faculties that opened me to a freedom of being only previously experienced through travel.

During those days of whirling about the globe, I had an epiphany: travel was the only area of my life where I had no expectations. I anticipated nothing while fully engaging each moment. What bred adventure, surprise and deep experience was not knowing, surrendering to now and letting go of control.

Then I’d go home, return to a pattern of worry, unable to tap the surrender core to travel’s inspiration. What was different?

What would happen if, once back home, I stayed open to possibilities rather than attach to specific outcomes? What if I dreaded no potential storms? Ruminated over no past transgression? I knew how. For decades the reflex kicked in with each plane ride. The more I pondered these questions – How could I cultivate the habit of taking life as it comes? How can I immerse myself in living, like I’m on vacation on all the time, without boarding a plane or crossing a border? – the more I recognized the

Once back home I would adjust my lens to the resolution through which I perceived the people and provinces of the globe. My daily commute, the supermarket check out line, neighborhood walks, pedestrian tasks of any job would inspire me as much as the stir of white linen canopies in Venice’s Piazza San Marco; the velvety dunes of the eastern Sahara; Bali’s kaleidoscope of color; my Vietnamese sisters.

The answer is neither job, nor paycheck; it is authentic, holistic work born from states of awareness and being. Through the coalescence of joy, wonder, enthusiasm, appreciation, experimentation, perpetual curiosity, exploring new avenues, welcoming surprise and wandering, I have begun the next leg of my journey; I have brought the spirit of the traveler home.

In these pages, traveling “solo” does not necessarily mean “alone.” The absence of other people often suggests regretful isolation. “Solo” by contrast, is a willful decision to be the architect of our own experience.

Life is about the adventures you take and the memories you make. So travel often and live life with open eyes and an open heart.

There’s something profoundly intense and intoxicating about friendship found en route. It’s the bond that arises from being thrust into uncomfortable circumstances, and the vulnerability of trusting others to navigate those situations. It’s the exhilaration of meeting someone when we are our most alive selves, breathing new air, high on life-altering moments. It’s the discovery of the commonality of the world’s people and the attendant rejection of prejudices. It’s the humbling experience of bei

There were lots of things to stop and see - and then it was time to go, always time to go.

Preparing for your journey in the most thorough way possible will not diminish your experiences abroad. It will enhance them.

Summer is leaving silently. Much like a traveler approaching the end of an amazing journey.

Everything you need to know to enjoy your trip to Italy is in my Conversational Italian for Travelers books!

If the goal you've set for yourself has a 100 percent chance of success, then frankly you aren't aiming high enough.

Persistence is the most traveled path to success.

You discover or re-discover yourself only through travel, and unplanned travel is the most exhilarating experience. I truly believe that not all those who wander are lost. But for the ones who are lost, wandering is the only way to find themselves.

Love not your dream but the road leading to it and you might still fail, but you shall definitely end up enjoying every moment of your life.

I travel not only for the passion and madness and desire of movement, but because travel, like bread and water and air, becomes necessary to a life fully dreamed and lived.

For Courtney’s whole life, seeing the world had only been a dream, but now, as Adrian Diamond’s daughter, it could be a reality.

Traveling is seeing it is the implicit that we travel by.

Toad must have been very accustomed to traveling this way, balanced on the back rails of a rushing buggy, but Melena was not. She gripped the sides and white-knuckled the rails with her knapsack sandwiched between her knees. Hazel was clamped onto the roof, grinning like an alligator in the sun. And Toad lounged like a cat.

I realized if I didn’t just go, I’d never go. Going was the key. It didn’t matter where I was headed just as long as I was headed somewhere. ~ Ben Davis

I'm ready for another adventure now, take me far away please!Ok one more... But then you have to read to me!

It's not "jalan-jalan" nor "liburan". It's just something we do naturally. Like breathing and eating. It's basically living.

I was a woman and did not yet think of myself as a writer. I was a mapmaker.

So, go. Travel far. Travel courageously. Travel young.

As I say, I have never in all these years thought of the matter in quite this way; but then it is perhaps in the nature of coming away on a trip such as this that one is prompted towards such surprising new perspectives on topics one imagined one had long ago thought throughly.

With the smell so close, the ocean came into view only a few moments later, sometimes peeking between old brick buildings with bright blue eyes, other times peering for a lingering moment like long lost relatives seeing one another for the first time.

...to this day there is something illusionistic and illusory about the relationship of time and space as we experience it in traveling, which is why whenever we come home from elsewhere we never feel quite sure if we have really been abroad.

When traveling in rural Africa, it's important to not actually *go* to a hospital until the patient is on the brink of expiration, otherwise things are apt to get worse.

Sometimes we have to break down to break through.

At chaos’ core lies the invitation.