The Best Travel Quotes: These 9 Quotes Will Inspire Your Next Adventure
From Freya Stark and Alexandra David-Néel, who broke barriers astraveling women in an era when very few could, to renowned writers like Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, who also quenched their thirst for adventure with travels around the world. They have all left behind travel quotes that inspire anyone who wants to step out of their home and see new places.
The famous American writer and philosopher Susan Sontag included the famous quote in the last of the short stories included in her book I, Etcetera (1978).
"I haven't been everywhere, but it's on my list" belongs to the story 'Unguided Tour', which Sontag would eventually adapt into a film in 1983 set in Venice, though the original story does not specify any city. This quote perfectly acts as a traveler's tagline whenever someone asks about a destination we haven't visited yet but don't dismiss.
Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson wrote one of the most successful adventure stories of all time, Treasure Island, in 1883. The specific island where his tale of sailors and pirates is set is unknown, but the place he traveled on a donkey that inspired his book Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes is well-known.
Traveling this mountain range in France, about three hours north of Montpellier, in the natural park of the same name, Stevenson portrayed France and the French while leaving for posterity this quote in the book's preface: "We are all travelers in what John Bunyan calls the wilderness of the world, and the best thing we find in our travels is a good friend. He who finds many is a fortunate traveler." Like many other travelers, Stevenson considered friendship one of the objectives of adventure.
Freya Stark was a pioneer. The British explorer (born in Paris and raised in Italy) was among the first women to venture into discovering the secrets of unexplored places for travelers (especially women), such as Iraq and Yemen, in the Middle East. She did so in the early 20th century. Her adventures, recounted in several books, have inspired thousands of travelers eager to go where no one has gone before. In her 1937 book Baghdad Sketches: Journeys Through Iraq, specifically in her third chapter, 'In the Moslem Quarter', Freya includes the famous phrase: "Waking up completely alone in a strange village is one of the most pleasurable feelings in the world". A feeling that every traveler seeks.
The Chinese philosopher credited with the Tao Te Ching, the essential work of Taoism, advocates that the natural order of things is constant flow. In chapter 64 of his enlightening work, the phrase "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" appears, which has motivated everyone planning a complicated and long trip. It's just a matter of starting to walk.
Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde tried to live his life without excuses, which led to his imprisonment for homosexuality. Among his travel writings is, for example, Impressions of America, a collection of essays in which he captures the impressions and sensations from his visit to the American continent in 1882. Among his most famous travel quotes is: "Live life without excuses, travel without regrets", a statement of intentions on both a life and travel level.
Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad was his best-selling book during his lifetime. It is based on the articles the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer sent to the Alta California newspaper about a trip he took to the Holy Land in June 1867 over five and a half months. In the conclusions of the guide, Twain joyfully recalls the journey, despite the "unpleasant incidents" that haunted him, leaving for posterity one of the most accurate quotes about travel: "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and much of our people need it sorely on these accounts. One cannot acquire broad, healthy, charitable views of men and things by vegetating in a little corner of the earth all one's life."
The tumultuous relationship between writer Gustave Flaubert and poet Louise Colet in the mid-19th century is captured in Letters to Louise Colet, a collection of all the letters Flaubert wrote to her over ten years. In one of those letters, dated March 27, 1853, Flaubert writes: "Travel makes one modest; you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world." A travel quote that puts everything in perspective.
Alexandra David-Néel, to whom journalist David Jiménez dedicates a chapter in his latest book, The Opium Diaries, aimed to be the first Western woman to reach Lhasa, the capital of the forbidden kingdom of Tibet. And she succeeded. Thanks to her travels, she ended up writing over 30 books, among which is My Journey to Lhasa, published in 1927. In it, Alexandra wrote: "If heaven is the Lord's, the earth is the heritage of man, and therefore, every honest traveler has the right to walk as he wishes upon this globe that is his." An invitation to break down borders.
French writer Guy de Maupassant, author of famous stories like Boule de Suif, also wrote travel books.
In Under the Sun (1884), he narrates his journey through Algeria in 1881, and he left for posterity the phrase: "Travel is like a door through which one exits from the known reality to enter an unexplored reality that seems like a dream."