Favorite Travel Quote

I've always like the quote "The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page." by St Augustine of Hippo (had to do a google search to find who said it.)

"Are we there yet?" Hang out in any town covered by Rick Steves and you'll here this one:
"Honey, I think this is a must-see."

"It is solved by walking." St. Augustine

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. - Mark Twain

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

"I remember years ago a guy I knew told me that people going to England find exactly what they go looking for. I said I'd go looking for the England of English Literature, and he nodded and said: 'It's there.' " Helene Hanff, 84 Charing Cross Road "It's a small world, but I wouldn't want to paint it."
Steven Wright

"Take the adventure, heed the call, now ere the irrevocable moment passes! 'Tis but a banging of the door behind you, a blithesome step forward, and you are out of your old life and into the new!"
-- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind In The Willows

"Here today, up and off to somewhere else tomorrow! Travel, change, interest, excitement! The whole world before you, and a horizon that's always changing!"
-- Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." – Henry Miller

"The biggest mistake people make is thinking they have time."
"Cover the earth before it covers you."

"Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer to go. But no matter, the road is life." Jack Kerouac, On the Road "I have wandered all my life, and I have also traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment."
Hilaire Belloc "Strong and content I travel the open road." Walt Whitman "And so the adventure begins." Me as I board a plane or hit the road......

My favorit travel quote would not be suitable for a young audience so before giving it I apologize. It refers to the shortest journey any one of us will take, that from the vertical to the horizontal. Dorothy Parker the famous American writer once said: I like to have a martini Two at the very most After three I'm under the table
After four I'm under the host

Not all those who wander are lost. J.R. Tolkien The perfect journey is circular-the joy of departure and the joy of return. Dino Basili The traveler is wiser than he who has never left his own doorstep. Margaret Mead

You can't get there from here.
Firesign Theater

Okay, this is not a travel quote, but Monte, as long as you brought up the famous wit of Dorothy Parker, here is one witty comeback: Nancy Astor: "Sir, if you were my husband, I would give you poison."
Winston Churchill: "Madam, if I were your husband I would take it."

From The Lion King "There's more to see than can ever be seen, more to do than can ever be done"

@MOnte never ever apologize for quoting Dorothy Parker or Lillian Hellman for that matter!!!!

Not really intended to be a travel quote, but it's my travel quote: Life is either a daring adventure or nothing - Helen Keller

"Don't tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you have traveled."--Mohammed and "Traveling is almost like talking with men of other centuries."--René Descartes and my all time favorite: "Go when you can, not when you need to."--Julie, ETBD guide on restroom tactics!

One of my favorite books, often given at graduation or during changes in life, is Dr. Seuss' "Oh The Places You'll Go." It has so many quotes but ends with: "Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So...get on your way! I love that...
Linda

My personal favorite: "You never really know someone until you've traveled with them".

"Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to." J.R.R. Tolkien

This thread is a treasure trove!!!!! Too awesome. Here is mine: "...throw a loaf of bread and a pound of tea in an old sack and jump over the back fence.." -John Muir. Not sure about the rest of it, because I swiped the quotation from Bill Bryon's wonderful "A Walk in the Woods."

"Unexpected travel plans are dancing lessons from God." - Kurt Vonnegut

An expansion on Jessica's quote, ""You never really know someone until you've traveled with them... and their children".

Terry, thanks for this thread! I love it. Of course, I LOVE travel, but I also LOVE quotes. I used to have my students start class by copying my quote of the day! Here are a "few" of my favorite travel quotes: "Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quiestest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey." – Pat Conroy "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 "One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things." – Henry Miller "We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open." – Jawaharial Nehru "If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home." – James Michener "All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it." – Samuel Johnson "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 As I was looking for the source of some of my favorites, I found some good lists of travel quotes- http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/50-most-inspiring-travel-quotes-of-all-time/
http://everything-everywhere.com/the-ultimate-list-of-inspirational-travel-quotes/ I'll probably be back with more...! I hope Rick will decide to feature this thread in his newsletter...

Not specifically a travel quote, but this can be applied to travel: "Take from life all which she gives you, whatever it may be, provided it is interesting and can give you some pleasure. When one is old, one knows what it is to have lost what offered itself when one did not know enough to take it."
--Diego Rivera

"When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money." – Susan Heller

"Travelers never think that they are the foreigners." Mason Cooley

"The traveler, however virginal and enthusiastic, does not enjoy an unbroken ecstasy. He has periods of gloom, periods when he asks himself the object of all these exertions, and puts the question whether or not he is really experiencing pleasure. At such times he suspects that he is not seeing the right things, that the characteristic, the right aspects of these strange scenes are escaping him. He looks forward dully to the days of his holiday yet to pass, and wonders how he will dispose of them. He is disgusted because his money is not more, his command of the language so slight, and his capacity for enjoyment so limited." - Arnold Bennett "The personal appropriation of cliches is a condition for the spread of cultural tourism." - Serge Daney A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. - John Steinbeck

These are great... because I also love quotes and use them often in the travel journals there are quite a few here that are my favorites, but I knew given the diversity of this group there would be so many new ones, and of course there are. After reading them I think I have to see what I can do with my ff points...I am beginning to hyperventilate as I do not have an international trip in the works at the moment:))

I have loved reading this thread. Some of these I am quite familiar with but, my gosh, so many I have never heard of - thanks to all for sharing. I am not famous, but my own personal mantra is, "live simply, travel freely".

Terr- I call 'that' feeling being 'travelsick' as opposed to feeling 'homesick'! Due to family health issues, we haven't be able to travel internationally (or even within the US for more than an overnight) for several years. I am soooo travelsick. We had planned to go to Edinburgh for Hogmanay (New Years) this Dec. but have had to cancel that due to my needing foot surgery (sighs- so sad). But- we are (crosses fingers, toes, etc.) now planning a trip to the UK, Hong Kong and possibly Mainland China for next spring or summer (does happy dance!!!) And here's another quote from a really great author "Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving." Terry Pratchett And here's one that might help us cope with the travelsickness- "Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home." Anna Quindlen, How Reading Changed My Life and I just found this one that I think Rick (and us 'Ricknicks) will appreciate "I travel light. But not at the same speed.?"
Jarod Kintz, The Days of Yay are Here! Wake Me Up When They're Over.

"A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place...." – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

ok- some more... From another favorite authour "It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end." Ursula K. Le Guin and another famous author "There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign." Robert Louis Stevenson, The Silverado Squatters "Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond and we cease to be alone." Wendell Berry, A Place on Earth "We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open." Jawaharal Nehru and one from the man himself "Self-consciousness kills communication." Rick Steves
More to come, I'm sure....

Begin doing what you want now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand and melting like a snowflake.
Marie Beyon Ray My favorite quote.

My favourite travel quote and also a quote for life in general 'We cannot discover new oceans unless we have the courage to lose sight of the shore' Andre Gide

"I'm a traveler not a tourist". I've used it a few times.

I had to add my all time favorite quote since it did not come up.... whether it pertains to one person or a whole country I think this one is sooo true. "Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born till they arrive, and it is only through this meeting that a new world is born." Anais Nin

Terry , A favorite of mine that says much about the brevity of life's travels and the need to make the most of them : A.E Housman from " A Shropshire Lad " II Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

@ Larry -
"The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see." – G.K. Chesterton

Here's a great quote I read today in Rick's book Travel as a Political Act: "Don't tell me how educated you are; tell me how much you've traveled." -Muhammad

Only as far as we dream can we go. Author unknown

On travel , here at home , John Steinbeck " Travels with Charley " all of it!!!!!!!

Work to Live, Live to Learn,
Learn thru Travel My sister's advice to my older son on his high school graduation quilt.

Well...thanks again. Most of these will make the cut and I will add to the grandkids journal... also, have to
ask them to read Travels with Charlie :))

"May you sail across wine colored seas until you reach a land where they speak a foreign tongue" - Homers Odyssee This quote can be found written in Greek, over the top of the Eiserner Steg bridge in Frankfurt. Supposedly one of Goethe's favorite quote. Personally, I am going with Dr. Seuss, "oh the places you will go"

Just wanted to say I love this thread too, so Thank you for starting it and everyone who's contributed. My favourite quote isn't really about travel, except maybe as a cautionary thought- 'Just because you can, doesn't mean you should' No idea who said it first, wish it had been me. And Steven- yes, Travels with Charlie' by John Steinbeck- as you say- all of it! That's the book I take on every trip.

I love reading all the replies. One of my favorites is: I haven't been everywhere yet, but it's on my list. - Susan Sontag

I too love the travel quotes and have thought numerous times about putting them in a book to publish. The problem is I have collected too many that i would never be able to choose. One however is ?"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 but I have pages of so many more!

I love this thread. My favorite quote is from Tolkien: "The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say. "

Marilyn! How could I have forgotten that poem? THAT is my favorite. :-)

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. Robert Frost
Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening, last verse

@Brad....James's post was deleted, that kind of talk is not acceptable on this site. jg...was himself!!

Robin, Who was he referring to as a windbag in that post???

Here is one that everyone knows; it bears repeating because it is so good. Yes, I'm into Robert Frost and I know some of his poems are obvious choices for this travel quote thread, but post them anyway... they're so good. The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim Because it was grassy and wanted wear, Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way I doubted if I should ever come back. 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

Well, you all got me going on poetry. I used to include this in a list of poems my students had to choose from for memorization. And it was one I always read aloud to illustrate some points in several lessons. "Sea-Fever" I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by, And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking. I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying. I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over. By John Masefield (1878-1967).
(English Poet Laureate, 1930-1967.)

Well it seems that travel related poetry has gained a bit of a following here so with some gentle encouragement here's another. Somewhat similar to the Frost "The road not taken" is Stephen Sondheim's " The road you didn't take " from his great musical play "Follies " . Self searching and introspective , it's the trip we all take eventually . ( you tube this and you can hear it with the brilliant music that joins it )

Rebecca, I really don't know who he was referring to, maybe the OP, personally I have enjoyed reading the quotes. This is a great site, we don't need people like him on here.

cont'd: You're either a poet Or you're a lover Or you're the famous Benjamin Stone. You take one road, You try one door, There isn't time for any more. One's life consists of either/or. One has regrets Which one forgets, And as the years go on. The road you didn't take Hardly comes to mind, Does it? The door you didn't try, Where could it have led? The choice you didn't make Never was defined. Was it! Dreams you didn't dare Are dead. Were they ever there? Who said! I don't remember, I don't remember At all. The books I'll never read Wouldn't change a thing, Would they? The girls I'll never know I'm too tired for. The lives I'll never lead Couldn't make me sing. Could they? Could they? Could they? Chances that you miss. Ignore. Ignorance is bliss-- What's more, You won't remember, You won't remember At all, Not at all.You yearn for the women, Long for the money, Envy the famous Benjamin Stones. You take your road, The decades fly, The yearnings fade, the longings die. You learn to bid them all goodbye. And oh, the peace, The blessed peace... At last you come to know: The roads you never take Go through rocky ground, Don't they? The choices that you make Aren't all that grim. The worlds you never see Still will be around, Won't they! The Ben I'll never be,
Who remembers him?

Steven, I love Sondheim! Thanks for posting that. Also enjoyed your A.E. Housman poem on page 2. I must dig up a copy of John Steinbeck's " Travels with Charley " and read that again! This old windbag is signing off for the night.

"Whether traveling in Europe or rural North Dakota, the rule is the same: Never pass up a bathroom. You never know when you'll see the next one or how clean it will be." Anonymous

Here are a couple I like: "If plan A doesn't work, the alphabet has 25 more letters - 204, if you're in Japan." "Life's a beach and then you dive" My favorite: "Il faut aller voir" - Jacques Cousteau And here's one I use for myself: "If you see me around, you know where I am" ;-)

"The sum of the whole is this: Walk and be happy Walk and be healthy.
the best way to lengthen out our days is to walk steadily and with a purpose." ----Charles Dickens----

As I am with a few of my grandkids in Fl. I have been reading some of these and the oldest one (boy age 12) has really enjoyed them. He has been to Turkey & Greece with me and is looking forward to another trip some day. I will be printing this out to add to my travel folder for future reference. Thanks again (love the poetry as well...)

I love best the Mark Twain quote, though I think the next sentence is even better (from Innocents Abroad): "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." An Irish blessing: "May you have the hindsight to know where you've been the foresight to know where you're going and the insight to know when you're going too far." And my favorite about Venice:
"Streets flooded. Please advise." (Robert Benchley, telegram from Venice to his editor)

OMG! Steinbeck and Sondheim together in a thread. Heaven!! Now if we could add Wallace Stegner, all would be well in the world.

Two of my favourite things at the same time -- I LOVE this conversation! Thanks to Terry for starting and to everyone for their contributions, what a great collection! Also fascinating, IMHO, would be a collection of interesting and amusing things heard while on the road. While in Venice in May, I overheard a woman asking her husband, "Why is it called the Bridge of Size? Is it because it's so big?" I'm sure we all have 'em -- a new post anyone?

One of my very favorites: May the road rise to meet you, May the wind be always at your back, May the sun shine warm upon your face, May the rains fall soft upon your fields, And, until we meet again, May God hold you in the hollow of His hand. (Traditional Irish Blessing; origin unknown,
although some attribute it to St. Patrick.)

Just heard this one today and could not leave it out "Where there is more travel there is greater understanding." Hillary Rodham Clinton

Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.

@Rachell... Love it... Is that your quote?

"I love the smell of jet fuel in the morning!!"-
Me, with apologies to Colonel Kilgore in Apocalypse Now.