More and more I like to take a train. I understand why the French prefer it to automobiling—it is so much more sociable, and of course these days so much more of an adventure, and the irregularity of its regularity is fascinating.

Thanks to the interstate highway system, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything.

One should always have one’s boots on and be ready to leave.

Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.

When a traveler returneth home, let him not leave the countries where he hath traveled altogether behind him.

It is delightful to read on the spot the impressions and opinions of tourists who visited a hundred years ago, in the vehicles and with the aesthetic prejudices of the period, the places which you are visiting now. The voyage ceases to be a mere tour through space; you travel through time and thought as well.

After midnight the moon set and I was alone with the stars. I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, and I need no other flight to convince me that the reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the aesthetic appeal of flying.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.

Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one’s own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live.

I am leaving the town to the invaders: increasingly numerous, mediocre, dirty, badly behaved, shameless tourists.

I think that to get under the surface and really appreciate the beauty of any country, one has to go there poor.

There ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.