The soul of a journey is liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases. We go on a journey chiefly to be free of all impediments and of all inconveniences—to leave ourselves behind, much more to get rid of others.

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

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.

Travelers, poets, and liars are three words all of one significance.

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will—whatever we may think.

Those who travel heedlessly from place to place, observing only their distance from each other and attending only to their accommodation at the inn at night, set out fools, and will certainly return so.

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.

There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.

Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay here and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.”

I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.

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

The traveler was active; he went strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him. He goes “sightseeing.”

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