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.

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

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

Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

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

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

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.

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

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.

If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.

In the Middle Ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.

See one promontory (said Socrates of old), one mountain, one sea, one river, and see all.