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.

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.

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 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.”

According to the law of custom, and perhaps of reason, foreign travel completes the education of an English gentleman.

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.

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.

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

There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.