Traveling is like gambling: it is ever connected with winning and losing, and generally where least expected we receive more or less than we hoped for.

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.

All traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity.

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.”

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.

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.

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

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

There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.

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

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

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