People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence, and they think they have seen something.

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.

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

Our nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.

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

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

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.

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.”

The traveler with nothing on him sings in the robber’s face.

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

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.”