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

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.

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.

Traveling is the ruin of all happiness! There’s no looking at a building here after seeing Italy.

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.

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.

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

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

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.”

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.

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.”