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

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

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.

There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.

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.”

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.