155 Best Inspirational Travel Quotes

Here are some of the best inspirational quotes about travel ever written. They’ll inspire you to pack your bags, pick a destination and go!

A good trip is one that teaches you something, lets you see something beautiful, and makes a great story to tell. Here's some inspiration for your next adventure.

Everyone loves a vacation, but sometimes we need encouragement to get the ball rolling. Sometimes that can come in the form of inspirational travel quotes or others' Instagram posts.

Most of the best travel quotes come from the well-traveled because they know what it is to see the world and grow from it.

Whether you need captions or the perfect collection of wisdom to push you into a much-needed trip, look no further than this list.

Famous Words of Wisdom

Quotes from famous people from all around the world. These are popular pieces of wisdom from some of history's greatest writers, thinkers and people who have gone before us.

“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”

“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” - Maya Angelou
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.” - Mark Twain
“One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.” - Andre Gide
“Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.” - Freya Stark
“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.” - Jack Kerouac
“I have wandered all my life, and I have traveled; the difference between the two being this, that we wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.” - Hilaire Belloc
“To travel a circle is to journey over the same ground time and time again. To travel a circle wisely is to journey over the same ground for the first time. In this way, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the circle, a path to where you wish to be. And when you notice at last that the path has circled back into itself, you realize that where you wish to be is where you have already been ... and always were.” - Neale Donald Walsch
"Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else." - Lawrence Block
“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.” - Robert Louis Stevenson
“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” - Gustave Flaubert
“Courage doesn't always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I'll try again tomorrow.” - Mary Anne Radmacher
“Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.” - Paul Theroux
“Traveling is more fun — hell, life is more fun — if you can treat it as a series of impulses.” - Bill Bryson
“The real voyage of discovery consists, not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." - Marcel Proust
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” - Benjamin Disraeli
“Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one’s prejudices.” - Oscar Wilde
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” - Martin Buber
“Voyage, travel, and change of place impart new vigor.” - Seneca
“All things considered, there are only two kinds of men in the world: those that stay at home and those that do not.” - Rudyard Kipling
“I am not a great cook, I am not a great artist, but I love art, and I love food, so I am the perfect traveler.” - Michael Palin
“Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks, is the departure upon a distant journey into unknown lands. Shaking off with one mighty effort the fetters of Habit, the leaden weight of Routine, the cloak of many cares and the slavery of civilization, man feels once more happy.” - Sir Richard Burton
“In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way, can travel freely, and without passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.” - Herman Melville
"We travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost." - Ray Bradbury
"Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind." - Anthony Bourdain
“Man is always separated from what he is by all the breadth of the being which he is not. He makes himself known to himself from the other side of the world and he looks from the horizon toward himself to recover his inner being.” - Jean-Paul Sartre
“The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is, at last, to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” - G.K. Chesterton
Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. - Miriam Beard
“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” - Clifton Fadiman
“All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.” - Samuel Johnson

Instagram Travel Quotes

Here are some great quotes and sayings to add to your photos for travel Instagram captions.

“Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.”

“One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” - Henry Miller
“Sometimes you have to travel a long way to find what is near.” - Paulo Coelho
“You can never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” - Christopher Columbus
“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” - Bill Bryson
“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” - Jack Kerouac
“What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people’s minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.” - William Least Heat-Moon
“Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.” - Erol Ozan
“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” - Gustave Flaubert
“Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” - Unknown
“Because when you stop and look around, this life is pretty amazing.” - Dr. Seuss
“You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.” - André Gide
“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.” - Anita Desai
“And at the end of the day, your feet should be dirty, your hair messy, and your eyes sparkling.” - Shanti
Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” - David Mitchell
“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” - Jack Kerouac
“Live your life by a compass, not a clock.” - Stephen Covey
“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them. - Mark Twain
“To move, to breathe, to fly, to float; To gain all while you give; To roam the roads of lands remote; To travel is to live.” - Hans Christian Andersen
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” - H. Jackson Browne Jr.
“You never change your life until you step out of your comfort zone; change begins at the end of your comfort zone.” - Roy T. Bennett
“He who would travel happily must travel light.” - Antoine de St. Exupery

Funny Travel Quotes

Check out these funny and memorable quotes about the joys, trials and tribulations that come with a journey.

“Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life” - Michael Palin
“Don’t get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” - Dolly Parton
“Living on Earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun every year.” - Unknown
“Don’t worry about the world ending today, it’s already tomorrow in Australia.” - Charles M. Schulz
“I’m a travel addict on the road to recovery. Just kidding, I’m on the road to the airport.” - Anonymous
“The city is not a concrete jungle, it is a human zoo.” - Desmond Morris
“Backpacking is the art of knowing what not to take.” - Sheridan Anderson
“I wish I was a postcard. For under $2 you can travel the world to any location in the world.” - Unknown
“I crossed a time zone and I feel younger already. If I keep traveling west, I can become immortal.” - Jarod Kintz
“Tropic likes its hot.” - Unknown
“Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s saying ‘I would stay and love you but I have to go, this is my station.'” - Lisa St. Aubin de Teran
“A journey is measured in friends rather than miles.” - Tim Cahill
“Worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist!” - Russell Baker
“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read on the train.” - Oscar Wilde
“Jet lag is for amateurs.” - Dick Clark
“I need a six month vacation, twice a year.” - Anonymous
“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” - Susan Heller
“The best way to know a city is to eat it.” - Scott Westerfeld

Solo Travel Quotes

Here’s some motivation and encouragement for solo travelers. Whether or not you wander the globe by yourself, these quotes can make you think.

“Not all those who wander are lost.” - J. R. R. Tolkien

“The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.” - Henry David Thoreau
“I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” - Mary Anne Radmacher
“I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake.” - Robert Louis Stevenson
Traveling alone will be the scariest, most liberating, life-changing experience of your life. Try it at least once!” - Unknown
“If it scares you, it might be a good thing to try.” - Seth Godin
“The question isn’t who is going to let me, it’s who is going to stop me.” - Ayn Rand
“Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one thing that is going to require the most from you.” - Caroline Myss
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that’s not what ships were built for.” - John A. Shedd
“Traveling alone doesn’t always mean you’re alone. Most often, you meet marvelous people along the way and make connections that last a lifetime.” - Jacqueline Boone
"I have no reason to go, except that I have never been, and knowledge is better than ignorance. What better reason could there be for traveling?" - Freya Stark
“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J. R. R. Tolkien
“You are the one that possesses the keys to your being. You carry the passport to your own happiness.” - Diane von Furstenberg
“When the traveler goes alone he gets acquainted by himself.” - Liberty Hyde Bailey
“Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and start being excited of what could go right.” - Tony Robbins
“I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone because they reflect more.” - Thomas Jefferson
“I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place when they can fly anywhere on earth. Then I ask myself the same question.” - Harun Yahya
“The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” - Rudyard Kipling
“Loving life is easy when you are abroad. Where no one knows you and you hold your life in your hands all alone, you are more master of yourself than at any other time.” - Hannah Arendt
“The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends” - Shirley MacLaine

Adventure Quotes

Adventure travelers, who seek bravely down new paths, always look ahead to the next peak, the next waterfall, the next historic site. Here’s a collection of quotes from people who have traveled to faraway places and come back inspired.

“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.” - Amelia Earhart

"Jobs fill your pockets, but adventures fill your soul." - Jamie Lyn Beatty
“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” - Jawaharial Nehru
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” - Helen Keller
“A hangover suggests a great night, jet lag suggests a great adventure” - J.D. Andrews
“Adventure is worthwhile in itself.” - Amelia Earhart
“So shut up, live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.” - Jack Kerouac
“If you think adventure is dangerous try routine, it’s lethal.” - Paulo Coelho
“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure.” - Freya Stark
“Adventure is worthwhile.” - Aesop
“Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.” - Mark Jenkins
“Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you.” - Marcus Purvis.
“Adventure without risk is Disneyland.” - Doug Coupland
“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.” - Anthony Bourdain
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines! Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover!” - Mark Twain
“Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.” - Lovelle Drachman
“The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey
“You must go on adventures to find out where you belong.” - Sue Fitzmaurice
“Don’t be afraid to give up the good and go for the great.” - Steve Prefontaine
“There are far, far better things ahead than we leave behind.” - C.S. Lewis
“Wanderlust isn't about running away from it all. It's about experiencing the outside to discover the inside.” - Unknown
“I would rather own a little and see the world than own the world and see a little of it.” - Alexander Sattler
“Your life does not get better by chance. It gets better by change.” - Jim Rohn
“Take every chance you get in life, because some things only happen once.” - Karen Gibbs
“Fear is temporary. Regret is permanent. Adventure is taking a chance because it’s better than the question mark if you don’t.” - Dan Skinner

Short Travel Quotes

If you’re a travel enthusiast, you’ll love these short quotes about travel and travel experiences.

“My favorite thing to do is go where I’ve never been” - Diane Arbus

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” - Jack Kerouac
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” - Lao Tzu
“Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.” - Paulo Coelho
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Live life with no excuses, travel with no regret." - Oscar Wilde
“Oh the places you’ll go.” - Dr. Seuss
“Fear is only temporary. Regrets last forever” - Unknown
“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” - Mark Twain
“When overseas you learn more about your own country, than you do the place you’re visiting.” - Clint Borgen
"It's not on any map, true places never are." - Herman Melville.
“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” - Saint Augustine
“Travel expands the mind and fills the gap.” - Sheda Savage
“Great things never came from comfort zones.” - Anonymous
“When was the last time you did something for the first time?” - John C. Maxwell
"Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination." - Roy Goodman.
“Live life to the fullest, for the future, is scarce.” - Nick Carter
“Take only memories, leave only footprints.” - Chief Seattle
“A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.” - Moslih Eddin Saadi
“Travel doesn't become an adventure until you leave yourself behind.” - Marty Rubin
“My favorite thing to do is go where I’ve never been” - Diane Arbus
“The biggest risk in life, is not taking one” - Barfi
“The journey not the arrival matters.” - T.S. Eliot
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” - Lao Tzu
“Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” - Dalai Lama
“Traveling—it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” - Ibn Battuta
"Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the journey.” - Babs Hoffman

Quotes About Returning Home After Travel

Travel opens our eyes to the world around us. Sometimes, returning home can be just as eye-opening.

“The thrill of coming home has never changed.” - Guy Pearce
"It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changes. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed, is you." - Eric Roth
“I am traveling half the year around the world, every year, so coming home is one of the most beautiful things.” - Andre Rieu
"It is dismal coming home, when there is nobody to welcome one!" - Ann Radcliffe
“Maybe that's the best part of going away for a vacation-coming home again.” - Madeleine L'Engle
“Travel is glamorous only in retrospect.” - Paul Theroux
"There’s nothing half so pleasant as coming home again." - Margaret Elizabeth Sangster
“No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” - Lin Yutang
“I think you travel to search and you come back home to find yourself there.” - C. N. Adichie
“As I travel along in this world, I’m in awe of many things, like the colors I see in autumn or the flowers that bloom in spring. To me, there is no kind of awesome that anyone but home can bring, like returning to wake in my old bed to hear the birds sweetly sing.” - Good Morning from Brigantine
“Trips do not end when you return home- usually this is when in a sense they begin.” - A. Benedict & A. Franklin
“Maybe you had to leave to miss a place, maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.” - Jodi Picoult
“There’s no place like home.” - Dorothy, The Wizard of Oz
“The best journey takes you home.” - Unknown
“There is a kind of magicness about going far away and then coming back all changed.” - Kate Douglas Wiggin
“It all begins and ends in the same place, doesn't it? Conor and me in Ballyutogue. We all come home eventually.” - Leon Uris
“Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.” - Cesare Pavese

When people are asked what they like best about traveling, they usually cite the sense of freedom, the adventure and the memories they can take with them when they come home. These sayings capture the idea of being free to follow where your wanderlust leads you.

Are you ready for a journey? These inspirational travel quotes will inspire you to explore the world. Let’s go!