Whether you’re a traveler that’s constantly on the go, or an apprehensive wanderluster in need of some words of encouragement, here are 13 nuggets of wisdom on why you should get out there and explore.
1. “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark
2. “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
3. “Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe. ” – Anatole France
4. “Travel has a way of stretching the mind. The stretch comes not from travel’s immediate rewards, the inevitable myriad new sights, smells and sounds, but with experiencing firsthand how others do differently what we believed to be the right and only way.” – Ralph Crawshaw
5. “The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” – Rudyard Kipling
6. “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
7. “I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself.” – James Baldwin
8. “To get away from one’s working environment is, in a sense, to get away from one’s self; and this is often the chief advantage of travel and change.” – Charles Horton Cooley
9. The traveler sees what he sees; the tourist sees what he has come to see. – G.K. Chesterton
10. “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
11. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Scott Cameron
12. “I haven’t been everywhere but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag
13. “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
