103 Of My Best Travel Quotes

If you love travel, you probably love travel quotes as much as I do. They’re so inspirational, reminding us why we love travel so much.

I’ve compiled this list of my all-time-best and favorite travel quotes. They literally get my pulse thumping and get me excited about travel every time I read them (and while writing this post)!

Travel is so powerful, and we gain so much it. I think I’ve becoming more independent, self assured, more open-minded, more tolerant, worldly, more in tune with my instincts, and so much more. I really can’t imagine my life without it. I’m so glad I accepted the call to travel into my life.

Although I love them all, I have a special call out the the one by Anthony Bourdain about travel being the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown, as that quote was the inspiration for the name of my blog, Gorgeousunknown.com.

Travel to me is about venturing into the gorgeous unknown, wherever it may take me. Sometimes it’s awesome, sometimes it’s challenging, but whatever the experience (and it’s usually a mix of many things), I know that I will always walk away a better person. The adventure of travel and everything it brings, is pure joy to me.

I’ve organized my quotes into categories to help make it easier to navigate: Why We Travel, Learning, Growth, Self Discovery, Destinations, Adventure, Courage, Letting Go, the Journey, and Dreams.

I hope you enjoy reading these, and that they inspire you to venture out into the world!

My Best Travel Quotes

Quotes On Why We Travel

“To travel is to live.”
Hans Christian Andersen

”Travel brings power and love to your life.”
Rumi

“Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”
Anthony Bourdain

“If you don’t get lost, there’s a chance you may never be found.”
Unknown

“I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met.” 
Melody Truong

“Life isn’t about the number of breaths you take. It’s the moments that take your breath away.”
Unknown

“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.”
Hellen Keller.

“The best things in life are the people we love…the places we’ve been and the memories we’ve made along the way.”
Unknown

“Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, drink in the wild air.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” 
Unknown

“You live only once but if you travel…once is enough.”
Unknown

Learning

My best quotes on learning from travel.

“Collect moments, not things.”
Aarti Khurana

“Travel expands the mind and fills the gap.”
Sheda Savage

“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”
Aldous Huxley

“Don’t tell me how educated you are, tell me how much you’ve travelled.”
Mohammed

“Travel is like knowledge. The more you see the more you know you haven’t seen.”
Unknown

“If at some point you don’t ask yourself, what have I gotten myself into, then you’re not doing it right.” 
Roland Gau

“Discovery consists not in seeking new lands but in seeing with new eyes.”
Marcel Proust

“I love places that make you realize how tiny you and your problems are.”
Unknown

“It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see.”
Henry David Thoreau

Growth

My best quotes on the growth we experience from travel.

“Once you become fearless, life becomes limitless.”
Nishant Patel

“If you’re not obsessed with the life you’re living, change it.” 
Unknown

“With age comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding.”
Sandra Lake

“He who returns from a journey is not the same as he who left.”
Chinese Proverb

“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes.

“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks — on your body or on your heart — are beautiful.”
Anthony Bourdain

“It’s a funny thing coming home. Nothing changed. Everything looks the same, feels the same, even smells the same. You realize what’s changed is you.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Traveling. It gives you home in thousand strange places, then leaves you a stranger in your own land.”
Ibn Batuta

“Solo travel not only pushes you out of your comfort zone, it also pushes you out of the zone of other’s expectations.”
Suzy Strutner

“I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”
Mary Anne Readmache

Self Discovery

My best quotes on the self-discovery aspect of travel.

“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.”
David Mitchell

“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” 
Confucius

“Your wings already exist, all you have to do is fly.”
Unknown

“Traveling – it leaves you speechless then turns you into a storyteller.”
Ibn Battuta

“If you want to know where your heart is, look where your mind goes when it wanders.” 
Unknown

“We must take adventures in order to know where we truly belong.”
Sue Fitzmaurice

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.”
Oscar Wilde

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
Henry David Thoreau

“To travel is to take a journey into yourself.”
Danny Kaye

Destinations

My best destination oriented quotes.

“Go where you feel the most alive.”
Unknown

“The mountains are calling and I must go.”
John Muir

“I never knew of a morning in Africa, when I woke up and was not happy.”
Earnest Hemmingway

”Never hesitate to go far away, beyond all seas, all frontiers, all countries, all beliefs.”
Amin Maalouf

“The beauty of travel is that someone’s ordinary becomes your extraordinary.”
CJ Photo Escapes

”Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.”
Paul Brandt

“The most beautiful things in the world, of course, is the world itself.”
Wallace Stevens

“How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew.”
Ernesto Che Guevara

“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”
Anita Desai

“Paris is always a good idea.”
Audrey Hepburn

Adventure

My best travel quotes on adventure.

“Oh, the places you’ll go.”
Dr Seuss

“Do not dare not to dare.”
C.S. Lewis

“Life is an adventure, dare it.” 
Mother Theresa

“To live will be an awfully big adventure.”
Peter Pan

”Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.”
Lovelle Drachman

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” 
Hellen Keller

“If you think adventures are dangerous, try routine. It’s lethal.”
Paulo Coehlo

“At the end of the day, your feet should be dirty, your hair messy and your eyes sparkling.”
Shanti

“The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”
Oprah Winfrey

“Always take the scenic route, you never know what adventure you will find.”
Emily Lyons

“The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure.”
Chris Mccandless

“When was the last time you did something for the first time.”
Unknown

“I want a one way ticket to anywhere.”
Unknown

Courage

My best travel quotes on courage.

“We must travel in the direction of our fear.”
John Berryman

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.”
Neale Donald Walsch

“If it scares you, it must be a good things to try.”
Seth Godin

“Be fearless in pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.”
Jennifer Lee

“You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will.”
Stephen King

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.”
Ambrose Redmoon

“Traveling alone will be the scariest, most liberating, life changing experience of your life. Try it at least once.”
Unknown

“Don’t be scared to walk alone. Don’t be scared to like it.”
John Mayer

“Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.”
Paulo Coelho

“Life shrinks or expands according to one’s courage.”
Anais Nin

Letting Go

My best travel quotes on letting go.

“Embrace the detours.”
Kevin Charbonneau.

“Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God.”
Kurt Vonnegut

“A good traveler has no fixed plan and is not intent on arriving.”
Lao Tzu

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

“I love waking up in the morning not knowing what’s gonna happen or who I’m gonna meet, where I’m gonna wind up.”
Jack Dawson, Titanic.

“Stop being afraid of what could go wrong, and focus on what could go right.”
Unknown

“Until you step into the unknown, you don’t know what you’re made of.”
Roy T Bennett

“If plan A fails, remember there are 25 more letters.” 
Chris Guillebeau

The Journey

My best travel quotes on the journey.

“The journey is my home.”
Muriel Rukeyser

“Life is a journey, not a destination.”
Ralph Waldo Emeraon.

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.”
Anais Nin

“I wandered everywhere, cities and countries wide. Everywhere I went, the world was on my side.”
Roman Payne

“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.”
Lao Tzu

“A year from now, you will wish you had started today.”
Karen Lamb

“Drink heavily with locals whenever possible.”
Anthony Bourdain

“You don’t have to be rich to travel well.”
Eugene Fodor

“The journey not the arrival matters.”
T.S. Elliot

Dreams

Travel and our dreams.

“Don’t quit your daydream.”
Sherry Peterson

“Follow your dreams. They know the way.”
Unknown

“The best dreams happen when you’re awake.”
Cherie Gilderbloom

“Dream as if you’ll live forever. Live as if you’ll die today.”
James Dean

“Freedom. Only those deprived of it really know what it is.”
Timothy Cavendish

“To those who can dream, there is no such place as far away.”
Richard Bach

“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.” 
Thoreau

“Dare to live the life you’ve always dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Never let your memories be greater than your dreams.”
Doug Ivester

“I want to make memories all over the world.”
Unknown

“My goal is to run out of pages in my passport.”
Unknown

“Dream until it becomes your reality.”
Unknown

“Work. Travel. Save. Repeat.”
Unknown

“I want to travel across the world and breath the air of new places.”
Unknown

I hope you’ve enjoyed the list of my best travel quotes and have your own adventure planned soon!

If you have a favorite that I’ve missed, or want to share a personal story on one, please share below.

Safe Travels!

Julie