Some of us have always been suckers for inspirational travel quotes or quotes in general. Finding inspiration and meaning in quotes has always drawn people to them. Quotes express joy, love, excitement, heartbreak, anger, and loss.
In life’s most difficult times, quotes have been that crutch that keeps us strong. They can give us words when we can’t find any of our own. These words can ground us when we least expect them and strengthen us when we are weak. They can define what we didn’t realize we felt and, at times, open our hearts to what we didn’t understand.
The wonder in travel put into words
The power of quotes excels in travel. The best travel quotes become screensavers, artwork, and home décor. Travel quotes also put into words our love for wandering. They capture the exhilaration and awe we experience, resulting in beautiful reminders of the places we are privileged to experience. Furthermore, they help us appreciate the wonder and reality of what our world has to offer.
May these quotes inspire your wanderlust and, as a result, create quotes for yourself and others.
Wanderlust A Strong Desire to Travel, A Strong Longing for or impulse toward wandering
Ryan from Wanderers compass
“Live life by the needle of a compass, not by the hands of a clock”.
“I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”
Mary Anne Radmacher
“Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.“
IBN Battuta
“And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.“
Louis Armstrong
“Oh, the places you will go.”
Dr Suess
“An adventurous life does not necessarily mean climbing mountains, swimming with sharks, or jumping off cliffs. It means risking yourself by leaving a little piece of you behind in all those you meet along the way.“
Shawna Grapentin
“Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.“
Jennifer lee
“Don’t tell me how educated you are; tell me how much you have traveled.”
unknown
“Travel aspirations? Don’t put it on your bucket list, put it on your to do list.”
Ryan from Wanderers Compass
“The worst thing about being a tourist is having other tourists recognize you as a tourist.”
Russell Baker
“Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.”
Roy M. Goodman
“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
“A person susceptible to ‘wanderlust’ is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation.”
Pico Iyer
“The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.”
Jacques Cousteau
“The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.”
unSir Richard Burtonknown
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Mark Twain
Explore. Dream. Discover.”
“The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.“
sainte augustine
“We travel not to escape life; but for life not to escape us.“
unknown
“Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.“
anthony bourdain
“Nobody can discover the world for someone else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.”
Wendell Berry
“I think food, culture, people, and landscape are all absolutely inseparable.”
anthony bourdain
“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey.”
fitzhugh mullan
“Take only memories, leave only footprints.”
chief seattle
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”
marcel proust
“Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”
gustave flaubert
“Investment in travel is an investment in yourself.”
matthew karsten
“Fear is only temporary. Regrets last forever.”
unknown
“Never let your memories be greater than your dreams.”
Dougland ivester
“Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.”
Dalia LAMA
“Jobs fill your pocket, but adventure fills your soul.”
Janice Lyn Beatty
“Do not dare not to dare”
C.S. Lewis
“A mind that is stretched by a new experience can ever go back to its old dimensions.”
oliver wendell holmes
“Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”
confusius
“Paris is always a good idea.”
audrey hepburn
“Travel is not always pretty. It is not always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts; it even breaks your heart. But that is ok. 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
“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is on the most pleasant sensations in the world.”
Freya stark
“Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.”
unknown
“The gladdest moments in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.”
sir richard burton
“Only those who risk going too far can possible find out how far one can go.”
T.S. eliot
“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.”
ralph waldo emerson
“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 familiar is taken for granted.”
bill bryson
“To live will be an awfully big adventure.”
peter pan
“Travel is not reward for working, it is education for living.”
unknown
“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in an office or mowing your lawn. Climb that damn mountain.”
jack kerouac
“Travel The best way to be lost….and found…at the same time.”
brenna smith
“The traveler see what he sees, the tourist see what he comes to see.”
Gilbert K Chesterton
“I followed my heart, and it led me to the airport.”
unknown
“The adrenaline and stress of an adventure are better than a thousand peaceful days.”
paula coelho
“You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
andre gide
“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
“Travel makes a wise man better but a fool worse.”
thoomas fuller
“I travel because I become uncomfortable being too comfortable.”
carew papritz
“Traveling solo does not always mean you’re alone. Most often, you meet marvelous people along the way and make connections that last a lifetime.”
jacqueline boone
“Fill your life with adventures, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show.”
unknown
“Once traveled, the voyage never ends but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.“
pat conroy
“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask; the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.”
nora roberts
“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”
wayne gretzky
“We travel because we need to because distance and difference are the secret tonic to creativity. When we get home, home is still the same, but something in our minds have changed, and that changes everything.”
from wondrous wanderlust
“If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk-in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody.”
anthony bourdain
“I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”
robert louis stevenson
“I have found out there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”
mark twain
“You don’t have to be rich to travel well.”
eugene fodor
“If you reject the food, ignore the customs. Fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.”
james michener
“Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comforts of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except essential things-air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky. All things tending towards eternal and what we imagine of it.”
cesare pavese
“There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.”
Charles Dudley warner
“Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all of one’s lifetime.”
mark twain
“What you’ve done becomes the judge of what you’re going to do – especially in others 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
“Travel messes you up but in all the good ways. It leaves you always craving more, an addiction that can never quite be met. Every place, every trip, every person is a new adventure, pulling you deeper into the love of wanderlust. Your heart begins to hurt when your standing still, and your mind begins to itch over the idea of new places you haven’t been. Fill your soul with misadventures and traveling, and you will live a fulfilled life.”
unknown
“Once you learn to see the wonder and value in things, you will never be bored.”
steve brock
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by.”
Robert frost
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.”
henry miller
“To travel is to live.”
hans christian anderson
“The most beautiful in the world is, of course, the world itself.”
wallace stevens
“And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.”
randy komisar
“Life is meant for good friends and great adventures.”
anonymous
“Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.”
lovelle drachman
“Travel like Ghandi, with simple clothes, open eyes, and an uncluttered mind.”
rick steves
“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.”
anais nin
“The life you have led doesn’t need to be the only life you have.”
anna quindlen
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do than by the ones you did do.“
H Jackson Browne
“Better to see something once than hear about it a thousand times.”
asian proverb
“All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.”
martin buber
“I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.”
caskie stinnett
“I haven’t been everywhere, but it is on my list.”
susan sontag
“A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.”
moslih eddin saadi
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”
Robert louis stevenson
“He who does not travel does not know the value of men.“
moorish proverb
“Nobody can discover the world for somebody else. Only when we discover it for ourselves does it become common ground and a common bond, and we cease to be alone.”
wendell berry
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
Mark twain
“Great things never came from comfort zones.”
anonymous
“Still round the corner there may wait, A new road or a secret gate, And though I oft have passed them by, A day will come at last when I, Shall take the hidden paths that run, West of the moon, East of the sun.”
J.R.R. Tolkein
“When overseas you learn more about your own country, than you do the place you’re visiting.”
Clint Borgen
“Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.”
Paul Brandt
“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.”
Jawaharlal Nehru
“Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost”
Erol Ozan
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”
Unknown
“All you’ve got to do is decide to go and the hardest part is over”
tony wheeler
“Actually, the best gift you could have given her was a lifetime of adventures”
Lewis Carroll
“An understanding of the natural world and what’s in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfilment.”
Sir David Attenborough
“As with any journey, who you travel with can be more important than you destination”
Unkknown
“We take photographs as a return ticket to a moment other wise gone”
Unknown
“You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and nowing people in more than one place.”
Unknown
“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
“This heart of mine was made to travel this world”
unknown
Sir David Attenborough
“An understanding of the natural world and what’s in it is a source of not only a great curiosity but great fulfilment.”
“A person susceptible to ‘wanderlust’ is not so much addicted to movement as committed to transformation.”
Pico Iyer
“The More You Wander, The More You Wonder”
unknown
Do you have any travel quotes that you would like us not to include on our list? Please share them with us in the comment section below. If we use it we will let you know.
© 2025 Wanderers Compass All Rights Reserved
Traveling soon? Check out our Country Travel Guides for travel inspiration
Have these travel quotes inspired your next adventure? You can start your research now!
It is important to price out accommodations on various sites. Expedia is a US-based company, whereas Booking.com is Europe-based. Not all properties appear on both, so it is ideal to check both out. Our personal first choice is Booking.com. If the establishment has a website, check the price there as well. Click the link below to check out hotels and vacation homes in the area. It may be just the motivation you need to start planning that next grand adventure.
Our Top Recommended Travel Products
Travel Insurance
Squaremouth.com
Our favorite travel insurance site!
We strongly advocate for comprehensive travel insurance, not only for minor inconveniences but also for major, unexpected events like medical emergencies. We never leave home without it. Our go-to resource is Squaremouth.com. which offers a user-friendly platform that connects you with top-rated, reputable insurance carriers. Plus, they’ll mediate on your behalf if you run into any issues.
To empower you as a consumer, we recommend you read our blog post on why travel insurance is essential and how to secure the best coverage from leading companies at an affordable price.
MedjetAssist
Medical transport back home from anywhere in the world
Medjet is a leading provider of global air medical transport. Unlike traditional travel insurance, which typically covers medical evacuation to the nearest facility, Medjet goes further by ensuring you’re transported back to the U.S. to the hospital of your choice once you’re stable enough to fly. Medjet offers membership plans that focus on medical transport, while Medjet Horizon provides expanded coverage for broader protection. Individual trip policies start at just $99, and annual policies are available for around $300. Most policies have an age limit of 74.
To learn more about how Medical Evacuation membership with Medjet Assist works, check out our blog post for a more detailed review.
Accommodations and Airfare
Booking.com
Hotels, Home rentals, BNBs, Flights, and other Transportation & Tours
Booking.com connects millions of travelers to unforgettable experiences, a wide range of transportation options, and incredible places to stay—from homes to hotels and beyond. As one of the world’s largest travel marketplaces, it supports well-known brands and entrepreneurs of all sizes. For its convenience, variety, and reliability, it’s our preferred booking platform.
Transportation
Expedia and VRBO
Hotels, home rentals, BNBs, flights, and other transportation & tours
Expedia is a U.S.-based company with a mission to make global travel accessible to everyone, everywhere. At Wanderers Compass, we embrace independent travel, and platforms like Expedia are essential to making that a reality. Expedia allows you to book every aspect of your trip—from flights and accommodations to rental cars, cruises, and activities—making it a one-stop shop for all your travel needs.
Daytrip
Personalized city-to-city private car transfer service
Daytrip provides an affordable private car service for city-to-city transfers worldwide, and we absolutely love their service. It’s a cost-effective alternative to renting a car, providing comfortable, stress-free travel with the bonus of scenic stops along the way. For example, we used Daytrip for travel between Budapest and Vienna, enjoying some fantastic detours to local attractions. With professional drivers and customizable routes, Daytrip ensures a smooth ride while allowing you to explore hidden gems and unique sights along your journey.
To learn more about how Daytrip, check out our blog post for a more detailed review.
Travel Experiences
Viator
The leading marketplace for travel experiences
Viator believes that travel is all about creating unforgettable memories. With over 300,000 experiences to choose from—ranging from simple tours to extreme adventures, plus a wide array of unique, niche activities—it’s never been easier to make lasting memories. We frequently use Viator during our travels and especially appreciate their flexible cancellation policy, which adds peace of mind to every booking.
Communication products for seamless connectivity overseas
GigSky International eSIM Data Plans
Local Prices. No Roaming. Fastest Networks.
GigSky eSIM effortlessly connects travelers around the globe, eliminating the need to swap physical SIM cards or deal with surprise roaming charges. With affordable data plans and instant activation, you can enjoy reliable internet access in over 190 countries, making your travel experience more convenient than ever. Plus, they offer a fantastic deal: a free 100 MB data plan with no credit card required. They are so confident that you will love their service!
Enjoy 10% off all GigSky Plans (except cruise and inflight) with our discount code WCOMPASS10.
To learn more about how GigSky works, check out our blog post for a more detailed review.
Shopping
Wanderers Compass Amazon Storefront
An excellent source for all travel essentials and guides that we have vetted ourselves
Amazon is one of the world’s most comprehensive online shopping platforms, offering lower prices, a wide selection, and fast delivery through teams worldwide.
This page contains affiliate links. When you purchase through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for your ongoing support!
Want to learn about Wanderers Compass?
Check out our most recent blog posts
Presidio: Exploring San Francisco’s Iconic Park
Uncover the charm of the Presidio in San Francisco. This unique park offers a…
April 22, 2025
Airline Elite Status Match: A Travel Hack
used my Alaska Airlines MVP status to match into United Gold, and within one…
April 21, 2025
Tavira Portugal: Suberb Mix of Tradition & Nature
Uncover the beauty of Tavira, Portugal. Experience its blend of history, authentic culture, and…
April 12, 2025
Easter Island: Beyond the Moai
Discover the magic of Easter Island in our latest feature for Food, Wine, and…
April 3, 2025
Eze France: Medieval Splendor
Charming Eze, France, is a picturesque hilltop medieval village renowned for its breathtaking panoramic…
April 1, 2025
Traveling with Accessibility Challenges: A Lesson in Resilience and Discovery
Traveling with a disability taught me valuable lessons about patience, resilience, and the importance…
March 24, 2025