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.

More and more I like to take a train. I understand why the French prefer it to automobiling—it is so much more sociable, and of course these days so much more of an adventure, and the irregularity of its regularity is fascinating.

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will—whatever we may think.

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.

The traveler with nothing on him sings in the robber’s face.

I think that to get under the surface and really appreciate the beauty of any country, one has to go there poor.

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

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.

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

There is nothing worse for mortals than a wandering life.

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

Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, “I would stay here and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.”