I am leaving the town to the invaders: increasingly numerous, mediocre, dirty, badly behaved, shameless tourists.

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.

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

Travel is like adultery: one is always tempted to be unfaithful to one’s own country. To have imagination is inevitably to be dissatisfied with where you live.

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.

Traveling is like gambling: it is ever connected with winning and losing, and generally where least expected we receive more or less than we hoped for.

All traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity.

In the Middle Ages people were tourists because of their religion, whereas now they are tourists because tourism is their religion.

After midnight the moon set and I was alone with the stars. I have often said that the lure of flying is the lure of beauty, and I need no other flight to convince me that the reason flyers fly, whether they know it or not, is the aesthetic appeal of flying.

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.”

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

One should always have one’s boots on and be ready to leave.

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.