Wanderlust Wednesday- Quotes That Inspire Travel- Part 12 (Why Travel?)

Hello, and happy Wednesday! Today’s Wanderlust Wednesday is all about quotes that answer the question Why travel? I did my own post on why I travel, and I asked a handful of friends and family why they travel, and I found that the sense of wanderlust shared between them and my readers was really comforting. I decided to look at my stash of travel quotes and share the ones I felt answer the question ‘Why travel?’.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately. To front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

-Henry David Thoreau-

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“The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to henge the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown, to bear witness to the consequences, tragic or comic, of people possessed by narcissism of minor differences.”

-Paul Theroux-

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“I wanted to find a new self in a distant place, and new things to care about. The importance of elsewhere was something I took on faith.”

-Paul Theroux-

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“To travel is to follow your bliss.”

-Julia Taylor-

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“I think travel just really wakes me up. It puts me in a state of hyper-awareness that’s hard to get in daily life. I’m so intrigued by other cultures- when I’m traveling away from home I get more insight on my own life and culture as well, just by contrast, and by that alertness of mind that sort-of comes to me like a drug when I’m out of the country. I find that the freedom of anonymity tends to propel me into interesting situation.”

-Tanya Shaffer-

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“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste it, to experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.”

-Eleanor Roosevelt-

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“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.”

-Chris McCandless-

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“The need to travel is a mysterious force. A desire to go runs through me equally with an intense desire to stay home. An equal and opposite thermodynamic principle. When I travel I think of home and what it means. At home I’m dreaming of catching trains at night in the grey light of old Europe or pushing shutters open to see Florence awaken. The balance just lightly tips in the direction of the airport.”

-Frances Mayes-

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“Why Travel:

• Because when you leave behind the familiar you can’t help but be changed by the foreign.
• Because comfort zones become constricting zones over time.
• Because the world was meant to be experienced not imagined.
• Because you’ll meet people who are different than you. (Are we all the same? Not really, but that’s ok).
• Because it will frustrate and annoy you at times and you’ll become better because of it.
• Because you are afraid and it’s always good to make peace with your fears.”

-Chris Guillebeau-

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“It is important to travel and move and have a continual set of experiences so you’ve got more feedback into your work. For me it’s a natural thing.”

-Cate Blanchett-

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“We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.”

-Hilaire Belloc-

I hope you guys enjoyed these travel quotes, and I’m curious as to why you travel… Let me know what it is that draws you in about traveling. Is it the people? Is it the locations? What is it?

To access my other posts on quotes that inspire travel, or other things that inspire me to travel visit the Wanderlust Wednesday page, which you can access here.