Travels with Charley: In Search of America is one of those really iconic travel books. John Steinbeck is obviously an amazing story-teller leaving you asking yourself is this fact or fiction? Regardless, this book was really inspiring and a fun read. Steinbeck took a road trip with his dog, Charley, from New York to California and then back taking the northern route out and the southern route back. He makes really interesting observations on the places he visits and the people he meets. It’s really intriguing to see how he talks about returning home after living on the opposite side of the country for years. It was a great book to read in preparation for my big road trip and really great to hear how he had pushed thoughts of wanderlust off until he was older and wished he hadn’t. Here are some of the quotes that I found especially inspiring:
***
“When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from ‘Here’ seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient resin for going.”
***
“Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put into process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration; is an entity, different from all other journeys. IT has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike.”
***
“I know people who are so immersed in road maps that they never see the countryside they pass through, and others who, having traced a route, are held to it as through held by flanged wheels to rails.”
***
“There are map people whose joy is to laves more attention on the sheets of colored paper than on the colored land rolling by. I have listened to accounts by such travelers in which every road number was remembered, every mileage recalled, and every little countryside discovered. Another kind of traveler requires to know in terms of maps exactly where he is pin-pointed every moment, as though there were some kind of safety in black and red lines, in dotted indications and squirming blue of lakes and the shadings that indicate mountains.”
***
“I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found, nor much identification from shapes which symbolize continents and states.”
***
“Curious how a place unvisited can take such hold on the mind so that the very name sets up a ringing.”
***
What travel books have you read that really inspired you to travel? I’d love to check them out! Have you read Travels with Charley? Did you enjoy it?
For more posts and travel articles I find interesting ‘like’ the For the Love of Wanderlust page on Facebook. Simply click HERE.
2 Comments
Michelle Railey
January 23, 2014 at 5:32 amI love this book. Always happy when other people like it too.
PaigeBrown
January 31, 2014 at 5:53 pmIt was really great and super inspiring! It made me even more motivated to travel while I’m young and just do it! Thanks for reading and commenting!