The words I keep coming back to, paired with moments from the road.
By Shelley Carroll6 min readUpdated October 2026
It all starts with a good caption. But the best travel quotes have a lot to teach us.
At DDY Travels we believe in traveling over touring: responsibly, ethically, as partners to the places we visit. We leave places better than we found them, and let the people, culture and lessons of travel expand our minds and hearts. These words say it better than I can.
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Words for the road
“Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you.”
Anthony Bourdain
“Paris is always a good idea.”
Audrey HepburnParis, 2021. Photo: Pierre Satin
“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”
Gustave Flaubert
“We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next, to find ourselves.”
Pico Iyer
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you.”
Anthony Bourdain
“Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”
Anita Desai
“To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.”
Aldous Huxley
“Drink heavily with locals whenever possible.”
Anthony Bourdain
“I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.”
Mary Anne Radmacher
“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.”
Susan Sontag
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”
Mark Twain
“The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life.”
Agnes Repplier
“The journey is part of the experience — an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.”
Anthony Bourdain
“To travel is to live.”
Hans Christian Andersen
“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.”
Freya Stark
“A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.”
Lao Tzu
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.”
Paul Theroux
“Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”
Anthony Bourdain
Come with me
Go see for yourself
Quotes are nice. Passport stamps are better. Here’s where we’re going next.
