"Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in its frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and...

"My writing derived from the conviction I conceived during my college years: one should lead one’s life as if one were the protagonist of an epic novel, with the outcome predetermined and chapter after chapter of edifying, traumatic, and exhilarating events to be suffered through. Since the end is known in advance, one must try...

"What I found appealing in life abroad was the inevitable sense of helplessness it would inspire. Equally exciting would be the work involved in overcoming that helplessness. There would be a goal involved, and I liked having goals." --David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000)

"'What sort of adventures?" I asked him, astonished. 'All sorts, Monsieur. Getting on the wrong train. Stopping in an unknown city. Losing your briefcase, being arrested by mistake, spending the night in prison. Monsieur, I believe the word adventure could be defined: an events out of ordinary without being necessarily extraordinary.'" --Jean-Paul Sartre, Nausea (1964)

"You buy furniture. You tell yourself this is the last sofa I will ever need in my life. Buy the sofa, then for a couple of years you're satisfied that no matter what goes wrong, at least you've got your sofa issue handled. Then the right set of dishes. Then the perfect bed. The drapes....

"Too often on the road, people seek the spiritual side of life in the same determined way they might join a gym: they want results, and they want them soon. Thus, the yoga camps of India, the meditation retreats of Thailand, and the evangelical group-tours of Galilee sell out (literally and figuratively) to vacationers in...

"The point is that anything that is remarked, even little flowers or leaves picked up off the ground and shown a child, even a shoeshine or a gravel pit, anything is potentially an attraction. It simply awaits one person to take the trouble to point out to another as something noteworthy, as worth seeing. Sometimes...

"That is the charm of a map. It represents the other side of the horizon where everything is possible. It has the magic of anticipation without the toil and sweat of realization. The greatest romance ever written pales before the possibilities of adventure that lie in the faint blue trails from sea to sea. The...

"Luxury, then, is a way of / being ignorant, comfortably / An approach to the open market / of least information. Where theories / can thrive, under heavy tarpaulins / without being cracked by ideas." --LeRoi Jones, "Political Poem" (1969)

"Round the world! There is much in that sound to inspire proud feelings; but whereto does all that circumnavigation conduct? Only through numberless perils to the very point whence we started, where those that we left behind secure, were all the time before us." --Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851)

"The secret of adventure is not to carefully seek it out, but to travel in such a way that it finds you. To do this, you first need to overcome the protective habits of home and open yourself up to unpredictability. As you begin to practice this openness, you'll quickly discover adventure in the simple...

"The profoundest satisfaction in travel is a sense of discovery, the private thrill of seeing something new or seeing it in a new way. This is unquestionably egotistical, but such discoveries do not come easy.

"You air that serves me with breath to speak! / You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape! / You that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers! / You paths worn in irregular hollows by the roadsides! / I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are...

"Beauty and grace are performed whether or not we sense them. The least we can do is try to be there." --Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974)

"Travelers learn not just foreign customs and curious cuisines and unfamiliar beliefs and novel forms of government. They learn, if they are lucky, humility. Experiencing on their sense a world different from their own, they realize their provincialism and recognize their ignorance. 'Traveling makes one modest,' says Flaubert. 'You see what a tiny place you...

"We wish to learn all the curious, outlandish ways of all the different countries, so that we can 'show off' and astonish people when we get home. We wish to excite the envy of our untravelled friends with our strange foreign fashions which we can't shake off.

"Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in 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. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion...

"Mapping out dozens of deeply focused trips around the world has convinced me that preparation no more spoils the chance for spontaneity and serendipity than discipline ruins the opportunity for genuine self-expression in sports, acting, or the tea ceremony." --Phil Cousineau, The Art of Pilgrimage (1998)

"Cultural awareness is often the positive product of rather negative experiences -- and no amount sensitivity training can compare to what you'll learn by accident. After all, the very concept of "cultural sensitivity" is something we understand through the liberal, democratic, egalitarian taint of our own culture -- and these very assumptions might actually be...

"There are deeper reasons to travel -- itches and tickles on the underbelly of the unconscious mind. We go where we need to go, and then try to figure out what we're doing there." --Jeff Greenwald, Shopping for Buddhas (1990) Jeff Greenwald 's latest book is Scratching the Surface .