"When you travel, you experience, in a very practical way, the act of rebirth. You confront completely new situations, the day passes more slowly, and on most journeys you don't even understand the language the people speak. So you are like a child just out of the womb. You begin to attach much more importance...

"When I was very young a big financier once asked me what I would like to do, and I said, "To travel." "Ah," he said, "it is very expensive; one must have a lot of money to do that." He was wrong. For there are two kinds of travelers; the Comfortable Voyager, round whom a...

"I see narrow orders, limited tightness, but will / not run to that easy victory: / still around the looser, wider forces at work: / I will try / to fasten into order enlarging grasps of disorder, widening / scope, but enjoying the freedom that / Scope eludes my grasp, that there is no finality...

"Purchasing a package vacation to find a simpler life is kind of like using a mirror to see what you look like when you aren

"The pleasure of traveling consists in the obstacles, the fatigue, and even the danger. What charm can any one find in an excursion, when he is always sure of reaching his destination, of having horses ready waiting for him, a soft bed, an excellent supper, and all the eases and comfort he can enjoy in...

"Bear in mind that the special advantage of vagabonding is the experience of not really knowing what happens next, which you can obtain at bargain rates in all cases. This kind of happy uncertainty keeps you in the qui vive, the best stance for seeing and learning. You don't know who you'll meet, what experiences...

"The final destination of a journey is not, after all, the last item on the agenda, but rather some understanding, however simple or provisional, of what one has seen." --Pico Iyer, Video Night in Kathmandu (1988)

"A lot of us first aspired to far-ranging travel and exotic adventure early in our teens; these ambitions are, in fact, adolescent in nature, which I find an inspiring idea. Adolescence is the time in our lives when we are the most open to new ideas, the most idealistic. Thus, when we allow ourselves to...