On the road again … 10 great quotes about travel

Apparently, the word travel has a common origin with the word travail.

During the era when travel was uncomfortable and often dangerous, the French word trepaliare (torture) spawned the word travailler (to put oneself to pain or trouble).

English borrowed the word as travail, meaning painful or laborious effort. From that root grew the word travel, which signified a wearisome journey.

So there you go. Travel. Travail. Torture.

Mike will be gone from Luang Prabang for most of the next three weeks. So will Dominic and I. The combined lure of spending time with family, seeing some doctors, and not having to stay here as a solo mama was strong enough to make me want to brave traveling to Australia alone – especially as the dots lined up for Mike to fly down with us to Vientiane on the first of tomorrow’s three flights and then meet us in Bangkok in three weeks, part-way through the trip home.

In light of the fact that we’ve just loaned our housekeeper my bicycle for the next three weeks to make her daily journey to our house slightly easier, it seems the height of first-world-whining to confess how much I am dreading getting to Sydney with Dominic by myself. But I am. I was reminding myself as Mike and I were packing again today that it’ll be worth it once I’m there but, oh, the getting there. And, oh, the getting back.

So to celebrate the luxury and privilege (and also acknowledge some of the torture) here are 10 great quotes about travel. Some of them are beautiful. Some make me laugh. Some are just so true.

“What gives value to travel is fear… There is no pleasure in traveling, and I look upon it more as an occasion for spiritual testing.” 
(Albert Camus)

“He gave the impression that very many cities had rubbed him smooth.” 
(Graham Greene)

“Travel is only glamorous in retrospect.” 
(Paul Theroux)

“Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversations.” 
(Elizabeth Drew)

“Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions.” 
(Peter Hoeg)

“Travel has a way of stretching the mind. The stretch comes not from travel’s immediate rewards, the inevitable myriad new sights, smells and sounds, but with experiencing firsthand how others do differently what we believed to be the right and only way.” 
(Ralph Crawshaw)

“I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.” 
(Bill Bryson)

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” 
(Clifton Fadiman)

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” 
(Mark Twain)

“They change their climate, not their soul, who rush across the sea.” 
(Horace)

What’s your favorite? Got any other wonderful travel quotes to add? Or any advice related to traveling alone with an 11-month-old baby?