In the best travel books the word "alone" is implied on every exciting page, as subtle and ineradicable as a watermark. The conceit of this, the idea of being able to report it — for I had deliberately set out to write a book, hadn't I? — made up for the discomfort. Alone, alone: it was like proof of my success. I had had to travel very far to arrive at this solitary condition. — OPE
There was no concept of solitariness among the Pacific islanders I traveled among that did not also imply misery or mental decline. Reading as a recreation was not indulged in much on these islands either — for that same reason, because you did it alone. Illiteracy had nothing to do with it, and there were plenty of schools. They knew from experience that a person who cut himself off, who was frequently seen alone — reading books, away from the hut, walking on the beach, on his own — was sunk in musu, the condition of deep melancholy, and was either contemplating murder or suicide, probably both. — HIO
All travelers are like aging women, now homely beauties; the strange land flirts, then jilts and makes a fool of the stranger. There was no hell like a stranger's Sunday. — WE
Anonymity in Travel
On the days when I did not speak to anyone I felt I had lost thirty pounds, and if I did not talk for two days in a row I had the alarming impression that I was about to vanish. Silence made me
feel invisible. Yet to be anonymous and traveling in an interesting place is an intoxication. — KBS
Being invisible — the usual condition of the older traveler, is much more useful than being obvious. — GTES
The temporariness of travel often intensifies friendship and turns it into intimacy. But this is fatal for someone with a train to catch. I could handle strangers, but friends required attention and made me feel conspicuous. It was easier to travel in solitary anonymity, twirling my mustache, puffing my pipe, shipping out of town at dawn. — OPE
Travelers' Conceits
One traveler's conceit is that he is heading into the unknown. The best travel is a leap in the dark. If the destination were familiar and friendly what would be the point in going there? — DSS
Another traveler's conceit is that barbarism is something singular and foreign, to be encountered halfway round the world in some pinched and parochial backwater. The traveler journeys to this remote place and it seems to be so: he is offered a glimpse of the worst atrocities that can be served up by a sadistic government. And then, to his shame, he realizes that they are identical to ones advocated and diligently applied by his own government. As for the sanctimony of people who seem blind to the fact that mass murder is still an annual event, look at Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Tibet, Burma and elsewhere — the truer shout is not "Never again," but "Again and again." — GTES
Yet another traveler's conceit is that no one will see what he has seen; his trip displaces the landscape, and his version of events is all that matters. He is certainly kidding himself in this, but if he didn't kid himself a little he would never go anywhere. — KBS
Strangers in Travel
Travel means living among strangers, their characteristic stinks and sour perfumes, eating their food, listening to their dramas, enduring their opinions, often with no language in common, being always on the move toward an uncertain destination, creating an itinerary that is continually shifting, sleeping alone, improvising the trip. — GTES
Most travel, and certainly the rewarding kind, involves depending on the kindness of strangers, putting yourself into the hands of people you don't know and trusting them with your life. — GTES
Cities and Travel
One of the pitfalls of long journeys is the tendency of the traveler to miniaturize a big city — not out of malice or frivolity, but for his or her own peace of mind. — RIR
My ideal of travel is just to show up and head for the bush, because most big cities are snake pits. In the bush there is always somewhere to pitch your tent. — FAF
Big cities seem to me like destinations, walled-in stopping places, with nothing beyond their monumental look offinality breathing You've arrived to the traveler. — POH
"Athens is a four-hour city," one man said, meaning that was all the time you needed to see it in its entirety. That hourly rate seemed to me a helpful index for judging cities. — POH
Adventure
Adventure travel seems to imply a far-off destination, but a nearby destination can be scarier, for no place is more frightening than one near home that people you trust have warned you against. — FAF
For me the best sort of travel always involves a degree of trespass. The risk is both a challenge and an invitation. Selling adventure seems to be a theme in the travel industry, and trips have become trophies. — FAF
Travel and Optimism
It was the poor person's way of going abroad — standing at the seaside and staring at the ocean. All travelers are optimists, I thought. Travel itself is a sort of optimism in action. — KBS
Travel, its very motion, ought to suggest hope. Despair is the armchair; it is indifference and glazed, incurious eyes. I think travelers are essentially optimists, or else they would never go anywhere. — FAF
Travel is at its most rewarding when it ceases to be about your reaching a destination and becomes indistinguishable from living your life. — GTES
Travel and Tradition
Villages endure destitution better than towns, and rural poverty can perversely seem almost picturesque. — POH
All places, no matter where, no matter what, are worth visiting. But seldom-visited places where people were still living settled traditional lives seemed to me the most worthwhile, because they were the most coherent — they were readable and nearly always I felt uplifted by them. — POH
Observing local rituals while traveling is important, not for
its dubious sanctity, but because the set of gestures in rituals reveals the inner state of the people involved and their subtle protocol. — GTES
Travel and Politics
Any country which displays more than one statue of the same living politician is a country which is headed for trouble. — POH
In countries where all the crooked politicians wear pin-striped suits, the best people are bare-assed. — DSS
Sightseeing is perfect for a dictatorship — China is surely not anything else, politically speaking. The tourist visits, sees the sights, and when they've all been seen, it's time to go. The non-sightseer lingers, ignores the museums, asks awkward questions, fills people with alarm and despondency, and has to be deported. — RIR
Travel and Porno