Sharing a travel photo without the right words never feels complete. A short travel quote adds the finishing touch, whether it’s witty, wise or just plain fun.
I’ve pulled together my favourite short travel captions and quotes below, sorted by theme to make choosing easier. Copy your favourite and paste it straight into Instagram, Facebook or wherever you share your travel photos.
My own favourites? This depends on where I am. Somewhere like Venice calls for something quieter and more reflective, whilst a Eurostar train heading to France needs something with a bit more cheek to it.
Inspirational and Adventure Travel Quotes
If I had to pick just one of this next set of quotes, it would probably be the Freya Stark line about waking up alone in a strange town. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to describing why I keep doing this (and it helps that she’s a personal hero).
1. Not all those who wander are lost. – J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The world is a book and those who do not travel read only a page. – St. Augustine
3. I haven’t been everywhere but it’s on my list. – Susan Sontag
4. With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding. – Sandra Lake
5. Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before. – Dalai Lama
6. Take only memories, leave only footprints – Chief Seattle
7. You don’t have to be rich to travel well. – Eugene Fodor
8. Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself. – David Mitchell
9. Live your life by a compass, not a clock. – Stephen Covey
10. Wherever you go, go with all your heart! – Confucius
11. Don’t listen to what they say, go see. – Chinese Proverb
12. The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself. – Wallace Stevens
13. Live with no excuses and travel with no regrets. – Oscar Wilde
14. You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. – Mae West
15. It Is Better To See Something Once Than To Hear About It A Thousand Times. – Asian Proverb
16. Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it. – Rick Watson
17. Climb the mountain so that you can see the world, not so that the world can see you. – David McCullough
18. I would rather own little and see the world than own the world and see little of it. – Alexander Sattler
19. Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. – Neale Donald Walsch
20. Great things never came from comfort zones. – Anonymous
21. Two roads diverged in a wood and … I took the one less traveled. – Robert Frost
22. Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. – Andre Gide
23. If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it’s lethal. – Paul Coelho
24. Adventure should be part of everyone’s life. It is the whole difference between being fully alive and just existing. – Holly Morris
25. Jobs fill your pocket but adventures fill your soul. – Jamie Lyn Beatty
26. The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams. – Oprah Winfrey
27. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. – Helen Keller
28. Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. – T.S. Eliot
29. Travel is fatal to prejudice and narrow-mindedness. – Mark Twain
30. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Lao Tzu
31. To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries. – Aldous Huxley
32. To awaken alone in a strange town is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world. – Freya Stark
Short Travel Quotes about the Journey
33. It’s better to travel well than to arrive. – Buddha
34. The journey itself is my home. – Matsuo Basho
35. A good traveller has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. – Lao Tzu
36. The journey not the arrival matters. – T.S. Eliot
37. Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else. – Lawrence Block
38. The only people who ever get any place interesting are the people who get lost. – Henry David Thoreau
39. For my part, I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move. – Robert Louis Stevenson
40. It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. – Ernest Hemingway
41. Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination. – Roy M. Goodman
42. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way. – Carl Sandburg
43. The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust
Short Travel Quotes About Friendship and Travel Companions
Most of my travelling has been solo, but the trips I remember best usually involved someone I met along the way. These quotes are for the friends made on a night train, in a hostel kitchen or queuing for a ferry that’s already running two hours late.
44. A journey is best measured in friends rather than in miles. – Tim Cahill
45. Never go on trips with anyone you do not love. – Hemmingway
46. I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them. – Mark Twain
47. The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends. – Shirley MacLaine
48. We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls. – Anais Nin
49. A good companion shortens the longest road. – Turkish Proverb
50. Travelling with someone shows you exactly who they are. – Anonymous
51. The best souvenirs are the friends you make along the way. – Anonymous
Short Travel Quotes About How Travel Changes You
Over thirty years and 70-odd countries in, I can say hand on heart that the person who left home the first time isn’t the person writing this now. These are the quotes that put words to that shift.
52. You go away for a long time and return a different person. – Paul Theroux
53. I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world. – Mary Anne Radmacher
54. Travel opens your mind as few other things do. It is its own form of hypnotism, and I am forever under its spell. – Libba Bray
55. So much of who we are is where we have been. – William Langewiesche
56. You can shake the sand from your shoes, but not from your soul. – Anonymous
57. Traveling allows you to become so many different versions of yourself. – Anonymous
58 Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. – Gustave Flaubert
59. We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us. – Anonymous
60. You leave home to find home. – Naguib Mahfouz
61. Once a traveller, always a traveller. – Anonymous
62. Travel has a way of stretching the mind. – Ralph Crawshaw
Short Travel Captions for Instagram
63. Work hard, travel harder.
64. Oh, the places you’ll go. – Dr. Seuss
65 Don’t count every day, make every day count.
66. Go where your dreams take you.
67. Travel does the heart good.
68. Never stop exploring.
69. Travel is the best education.
70. Time is short. Take time to travel.
71. Travel is not a reward for working; it’s education for living.
72. Say yes to new adventures.
73. The tans will fade, but the memories will last forever.
74. To travel is to live. – Hans Christian Andersen
75. Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.
76. Keep calm and travel on.
77. Work, travel, save, repeat.
78. Wander often, wonder always.
79. Finding paradise wherever I go.
80. One life. One world. Explore it.
81. Let the adventure begin.
82. Life is a journey, make the most of it.
83. Life is not meant to be lived in one place.
84. Happiness is planning a trip to somewhere new.
85. Just go. Go see all the beauty in the world.
86. This wasn’t a strange place; it was a new one. — Paulo Coelho
87. We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfilment. – Hillaire Belloc
88. When life knocks you down, roll over and look at the stars.
89. Travel is my therapy.
90. Collect moments, not things. – Aarti Khurana
91. Not all classrooms have four walls.
92. Adventure awaits.
93. Vacation mode: on.
94. Chase sunsets, not people.
95. Making memories all over the world.
96. Wanderlust and city dust.
97. Passport ready, bags packed.
98. Born to explore.
99. Roam if you want to.
100. Let’s wander where the WiFi is weak.
101. Somewhere, someday.
Finally …
Adventure is worthwhile.
Aesop
I hope that my curated collection helps you pick the best short travel caption for your image. But if you are looking for more inspirational travel quotes, check out my dreamy life journey quotes or these inspirational quotes about travelling alone.
Happy travels!
About Bridget
Bridget Coleman has been a passionate traveller for more than 30 years. She has visited 70+ countries, most as a solo traveller.
Articles on this site reflect her first-hand experiences.
To get in touch, email her at hello@theflashpacker.net or follow her on social media.