Quotes & Sayings About Exotic Travel

The wish to travel seems to me characteristically human: the desire to move, to satisfy your curiosity or ease your fears, to change the circumstances of your life, to be a stranger, to make a friend, to experience an exotic landscape, to risk the unknown.. — Paul Theroux

As a piece of travel literature alone, 'The Ends of the Earth' succeeds in providing a tangible sense of the sweaty, smelly reality of many exotic points on the map, with glimpses of their cruelty but also, occasionally, of beauty and human kindness. As a piece of analysis, it is deeply thought-provoking. — Francis Fukuyama

A guide book is addressed to those who plan to follow the traveler, doing what he has done, but more selectively. A travel book, in its purest, is addressed to those who do not plan to follow the traveler at all, but who require the exotic or comic anomalies, wonders and scandals of the literary form romance which their own place or time cannot entirely supply. — Paul Fussell

The other day I found her passport in her drawer when I was putting away my dad's laundered handkerchiefs. I wish I hadn't. For the purpose of my story, she should have it with her. I sat on my dad's bed and flipped through page after empty page. No stamps. No exotic locales. No travel-worn smudges or creases. Just the ID information and my mother's black-and-white photo which if it were used in a psychology textbook on the meaning of facial expressions would be labelled: Obscenely, heartbreakingly hopeful. — Miriam Toews

I sometimes rented a car and drove from event to event in Europe; a road trip was a great escape from the day-to-day anxieties of playing, and it kept me from getting too lost in the tournament fun house with its courtesy cars, caterers, locker room attendants, and such - all amenities that create a firewall between players and what you might call the 'real' world - you know, where you may have to read a map, ask a question in a foreign tongue, find a restaurant and read the menu posted in the window to make sure you're not about to walk into a joint that serves only exotic reptile meat. — Patrick McEnroe

Somewhere around mile three on the trek up the hill Pitry Suturashni decides he would not describe the Javrati sun as "warm and relaxing," as all the travel advertisements say. Nor would he opt to call the breezes here "a cool caress upon the neck." And he certainly would not call the forests "fragrant and exotic." In fact, as Pitry uselessly mops his brow for the twentieth time, he decides he would rather describe the sun as "a hellish inferno," the breezes as "absolutely nonexistent," and the forests as "full of things with far too many teeth and a great desire to apply them to the human body. — Robert Jackson Bennett

To become a writer a person must read constantly, the more varied the writers and their material then all the better. One must also have a lot of life experience, travel to exotic locations and live among the local people. Yet most importantly a writer needs the determination to keep at their writing regardless of what others might say or think about it — Andrew James Pritchard

City of Vassillian a party of five sage princes with four horses. The princes, who are of course brave, noble and wise, travel widely in distant lands, fight giant ogres, pursue exotic philosophies, take tea with weird gods and rescue beautiful monsters from ravening princesses before finally announcing that they have achieved enlightenment and that their wanderings are therefore accomplished. The second, and much longer, part of each song would then tell of all their bickerings about which one of them is going to have to walk back. All this lay in the planet's remote past. — Douglas Adams

We are not simply intellectual creatures. We wish to make love, to enjoy a gourmet dinner, to jog in the park, to cheer lustily at a ball game, to engage in spirited conversation with our friends, to play bridge or tennis, travel to exotic places, struggle with others to build a better world, and to enjoy the arts. The arts are so vital because they help to make life worth living. Music, poetry, literature, paintings, dance, and the theater are among our richest joys ... The fine arts contribute immeasurably to the good life and that is why we cherish them. — Paul Kurtz

She was smiling as she leaned toward Reed, who stooped down to put his lips against her ear. He would tell her that he wanted to travel to Merendon, or Marring Cross or Cranfield, someplace far away and exotic. He was the sort of man whose wish altered every year.
He said in a voice that only she could hear: "I wish you were not my sister."
She pulled back and stared up at him. He smiled, his face just faintly touched with sadness, and tossed his true-love into the fire. — Sharon Shinn

My travels inevitably begin with copious research and planning. I began this kind of planning long ago when I was very young and anxious to hit the road. Hours were spent pouring over junior encyclopedias memorizing the names of exotic-sounding cities
Addis, Ababa, Samarkand, Damascus. Lengthy lists were written detailing the most minute necessities: three pairs of socks, two pencils. spare batteries, rope. — Barbara Hodgson

Indiana Jones: Archaeology is the search for fact ... not truth. If it's truth you're looking for, Dr. Tyree's philosophy class is right down the hall ... So forget any ideas you've got about lost cities, exotic travel, and digging up the world. We do not follow maps to buried treasure, and "X" never, ever marks the spot. Seventy percent of all archaeology is done in the library. Research. Reading. — Jeffrey Boam

The moon was low but not full. The men set out along the dock in conversation. As they dropped onto the dark beach, Simmons declared, 'There can be no better place in the world than this.'

Henderson had to agree. The beach was beautiful. The stars lit the sand and balmy air rode in as the waves washed up on paradise — Sara Sheridan

When I think, where did I laugh the most, where did I eat the most, where did I just feel good all the time, I would say making the Bond movie 'Die Another Day.' To be part of such an iconic franchise and to travel to exotic places - that was the most fun I ever had. — Halle Berry

What do your parents do? Do they travel a lot?"
My brow wrinkled. "No, they don't." I was tired of the interrogation. "Do yours?"
He blinked. "What?"
"Do your parents travel a lot? Are they still married? How many in your family? How old are you? What classes do you have? Boxers or briefs? What's your GPA? Do you always go around knocking strange girls off their feet and then hammering them with a barrage of personal questions?" I finished with a cocky smile.
Tristan hid a grin behind his fist. Mr. Exotic levelled me a steady stare, a sly smile gaining momentum. "Do you always end up straddling the guys that do?"
Tristan choked. My smile froze. Crap.
"And as for boxers or briefs." One hand went to his belt buckle. "I'd be happy to ... "
Double crap. I jabbed a thumb over my shoulder towards my house "I've gotta go. — A&E Kirk

To travel best requires some time preparing for your visit to a particular location - that you don't travel anywhere without spending a few nights reading about the culture and history of the place you are visiting. This is what most of us don't do - we fling ourselves on an exotic destination hoping that someone will tell us what we are looking at, but by that time it's too late, and all the lectures and tour guides simply add to our confusion. — Arthur Frommer

Such are the humiliations of the travel writer in the late 20th century: go to the ends of the earth to search for the most exotic heretics in the world, and you will find that they have cornered the kebab business at the end of your street in London. — William Dalrymple

Traveling is all about talking to new people. That's the ball game. That's the whole point, travel to an exotic place, meet the people, immerse in their culture, and find out why they're so fucked up. If you're not going to spill your guts to complete strangers, why take the trip? You might as well just stay home abusing sex toys until that mishap that brings paramedics and you become the talk of the neighborhood. But communication is easy for me because I'm a listener. I love to hear people gab about themselves. Every single person is special. Everyone has great stories. Like you. I'll bet you have a million. How old are you? Sixty? — Tim Dorsey

But perhaps more important, as someone wishing to make a comment or two about contemporary life and values, I don't have to dig through libraries or travel to exotic lands to arrive at a view of our modern situation refracted through the lens of the preindustrial world, or the uncommercialized, unfranchised, perhaps unsanitized-and therefore supposedly more "authentic"-perspective ofthe Third World. Very simply, this is because that "other" world, as alien as if separated by centuries in time, is the one from which I came — Sidney Poitier

My daughter has probably gotten some benefit of being inspired by a woman who is willing to take on things. We travel. We travel to exotic places. I'm the first person to jump in the ocean with a whale. Even if I'm scared, I'll do it anyway, because I never wanted her to see fear, especially when she was younger. — Teri Hatcher

Through his long, productive career, Paul Theroux has mixed nonfiction books about exotic travel with novels set in exotic places. Africa, Singapore, Hong Kong, Honduras - he lives in and writes about places most of us never see. — Floyd Skloot

Reading was my only escape from reality. Through books, I could be whoever I wanted. I could fall in love with the handsome prince, travel to exotic places, and take the leap that almost always had a happy ending. — Teresa Mummert

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 ... Thus, when we allow ourselves to imagine as we once did, we know, with a sudden jarring clarity, that if we don't go right now, we're never going to do it. And we'll be haunted by our unrealized dreams and know that we have sinned against ourselves gravely. — Tim Cahill

Travel is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with existence or the exotic. It is almost always an inner experience. — Paul Theroux

Is there any point in going across the world to eat something or buy something or watch people squatting among their ruins? Travel is a state of mind. It has nothing to do with distance or the exotic. It is almost entirely an inner experience. — Paul Theroux

I hadn't had a perfect moment yet. And it's very important for me to have perfect moments in exotic countries like that ... it kind of lets you know when it's time to go home ... — Spalding Gray

The dubious achievement in travel these days is enduring the persistent nuisance of a succession of airports in order to arrive at a distant place for a brief interlude of the exotic, — Paul Theroux

For some reason, we see long-term travel to faraway lands as a recurring dream or an exotic temptation, but not something that applies to the here and now. Instead - out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don't really need - we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called "lifestyle," travel becomes just another accessory - a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase the same way we buy clothing and furniture. — Rolf Potts

The jungle is alive. It's dangerous as a living nightmare and brimful of hostility. — Sara Sheridan

The romantics were prompted to seek exotic subjects and to travel to far off places. They failed to realize that, though the transcendental must involve the strange and unfamiliar, not everything strange or unfamiliar is transcendental. — Mark Rothko

The two impulses in travel are to get away from home, and the other is to pursue something - a landscape, people, an exotic place. Certainly finding a place that you like or discovering something unusual is a very sustaining thing in travel. — Paul Theroux

The sharply precise divisions and boundaries, together with the fact that - wind and your more exotic-type spins aside - balls can be made to travel in straight lines only, make textbook tennis plane geometry. It is billiards with balls that won't hold still. It is chess on the run. It is to artillery and airstrikes what football is to infantry and attrition. — David Foster Wallace

As a twenty-one-year-old college student, Daisy Richmond's answer to the question "If you knew you were going to die in one month, what would you do?" was full of adventure and travel to exotic lands. As a twenty-seven-year-old woman who is faced with a recurrence of breast cancer, her answer is very different. Before I Go is the poignant story of Daisy's journey to navigate the unexpected twists and turns of life, and the painful process of letting go of everything but love. — Colleen Oakley

London on your own actually seems more exotic than Egypt on a tour. — Laura Fraser

I have nothing but respect for people who travel the world to make art and put exotic Indians in front of linen backdrops, but it's always been my philosophy to try to make art out of the everyday and ordinary. — Sally Mann

That we leave our homes, that we step through our doors to the world, that we travel our whole lives not because we want to collect exotic T-shirts, not because we want to consume foreign adventure the same Western way we consume plastic and Styrofoam and LCD TVs and iPads, but because it has the power to renew us - not the guarantee, not the promise, just the possibility. Because there are places our imaginations can never construct for us, and there are people who we will never meet but we could and we might. It reminds us that there is always reason to begin again. — Stephen Markley

When the Bond films started, people didn't travel quite as much as they do now; a lot of people had never been outside of their own country, and certainly sitting in the cinema and seeing these exotic locations - I mean, that movie did great things for India, for tourism. They were very wise to allow us to film there. — John Glen

Food stall owners reach out with menus, calling out their dinner selections like midway prizes — Vicki Alayne Bradley

Some poets travel to distant lands and bring back exotic sights and smells. But others go to witness turmoil or violence, to be at the center of political or social change and to bring back the news - not as journalists do, but shaped through language and image in ways that awaken our sensibilities and our emotions ["Yahya Frederickson in Yemen: The Gold of the Wayfarer," The Millions, December 5, 2014]. — Athena Kildegaard

But just as we can all agree on what is red, even if we will never know if we each see it in the same way, so we can all agree - can't we? - that no matter how confident we may appear to others, inside we are all sobbing, scared and uncertain for much of the time. Or perhaps it's just me.
Oh God, perhaps it really is just me.
Actually it doesn't really matter, when you come to think of it. If it is just me, then you are reading the story of some weird freak. You are free to treat this book like science fiction, fantasy or exotic travel literature. Are there really men like Stephen Fry on this planet? Goodness, how alien some people are. And if I am not alone, then neither are you, and hand in hand we can marvel together at the strangeness of the human condition. — Stephen Fry