One of the world’s great travel writers, Bill Bryson, is loved for his clever and witty commentary on the world around us – from the most interesting places to the most mundane. While he has written on a range of subjects including science, language and history, it’s his travel writing that has struck a chord with so many. Written with his effortlessly funny style, his travel books, including The Lost Continent, Notes from a Small Island and Down Under, quickly cemented their place on bestseller lists. If you haven’t read any of his books yet (and you’re missing out!), here are some of the best Bill Bryson travel quotes to give you a taste.
These Bill Bryson travel quotes will make you want to pack your bags:
But that’s the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don’t want to know what people are talking about. 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. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can’t read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can’t even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.
Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.
The greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time.
Traveling is more fun – hell, life is more fun – if you can treat it as a series of impulses.
There is something about the momentum of travel that makes you want to just keep moving, to never stop.
I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted, or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored.
Is there anything, apart from a really good chocolate cream pie and receiving a large, unexpected cheque in the post, to beat finding yourself at large in a foreign city on a fair spring evening, loafing along unfamiliar streets in the long shadows of a lazy sunset, pausing to gaze in shop windows or at some church or lovely square or tranquil stretch of quayside, hesitating at street corners to decide whether that cheerful and homy restaurant you will remember fondly for years is likely to lie down this street or that one? I just love it.
What is it about maps? I could look at them all day, earnestly studying the names of towns and villages I have never heard of and will never visit…
I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city.
Looking for more quotes from famous travellers? Read these next:
- 10 of Anthony Bourdain’s Best Travel Quotes
- 15 Pico Iyer Quotes that Explain the Magic of Travel
- 20 John Muir Quotes to Inspire you to Get Outdoors
Like this post? Pin it for later!
Which of these Bill Bryson travel quotes is your favourite?
