I don't look down on tourism. I live in Hawaii where we have 7 million visitors a year. If they weren't there, there would be no economy. So I understand why a tourist economy is necessary.

The greatest justification for travel is not self-improvement but rather performing a vanishing act, disappearing without a trace.

You can't save the rhinos and you can't preserve a culture. I'm very pessimistic. Once it's gone, it's over.

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

I always found myself in the company of Australians, who were like a reminder that I'd touched bottom.

"Connected" is the triumphal cry these days. Connection has made people arrogant, impatient, hasty, and presumptuous... I don't doubt that instant communication has been good for business, even for the publishing business, but it has done nothing for literature, and might even have harmed it. In many ways connection has been disastrous. We have confused information (of which there is too much) with ideas (of which there are too few). I found out much more about the world and myself by being unconnected.

It might be said that a great unstated reason for travel is to find places that exemplify where one has been happiest. Looking for idealised versions of home-indeed, looking for the perfect memory.