There is an intense but simple thrill in setting off in the morning on a mountain trail, knowing that everything you need is on your back. It is a confidence in having left the inessentials behind and of entering a world of natural beauty that has not been violated, where money has no value, and possessions are a dead weight. The person with the fewest possessions is the freest. Thoreau was right.

It's only when you're alone that you realize where you are. You have nothing to fall back on except your own resources.

There has to be a measure of difficulty or problem-solving in travel for it to be worthwhile.

Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.

My love for traveling to islands amounts to a pathological condition known as nesomania, an obsession with islands. This craze seems reasonable to me, because islands are small self-contained worlds that can help us understand larger ones.

...a society without jaywalkers might indicate a society without artists.

Going slowly [...] was the best way of being reminded that there is a relationship between Here and There, and that travel narrative was the story of There and Back.