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.

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

Reading is also a journey. It's a process of discovery.

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.

The man who is tired of London is tired of looking for a parking space

Sightseeing was ... based on imaginative invention, like rehearsing your own play in stage sets from which all the actors had fled.

Sometimes people read a book in order to not go on a trip. You read a book instead of going on the trip. And so the travel writer is doing the traveling for you.