In this way, we end up spending (as Thoreau put it) “the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.” We'd love to drop all and explore the world outside, we tell ourselves, but the time never seems right. Thus, given an unlimited amount of choices, we make none. Settling into our lives, we get so obsessed with holding on to our domestic certainties that we forget why we desired them in the first place.

At times, the biggest challenge in embracing simplicity will be the vague feeling of isolation that comes with it, since private sacrifice doesn't garner much attention in the frenetic world of mass culture.

The value of your travels does not hinge on how many stamps you have in your passport when you get home -- and the slow nuanced experience of a single country is always better than the hurried, superficial experience of forty countries.

Seeing' as you travel is somewhat of a spiritual exercise: a process not of seeking interesting surroundings, but of being continually interested in whatever surrounds you.

The goal of preparation then is not knowing exactly where you'll go but being confident nonetheless that you'll get there.

In this way, we end up spending (as Thoreau put it) “the best part of one's life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it.” We'd love to drop all and explore the world outside, we tell ourselves, but the time never seems right. Thus, given an unlimited amount of choices, we make none. Settling into our lives, we get so obsessed with holding on to our domestic certainties that we forget why we desired them in the first place.

Work is when you confront the problems you might otherwise be tempted to run away from