These solo travel quotes will make you want to pack your bags and go!

When I was 18, I spent a summer interning in NYC. I was fortunate enough to crash on my cousin's couch, and he introduced me to his circle of sophisticated, well-traveled friends.

One evening, I was chatting with a guy who'd just returned from traveling the world solo. His stories were thrilling. That night, I promised myself that someday I would do the same. Fast forward a couple decades, and I’ve now backpacked through over 50 countries solo.

If you’re on the fence about traveling alone or just need a spark of motivation, these solo travel quotes will inspire you to pack your bags and go! These words perfectly capture the magic, challenges, and transformation that come from stepping out into the world alone.

Whether you’re planning your first trip or you’re already an experienced traveler, these quotes are sure to motivate and guide you along your own path of self-discovery and adventure.

HERE ARE 71 INSPIRING SOLO TRAVEL QUOTES:

1. “Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” — David Mitchell

2. “You must go on adventures to find out where you truly belong.” — Sue Fitzmaurice

3. “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world.” — Freya Stark

4. “Don’t be scared to walk alone. Don’t be scared to like it.” — John Mayer

5. “Some journeys can be only traveled alone!” — Ken Poirot

6. “The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.” — Henry David Thoreau

7. “Solo travel not only pushes you out of your comfort zone, it also pushes you out of the zone of others’ expectations.” — Suzy Strutner

8. “I think one travels more usefully when they travel alone, because they reflect more.” — Thomas Jefferson

9. “Adventure can be an end in itself. Self-discovery is the secret ingredient.” — Grace Lichtenstein

10. “Loving life is easy when you are abroad. Where no one knows you and you hold your life in your hands all alone, you are more master of yourself than at any other time.” — Hannah Arendt

11. “Traveling solo does not always mean you’re alone. Most often, you meet marvelous people along the way and make connections that last a lifetime.” — Jacqueline Boone

12. “The best trip is the one you take alone.”

13. “Looking at these photographs, I know that I will never understand the world I live in or fully know the places I’ve been. I’ve learned for sure only what I don’t know – and how much I have to learn.” — Anthony Bourdain

14. “Never did the world make a queen of a girl who hides in houses and dreams without traveling.” — Roman Payne

15. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu

16. “As you travel solo, being totally responsible for yourself, it’s inevitable that you will discover just how capable you are.”

17. “You do not travel if you are afraid of the unknown, you travel for the unknown, that reveals you with yourself.” — Ella Maillart

18. “There are some places in life where you can only go alone. Embrace the beauty of your solo journey.” — Mandy Hale

19. “I wondered why it was that places are so much lovelier when one is alone.” — Daphne du Maurier

20. “Solo travel is about knowing yourself more than the world around you.”

21. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” — Neale Donald Walsch

22. “If you don’t get out of the box you’ve been raised in, you won’t understand how much bigger the world is.” — Angelina Jolie

23. “Exploring the world solo is the most liberating and enriching gift you can give yourself.”

24. “The more I traveled, the more I realized fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” — Shirley MacLaine

25. “Not all those who wander are lost.” — J.R.R. Tolkien

26. “You carry your own weather with you when you travel solo.”

27. “Being alone has a power that very few people can handle.” — Steven Aitchison

28. “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” — Robert Louis Stevenson

29. “Everywhere you go, you take yourself with you.” — Neil Gaiman

30. “If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean or simply across the river. Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food.” — Anthony Bourdain

31. “When the traveler goes alone, he gets acquainted with himself.” — Liberty Hyde Bailey

32. “Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.” — Stacey Westfall

33. “Travel only with thy equals or thy betters; if there are none, travel alone.” — The Dhammapada

34. “I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.” — Oscar Wilde

35. “The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” — Oprah Winfrey

36. “Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith.” — Margaret Shepard

37. “It’s better to see something once than hear about it a thousand times.” — Asian Proverb

38. “To travel is worth any cost or sacrifice.” — Elizabeth Gilbert

39. “Adventure should be part of everyone’s life. It is the whole difference between being fully alive and just existing.” — Holly Morris

40. “I am never happier than when I am alone in a foreign city; it is as if I had become invisible.” — Storm Jameson

41. “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” — T.S. Eliot

42. “Solo travel teaches you how to rely on yourself and your instincts.”

43. “See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream.” — Ray Bradbury

44. “You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream.” — C.S. Lewis

45. “Travel until you find the place where you feel most alive.”

46. “People don’t take trips, trips take people.” — John Steinbeck

47. “Wander where the wi-fi is weak.”

48. “Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.” — Henry David Thoreau

49. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” — Henry Miller

50. “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” — Chief Seattle

51. “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” — Susan Sontag

52. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” — Martin Buber

53. “Fear is only temporary. Regret lasts forever.”

54. “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.”

55. “Solitude is not the absence of company, but the moment when our soul is free to speak to us.” — Paulo Coelho

56. “You must be the one to go alone into the wild of your soul.”

57. “A solo journey is a sacred pilgrimage to the self.”

58. “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” — Lin Yutang

59. “The impulse to travel is one of the hopeful symptoms of life.” — Agnes Repplier

60. “Go solo—not to escape life, but so life doesn’t escape you.”

61. “Travel brings power and love back into your life.” — Rumi

62. “When you travel alone, every experience becomes more profound.”

63. “You’ll be surprised who you become when you travel solo.”

64. “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” — Lao Tzu

65. “Live your life by a compass, not a clock.” — Stephen Covey

66. “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” — Anaïs Nin

67. “The best education I have ever received was through travel.” — Lisa Ling

68. “Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.” — Anita Desai

69. “In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take.” — Lewis Carroll

70. “You were born to wander—don’t wait for anyone.”

71. “Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.” — Anthony Bourdain (my favorite travel quote of all time)

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Whether you’re dreaming of Bali sunsets, road tripping across America, or just taking a weekend to reset in nature, let these quotes remind you: you are your own best adventure companion.

Did these funny solo travel quotes inspirational? I’d love to hear in the comments! This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you. I donate 10% of all proceeds made from this blog to charity. Find out more about the charity I am supporting here.