Subscribe to Updates
Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.
By signing up, you agree to the our terms and our Privacy Policy agreement.
The Best Travel Photography Quotes
Looking for the best travel photography quotes? These words of wisdom from master photographers (as well as a few from non-photographers too) will prepare you for your next photo adventure.
More people than ever are documenting their travels through photographs, but creating images that capture the feel of a place and the spirit of its people can be challenging.
So we decided to put together a list of over 100 of our favorite travel photography quotes.
So without further ado, here’s our ultimate list of the best travel photography quotes. If you find it helpful then we would be grateful if you could share with others.
100+ Travel Photography Quotes
The most valuable things in life are a man’s memories. And they are priceless. Andre Kertesz
My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been. Diane Arbus
Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter. Ansel Adams
My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport. Steve McCurry
My vision of the world is simple. Tomorrow, each new day, I want to see the city, take new photographs, meet people and wander alone. Marc Riboud
Photography isn’t about just pushing that button. It’s about the experience of being there. Don McCullin
Related: Landscape Photography Quotes
No place is boring, if you’ve had a good night’s sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film. Robert Adams
The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness. Yann Arthus-Bertrand
The world makes up my pictures, not me. Lee Friedlander
Carrying a camera on vacation pretty much guarantees you won’t see anything worth shooting. Bob Krist
I think of myself as an explorer who has spent his life on a long voyage of discovery. Paul Strand
Understanding Travel Photography
Travel and photography have always been intertwined. I think we have such a brief amount of time in this world that I can’t think of a better use of my time than to travel, to photograph the world, experience life in different places. To me, there’s nothing more important than that. Steve McCurry
Most of the information we now get is through television and is mutilated. Photography offers the opportunity to spend much more time on a topic. It’s relatively cheaper medium, and can allow a photographer really to live in another place, show another reality, get closer to the truth. Sebastiao Salgado
Photography cannot change the world, but it can show the world, especially when it changes. Marc Riboud
If I go to a place, it’s not to record what is going on only. It’s to try and have a picture which concretizes a situation in one glance and which has the strong relations of shapes. And when I go to a country, well, I’m hoping always to get that one picture about which people will say, “Ah, this is true. You felt it right. Henri Cartier-Bresson
I think of myself as a writer who photographs. Images, for me, can be considered poems, short stories or essays. And I’ve always thought the best place for my photographs was inside books of my own creation. Sam Abell
A traveler seeks engagement with the local people and culture, while a sightseer just checks off sights in the guidebook. A sightseeing photographer stands apart from the culture, snapping pictures at a distance. A travel photographer becomes involved with his or her surroundings and the people; the resulting pictures become more intimate. Jim Richardson
Finding your Subject and Story
I’m not an artist. An artist makes an object. Me, it’s not an object, I work in history, I’m a storyteller. Sebastiao Salgado
Technique isn’t important. Technique is in the blood. Events and mood are more important than good light and the happening is what is important. Andre Kertesz
I used to try to figure out precisely what I was seeing all the time, until I discovered that I didn’t need to. If the thing is true, why there it is. Walker Evans
I hope to bring back pictures from the world that open people’s eyes – pictures that suggest the enigmatic nature of the world we live in, as well as its variety, complexity, beauty, and pain. Alex Webb
Related: Photojournalism and Documentary Photography Quotes
When I arrive at any place in the world I buy postcards because then you find out where all the places you should be are. Norman Parkinson
Sometimes the most interesting visual phenomena occur when you least expect it. Other times, you think you’re getting something amazing and the photographs turn out to be boring and predictable. So I think that’s why, a long time ago, I consciously tried to let go of artists angst, and instead just hope for the best and enjoy it. I love the journey as much as the destination. If I wasn’t a photographer, Id still be a traveller. Michael Kenna
Having a camera around your neck gives you a good excuse to be nosy. Martin Parr
It was more about trying to find the essence of the place, what was unique. What was it about this place that made it intriguing? There’s no guarantee that you’re going to make good pictures just because you happen to be in an exotic location. The same rules of photography still apply: light and composition and a particular moment. You may be in an incredible place with an incredible story to tell, but you still have to craft it in a certain way. Steve McCurry
No matter what lens you use, no matter what speed the film, no matter how you develop it, no matter how you print it, you cannot say more than you can see. Paul Strand
Never stop looking, no matter where you are, everywhere there are good photographs. Art Wolfe
The Photo Project
I enjoy traveling and recording far-away places and people with my camera. But I also find it wonderfully rewarding to see what I can discover outside my own window. You only need to study the scene with the eyes of a photographer. Alfred Eisenstaedt
To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place… I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them. Elliott Erwitt
I never stay in one country more than three months. Why? Because I was interested in seeing, and if I stay longer I become blind. Josef Koudelka
The golden rule is work fast. As for framing, composition, focus-this is no time to start asking yourself questions: you just have to trust your intuition and the sharpness of your reflexes. Jacques-Henri Lartigue
I would strongly encourage anybody embarking on photography as a career to embrace and enjoy the whole process. Being a photographer can be a wonderful way to experience the world. Michael Kenna
I very much like to work on long-term projects. There is time for the photographer and the people in front of the camera to understand each other. There is time to go to a place and understand what is happening there… When you spend more time on a project, you learn to understand your subjects. There comes a time when it is not you who is taking the pictures. Something special happens between the photographer and the people he is photographing. He realizes that they are giving the pictures to him. Sebastiao Salgado
The Process
Of all the photographs in The Americans, I think there were only two or three photographs where I did talk to the person, but most of the time I was completely silent, walking through the landscape, through the city, and photographing and turning away. Well, that is my temperament, to be silent, just looking on… What I liked about photography was precisely this: that I could walk away and I could be silent and it was done very quickly and there was no direct involvement. Robert Frank
People will never understand the patience a photographer requires to make a great photograph, all they see is the end result. I can stand in front of a leaf with a dewdrop, or a raindrop, and stay there for ages just waiting for the right moment. Sure, people think I’m crazy, but who cares? I see more than they do! Alfred Eisenstaedt
Sometimes, I’d take shots without aiming, just to see what happened. I’d rush into crowds – bang! bang! … It must be close to what a fighter feels after jabbing and circling and getting hit, when suddenly there’s an opening, and bang! Right on the button. It’s a fantastic feeling. William Klein
Related: Street Photography Quotes
I like discovery. I’m attracted to it. I like the feeling of going out, being at someplace, looking in at something. Observation is important. Bruce Davidson
Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location. Joe McNally
I very rarely start photographing immediately. I like to walk and walk and walk. And the beach was nice because I can walk and unwind and then after a while start photographing. You can go to the sea where it’s beautiful and you are a part of it and I guess you want to let somebody else know about it. Harry Callahan
It may look like I’m just pointing the camera at what’s in front of me. But I’m trying to photograph what people see, but don’t notice – something that’s mysterious and unknown in everyday life. Daido Moriyama
A photographer must be prepared to catch and hold on to those elements which give distinction to the subject or lend it atmosphere. They are often momentary, chance-sent things: a gleam of light on water, a trail of smoke from a passing train, a cat crossing a threshold, the shadows cast by a setting sun. Sometimes they are a matter of luck; the photographer could not expect or hope for them. Sometimes they are a matter of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that he has seen and lost or for one that he anticipates. Bill Brandt
I’ll wait for colour, I’ll wait for light and I’ll wait for people to walk into a situation. First, find your picture and your background. Setup your camera and wait. If you wait long enough something will eventually enter the frame you can finish your composition. Sam Abell
What Makes a Good Travel Photograph?
If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff. Jim Richardson
It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country. Bill Brandt
My ambition was always to show aspects of daily life as if we were seeing them for the first time. Brassai
Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like. David Alan Harvey
A picture of a tramp sitting on a park bench can be very interesting… sometimes. This also applies to a picture of a man in high hat and tails. But-snap them both on the same park bench, and you have one of the most forceful, ironical features in photography… contrast. Weegee
When you look into your camera, if you see an image you have ever seen before, don’t click the shutter. Alexey Brodovitch
The important thing is, you have to have something important to say about the world. Paul Strand
I believe in photographs that convey a certain level of ambiguity, that ask questions rather than provide answers. Alex Webb
There are many photographs which are full of life but which are confusing and difficult to remember. It is the force of an image which matters. Brassai
It is easy to make a picture of someone and call it a portrait. The difficulty lies in making a picture that makes the viewer care about a stranger. Paul Strand
When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice. Robert Frank
Photography is not cute cats, nor nudes, motherhood or arrangements of manufactured products. Under no circumstances it is anything ever anywhere near a beach. Walker Evans
I remember when an editor at the National Geographic promised to run about a dozen of my landscape pictures from a story on the John Muir trail as an essay, but when the group of editors got together, someone said that my pictures looked like postcards. Galen Rowell
Related: Quote Series: What Makes a Good Photograph?
I think just about everything has been tackled, but it may be that things will be done again, only better and differently. Jacques-Henri Lartigue
I still regard myself as an amateur today and I hope that’s what I’ll stay until the end of my life. Because I’m forever a beginner who discovers the world again and again. Andre Kertesz
The most powerful stories are the ones that unite us, not divide us. Ami Vitale
Quotes from Non-Photographers
Stuff your eyes with wonder, live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories. Ray Bradbury
Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. Teddy Roosevelt
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes. Marcel Proust
A man of ordinary talent will always be ordinary, whether he travels or not; but a man of superior talent will go to pieces if he remains forever in the same place. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. Neale Donald Walsch
A journey of a thousand miles, must begin with a single step. Lao Tzu
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Helen Keller
Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before. Dalai Lama
I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list. Susan Sontag
Take only memories, leave only footprints. Chief Seattle
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain
Travel Quotes
If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine, it’s lethal. Paulo Coelho
Live your life by a compass, not a clock. Stephen Covey
The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page. Saint Augustine
The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands. Sir Richard Burton
Travel light, live light, spread the light, be the light. Yogi Bhajan
The trick is not to forget where you came from and where you have been. Sandy Triolo
He who would travel happily must travel light. Antoine de St. Exupery
Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world. Gustave Flaubert
Make voyages! Attempt them… there’s nothing else. Tennessee Williams
Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind. Seneca
Not all those who wander are lost. J.R.R. Tolkien
Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller. Ibn Battuta
The Journey
A ship in a harbor is safe, but it not what ships are built for. John A. Shedd
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. Andre Gide
Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson
The journey not the arrival matters. T.S. Eliot
The traveler is active; he goes strenuously in search of people, of adventure, of experience. The tourist is passive; he expects interesting things to happen to him… Daniel J. Boorstin
The saddest journey in the world is the one that follows a precise itinerary. Then you’re not a traveler, you’re a f’*ing tourist. Guillermo del Toro
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. Lao Tzu
Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God. Kurt Vonnegut
The only people who ever get anyplace interesting are the people who get lost. Henry David Thoreau
The two impulses in travel are to get away from home, and the other is to pursue something – a landscape, people, an exotic place. Certainly finding a place that you like or discovering something unusual is a very sustaining thing in travel. Paul Theroux
Difficult roads always lead to beautiful destinations. Zig Ziglar
One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things. Henry Miller
Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled. Robert Frost
Travel Photography Summary
Unlike many photography genres, travel photography requires the ability to function across many specialties: landscape, documentary, portrait, street, wildlife, and architecture to name a few.
When we think of travel photography, we often believe that you have to visit some exotic location on the other side of the world. The reality is, you don’t need to spend a fortune, nor live out of a rucksack to capture great photos.
What you might consider being the perfect shooting location, other people may consider dull and mundane (and vice-versa).
Great travel photography comes from great locations.
Sometimes the best photos can often be found in your own country (and even your own neighborhood). Do some research, find your story, then start your photo project and see where it takes you…
Art is not to be found by touring to Egypt, China, or Peru; if you cannot find it at your own door, you will never find it. Ralph Waldo Emerson
Travel Photography Quotes Final Words
There you have it – over 100 of the best travel photography quotes from photographers, writers, artists, explorers and many more. I hope some of these quotes inspire you to plan your next photo project!
Have a favorite travel photography quote? Are there any others you would add to the list? Let us know in the comments section below.
Finally, don’t forget to bookmark the page and share it with friends and other photographers through the usual channels. Thanks for reading and we hope you enjoyed this post.
Founder of Photogpedia.com. Photography enthusiast, occasional filmmaker, part-time writer and full-time dreamer. Fulltime photographers since 2006. #chasingthecreative
Leave A Reply Cancel Reply
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .
Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.
Privacy Overview
The 25 Best Travel Photography Quotes
A Post By: Jeremy Flint
Looking for travel photography quotes that’ll instruct, motivate, and inspire?
In this article, I share my top 25 favorite quotes for travel photographers of all stripes, including beginners, hobbyists, and even professionals. I’ve tried to include a mix of sources, so while some of the quoted photographers are classic travel shooters, others are much more contemporary.
I encourage you to read each quote carefully. Think about what it means. Then pick your favorites, write them down (or memorize them!), and try to apply them to your own photography on a regular basis.
So without further ado, let’s take a look at the best travel photography quotes in 2022, starting with some absolute classics.
1.“The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things in words.” – Elliott Erwitt
Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt notes that a photo can offer a visual for a subject that can’t (or shouldn’t) be explained. In essence, an image can provide description when words fail; it can also lead to better reactions, emotions, and thoughts.
2. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” – Frederick Barnard
This classic quote was reportedly first used by Frederick R. Barnard in Printer’s Ink magazine way back in 1921. Barnard was arguing that graphics can tell a story as effectively as descriptive text, and as admirers of National Geographic know, that’s still true today.
3. “You can always take a great photo – no matter what the conditions.” – Steve Davey
This quote comes from Travel Photography , a comprehensive guide written by Steve Davey, master of the craft. Davey is suggesting that while a photoshoot might not quite live up to your expectations, you can always achieve a unique image (even if it’s not a fine-art print destined for the wall).
4. “Travel photography is really a way of life: a way of traveling” – Steve Davey
This is another classic from Steve Davey; here, he’s speaking to the way that travel photography trips involve spending most of your time capturing places and experiencing new cultures. Getting out there to see and embrace the world is all part of the life of a travel photographer!
5. “Travel and photography have always been intertwined. I think we have such a brief amount of time in this world that I can’t think of a better use of it than to travel, to photograph the world, to experience life in different places. To me, there’s nothing more important than that.” – Steve McCurry
This quote, from photography legend Steve McCurry, highlights the very essence of travel photography. At root, it’s about experiencing the world and capturing its unique and wonderful elements.
6. “Being in the right place at the right time is, of course, the prime essential of all photography.” – David Noton
Noton’s statement simply highlights the importance of being there – after searching and finding a location to photograph and capturing the scene when the light is right . The location could be anywhere: A familiar place that you’ve captured before, a landscape in a far-off land, or some unexplored local area.
7. “Never stop looking. No matter where you are, there are good photographs.” – Art Wolfe
You don’t need to trek to the ends of the earth to create a special travel photo. All you need is a bit of luck; some magical light or even a rainbow can transform a boring, local landscape into a breathtaking scene.
Additional quotes for travel photographers
Need additional inspiration? Here are a few additional travel photography quotes to get those creative juices flowing:
8. “Most of the information we now get is through television and is mutilated. Photography offers the opportunity to spend much more time on a topic. It’s a relatively cheaper medium and can allow a photographer really to live in another place, show another reality, get closer to the truth.” – Sebastiao Salgado
9. “a traveler seeks engagement with the local people and culture, while a sightseer just checks off sights in the guidebook. a sightseeing photographer stands apart from the culture, snapping pictures at a distance. a travel photographer becomes involved with his or her surroundings and the people; the resulting pictures become more intimate.” – jim richardson.
10. “Having a camera around your neck gives you a good excuse to be nosy.” – Martin Parr
11. “the earth is art; the photographer is only a witness.” – yann arthus-bertrand, 12. “my life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.” – steve mccurry, 13. “there are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” – ansel adams, 14. “don’t shoot what it looks like. shoot what it feels like.” – david allan harvey, 15. “photography isn’t about just pushing that button. it’s about the experience of being there.” – don mccullin, 16. “if i go to a place, it’s not to record what is going on only. it’s to try and have a picture which concretizes a situation in one glance and which has the strong relations of shapes. and when i go to a country, well, i’m hoping always to get that one picture about which people will say, “ah, this is true. you felt it right.” – henri cartier-bresson, 17. “the most valuable things in life are a man’s memories. and they are priceless.” – andre kertesz, 18. “my favorite thing is to go where i’ve never been.” – diane arbus, 19. “sometimes i arrive just when god’s ready to have someone click the shutter.” – ansel adams, 20. “i think of myself as an explorer who has spent his life on a long voyage of discovery.” – paul strand.
Timeless one-liners
In this final section, I share a handful of oft-repeated quotes. While they generally don’t have a clear author, they’re certainly relevant to travel photographers!
21. “Take only pictures, leave only footprints.”
22. “always say yes to new adventures.”, 23. “only going places that spark joy.”, 24. “keep calm and travel on.”, 25. “life is not meant to be in one place.”, the best travel photography quotes: final words.
Whether you’re just starting out in travel photography or are a seasoned pro, I hope you found some of the quotes in this article useful. The next time you’re about to head out on a trip or you hit a creative rut, remember these quotes – and let them guide you in your photography!
Now over to you:
Which of these quotes is your favorite? Do you have any additional travel photography quotes that you love? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Read more from our Tips & Tutorials category
Jeremy Flint is an award-winning photographer and writer, specialising in travel, landscape and location photography and is known for documenting images of beautiful destinations, cultures and communities from around the world. Jeremy has won awards including the National Geographic Traveller Grand Prize and the Association of Photographers Discovery Award, besides being commended in Outdoor Photographer of the Year. He has also been a finalist in the Travel Photographer of the year and British Photography Awards several times. He has been commissioned by commercial and editorial clients worldwide including National Geographic Traveller, Country Life, Discover Britain, USA National Parks and Visit Britain and has travelled extensively to over 65 countries.
- Guaranteed for 2 full months
- Pay by PayPal or Credit Card
- Instant Digital Download
- All our best articles for the week
- Fun photographic challenges
- Special offers and discounts
Mukikapup's Travels
Travel Photography Quotes To Inspire Your Adventures
Why do you travel, and what makes travel photography special to you? Whether you’re looking to get the best travel photography quotes for Instagram, to write on a travel photo or just to inspire you, I hope these do the trick!
I picked the quotes that spoke to me the most, and that I hope make you excited to take more travel photos, but also to wander and take more photos even in your own backyard. They’re from famous photographers, travelers, authors and more to help you live your best travel photography life!
Travel Photography Quotes
Let these quotes inspire you to take amazing travel photos, and to not be afraid to be yourself and photograph what you see. When you travel, you have an amazing story to tell, and photography is an excellent way to tell your story by showing others what you’ve seen and experienced!
1. “A photographer must be prepared to catch and hold on to those elements which give distinction to the subject or lend it atmosphere. They are often momentary, chance-sent things: a gleam of light on water, a trail of smoke from a passing train, a cat crossing a threshold, the shadows cast by a setting sun. Sometimes they are a matter of luck; the photographer could not expect or hope for them. Sometimes they are a matter of patience, waiting for an effect to be repeated that he has seen and lost or for one that he anticipates.” ― Bill Brandt
2. “When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.” ― Robert Frank
3. “Travel and photography have always been intertwined. I think we have such a brief amount of time in this world that I can’t think of a better use of my time than to travel, to photograph the world, experience life in different places. To me, there’s nothing more important than that.” ― Steve McCurry
4. “A traveler seeks engagement with the local people and culture, while a sightseer just checks off sights in the guidebook. A sightseeing photographer stands apart from the culture, snapping pictures at a distance. A travel photographer becomes involved with his or her surroundings and the people; the resulting pictures become more intimate.” ― Jim Richardson
5. “Sometimes the most interesting visual phenomena occur when you least expect it. Other times, you think you’re getting something amazing and the photographs turn out to be boring and predictable. So I think that’s why, a long time ago, I consciously tried to let go of artists’ angst, and instead just hope for the best and enjoy it. I love the journey as much as the destination. If I wasn’t a photographer, I’d still be a traveller.” ― Michael Kenna
6. “I hope to bring back pictures from the world that open people’s eyes – pictures that suggest the enigmatic nature of the world we live in, as well as its variety, complexity, beauty, and pain.” ― Alex Webb
7. “Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.” ― David Alan Harvey
8. “No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.” ― Ansel Adams
9. “It was more about trying to find the essence of the place, what was unique. What was it about this place that made it intriguing? There’s no guarantee that you’re going to make good pictures just because you happen to be in an exotic location. The same rules of photography still apply: light and composition and a particular moment. You may be in an incredible place with an incredible story to tell, but you still have to craft it in a certain way.” ― Steve McCurry
10. “It may look like I’m just pointing the camera at what’s in front of me. But I’m trying to photograph what people see, but don’t notice – something that’s mysterious and unknown in everyday life.” ― Daido Moriyama
11. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes , but in having new eyes.” ― Marcel Proust
12. “No place is boring if you had a good nights’ sleep and a pocket full of unexposed film.” ― Robert Adams
13. “Photography is a form of time travel.” ― Neil DeGrasse Tyson
14. “My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.” ― Steve McCurry
15. “There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” ― Ansel Adams
16. “Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs.” ― Susan Sontag
17. “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
18. “Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.” ― Ansel Adams
19. “Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
20. “Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.” ― Ansel Adams
21. “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” ― Ansel Adams
22. “I wanted adventures. I wanted to go up the Nung river to the heart of darkness in Cambodia. I wanted to ride out into a desert on camelback, sand and dunes in every direction, eat whole roasted lamb with my fingers. I wanted to kick snow off my boots in a Mafia nightclub in Russia. I wanted to play with automatic weapons in Phnom Penh, recapture the past in a small oyster village in France, step into a seedy neon-lit pulqueria in rural Mexico. I wanted to run roadblocks in the middle of the night, blowing past angry militia with a handful of hurled Marlboro packs, experience fear, excitement, wonder. I wanted kicks – the kind of melodramatic thrills and chills I’d yearned for since childhood, the kind of adventure I’d found as a little boy in the pages of my Tintin comic books. I wanted to see the world – and I wanted the world to be just like the movies” – Anthony Bourdain
23. “It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after, you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you’ve been and what’s happened. In the end, you’re just happy you were there- with your eyes open- and lived to see it.” ― Anthony Bourdain
24. “The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness.” ― Yann Arthus-Bertrand
25. “I think of myself as a writer who photographs. Images, for me, can be considered poems, short stories or essays. And I’ve always thought the best place for my photographs was inside books of my own creation.” ― Sam Abell
26. “I brush aside words and ideas and focus on photography as a means of expressing a message that is both psychological and phenomenological. Without that framework, my approach is very simple – there is no artistry. I just shoot freely. For example, most of my snapshots I take from a moving car, or while running, without the finder, and in those instances, one might say that I’m taking the pictures more with my body than with my eyes.” ― Daido Moriyama
27. “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” ― Aaron Siskind
28. “The camera makes you forget you’re there. It’s not like you are hiding but you forget, you are just looking so much.” ― Annie Leibovitz
29. “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.” ― Diane Arbus
30. “The artist’s world is limitless. It can be found anywhere far from where he lives or a few feet away. It is always on his doorstep.” ― Paul Strand
31. “The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation.” ― Susan Meiselas
32. “The camera is much more than a recording apparatus, it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world.” ― Orson Welles
33. “If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” ― Lewis Hine
34. “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” ― Dorothea Lange
35. “When the world asks, “what was it like?” Only the photographers can say, “See!” ― Mark Denman
36. “Your inspiration is better if it comes from many different sources and your sensibilities will transform all those influences and inspiration into your own visual world. It’s like reading the book instead of watching the movie.” ― Peter Lindbergh
37. “As a young person, and I know it’s hard to believe that I was shy, but you could take your camera, and it would take you to places: it was like having a friend, like having someone to go out with and look at the world. I would do things with a camera I wouldn’t do normally if I was just by myself.” ― Annie Leibovitz
Nature Travel Photography Quotes
Nature photography can be done wherever there’s nature, but even if you just go outside your front door to get a photo of a flower, it’s still travel in a sense – so these quotes apply to both! Exploration and discovery are common themes here. I love taking nature photos wherever I am, at home and while traveling!
38. “Both the grand and the intimate aspects of nature can be revealed in the expressive photograph. Both can stir enduring affirmations and discoveries, and can surely help the spectator in his search for identification with the vast world of natural beauty and wonder surrounding him.” ― Ansel Adams
39. “There are no forms in nature. Nature is a vast, chaotic collection of shapes. You as an artist create configurations out of chaos. You make a formal statement where there was none to begin with. All art is a combination of an external event and an internal event… I make a photograph to give you the equivalent of what I felt. Equivalent is still the best word.” ― Ansel Adams
40. “The whole world is, to me, very much “alive” – all the little growing things, even the rocks. I can’t look at a swell bit of grass and earth, for instance, without feeling the essential life – the things going on – within them. The same goes for a mountain, or a bit of the ocean, or a magnificent piece of old wood.” ― Ansel Adams
41. “It is my intention to present – through the medium of photography – intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to the spectators.” ― Ansel Adams
42. “Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph.” ― Matt Hardy
43. “Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy – your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.” ― Annie Leibovitz
Wanderlust Quotes
That feeling of wanting and needing to travel and explore, to experience new things, to just go somewhere other than your usual places… that’s wanderlust. It’s related to travel, but a bit different – so here are some quotes to inspire you, or to help you communicate that feeling of wanderlust!
44. “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” ― Alan Keightley
45. “For always roaming with a hungry heart, much have I seen and known.” — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
46. “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float; to gain all while you give; to roam the roads of lands remote; to travel is to live.” — Hans Christian Andersen
47. “Every dreamer knows that it is entirely possible to be homesick for a place you’ve never been to, perhaps more homesick than for familiar ground.” ― Judith Thurman
48. “Live in the sunshine, swim the sea, drink the wild air.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
49. “Every experience is a form of exploration.” ― Ansel Adams
50. “Without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, and moribund.” ― Anthony Bourdain
Travel Quotes
Alright, now for some travel quotes to inspire you to get out there and travel so you can take some photos to share with the world, on your Instagram or elsewhere, and so you can get more stories and life experiences… travel helps us grow and evolve, which are things that also inspire great photography! When thinking of photography inspiration and ideas, these can help:
51. “Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.” ― Paulo Coelho
52. “It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn.” — Anthony Bourdain
53. “Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” — Mary Ritter Beard
54. “It is all very beautiful and magical here – a quality which cannot be described. You have to live it and breathe it, let the sun bake it into you. The skies and land are so enormous, and the detail so precise and exquisite that wherever you are you are isolated in a glowing world between the macro and the micro, where everything is sidewise under you and over you, and the clocks stopped long ago.” ― Ansel Adams
55. “For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson
56. “I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find the perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one. Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss, I think, and I’m always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary.” ― Anthony Bourdain
57. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.” ― Mark Twain
58. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign” ― Robert Louis Stevenson
59. “It liberates the vandal to travel — you never saw a bigoted, opinionated, stubborn, narrow-minded, self-conceited, almighty mean man in your life but he had stuck in one place since he was born and thought God made the world and dyspepsia and bile for his especial comfort and satisfaction.” ― Mark Twain
60. “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
61. “I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city.” ― Bill Bryson
62. “Traveling tends to magnify all human emotions.” ― Peter Hoeg
63. “No place is ever as bad as they tell you it’s going to be.” ― Chuck Thompson
Adventure Travel Quotes
When you’re traveling, everything is an adventure if you let it be – the journey is sometimes more of an adventure than the destination! Here are some quotes to get you into the adventure mindset and get to snapping those photos:
64. “An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.” — Gilbert K. Chesterton
65. “So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” — Mark Twain
66. “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
67. “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.” — James Michener
68. “Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action.” — John Muir
69. “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” ― Ibn Battuta
70. “A great way to learn about your country is to leave it.” — Henry Rollins
71. “Just to travel is rather boring, but to travel with a purpose is educational and exciting.” — Sargent Shriver
72. “With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate, and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.” ― Mark Twain
73. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by” — Robert Frost
Travel Short Unique Quotes
Need a quippy, unique travel quote for your Instagram or travel photos? Here ya go!
74. “It is better to travel well than to arrive.” ― Buddha
75. “A traveler without observation is a bird without wings.” — Moslih Eddin Saadi
76. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” ― Aldous Huxley
77. “You have to take risks. We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” – Paulo Coelho
78. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.” ― Mark Twain
79. “Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.” ― Ray Bradbury
80. “Be brave. Take risks. Nothing can substitute experience.” ― Paulo Coelho
81. “Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.” ― Anita Desai
82. “I think food, culture, people, and landscape are all absolutely inseparable.” ― Anthony Bourdain
83. “If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.” ― Paulo Coelho
84. “Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.” ― Teddy Roosevelt
Conclusion: 84 Best Travel Photography Quotes
So, there you have it! Quotes to inspire you to take more pictures, to photograph what you want, when and where because what you see matters – for your own memories, and for how you’re going to tell your travel stories to others (even if they only see your photos)!
You can definitely work on improving your photography skills as you go, but it’s mostly about developing your eye – getting what you see into the frame. Then, it’s all practice from there!
Get my FREE guide on How To Take Better Smartphone Photos
Hi! I'm Sarah Simon, the founder of Mukikapup's Travels! I created this blog as a place to share travel and photography tips that I've learned and additional research using my experience solo traveling and living abroad, plus getting various degrees, including a Masters in Archaeology from Tel Aviv University in Israel. Mukikapup is a character my grandfather created to tell us stories about - read more on my "about" page. I'm so glad you're here!
- Search Please fill out this field.
- Manage Your Subscription
- Give a Gift Subscription
- Newsletters
- Sweepstakes
- Travel Tips
- Travel Photography
73 Best Travel Quotes To Inspire Your Next Vacation
These inspirational travel quotes will make you want to book your next trip as soon as possible.
Elizabeth Rhodes is a special projects editor at Travel + Leisure , covering everything from luxury hotels to theme parks to must-pack travel products. Originally from South Carolina, Elizabeth moved to New York City from London, where she started her career as a travel blogger and writer.
It's hard to put into words just how transformational travel can be. Thankfully, artists, authors, philosophers, and world travelers have captured the essence with inspirational travel quotes that remind us of our past journeys and serve as fuel for future trips.
We've rounded up some of the best travel quotes from the likes of Anthony Bourdain, J. R. R. Tolkien, and other literary greats to help you get excited about your next big adventure. These beautiful quotes also make great travel captions for Instagram, so add them to your next post to encourage your followers to get out and see the world.
Inspirational Travel Quotes
"Once a year go somewhere you have never been before." — Dalai Lama
"You lose sight of things … and when you travel, everything balances out." — Daranna Gidel
"A traveler without observation is a bird without wings." — Moslih Eddin Saadi
"When overseas, you learn more about your own country than you do the place you're visiting." — Clint Borgen
"It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn." — Anthony Bourdain
"Certainly, travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living." — Mary Ritter Beard
"Few places in this world are more dangerous than home. Fear not, therefore, to try the mountain passes. They will kill care, save you from deadly apathy, set you free, and call forth every faculty into vigorous, enthusiastic action." — John Muir
"One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." — Andre Gide
"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." — Lin Yutang
"The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready." — Henry David Thoreau
"Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world." — Gustave Flaubert
"A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for." — John A. Shedd
"The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." — St. Augustine
“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” — Jawaharlal Nehru
“Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” — Maya Angelou
“You need not even listen, just wait … the world will offer itself freely to you, unmasking itself.” — Franz Kafka
Quotes That Make Perfect Travel Captions for Instagram
"Life is an adventure, it's not a package tour." — Eckhart Tolle
"The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams." — Oprah Winfrey
"Robert Frost was right. To take the 'road less traveled by' does make all the difference." — Samantha Brown
"Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world, you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you." — Anthony Bourdain
"The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot." — Michael Altshuler
"A great way to learn about your country is to leave it." — Henry Rollins
"Not all those who wander are lost." — J.R.R. Tolkien
"People don't take trips, trips take people." — John Steinbeck
"We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment." — Hilaire Belloc
“Jobs fill your pocket, adventures fill your soul.” — Jamie Lyn Beatty
“Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.” — Lovelle Drachman
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” — Lao Tzu
“I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met.” — Melody Truong
“As soon as I saw you, I knew an adventure was about to happen.” — A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” — Neale Donald Walsch
Best Travel Quotes About the Journey
"I don't know where I am going, but I'm on my way." — Carl Sagan
"Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness." — Ray Bradbury
"Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind." — Seneca
"Just to travel is rather boring, but to travel with a purpose is educational and exciting." — Sargent Shriver
"Take only memories, leave nothing but footprints." — Chief Seattle
"There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror." — Orson Welles
"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving." — Lao Tzu
"An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." — Gilbert K. Chesterton
"Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going." — Paul Theroux
“Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” — David Mitchell
“The journey not the arrival matters.” — T.S. Eliot
“If it scares you, it may be a good thing to try.” — Seth Godin
“Travel is like an endless university. You never stop learning.” — Harvey Lloyd
“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
“The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” — Shirley MacLaine
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” — Henry Miller
“Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and enjoy the trip.” — Babs Hoffman
“One of the great things about travel is that you find out how many good, kind people there are.” — Edith Wharton
Best Quotes to Inspire Wanderlust
"The Wanderlust has got me ... by the belly-aching fire." — Robert W. Service
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." — Mark Twain
"To move, to breathe, to fly, to float; to gain all while you give; to roam the roads of lands remote; to travel is to live." — Hans Christian Andersen
"We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls." — Anaïs Nin
"For always roaming with a hungry heart, much have I seen and known." — Alfred, Lord Tennyson
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” — Helen Keller
“Live life with no excuses, travel with no regret.” — Oscar Wilde
“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” ― Bill Bryson
“Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life.” — Michael Palin
“And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” — Randy Komisar
“Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the moon.” — Paul Brandt
“It is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown. The only true failure would be not to explore at all.” — Sir Ernest Shackleton
Best Travel Quotes for After Your Trip
"Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow." — Anita Desai
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end." — Ursula K. Le Guin
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." — Marcel Proust
"What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? ― it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies." — Jack Kerouac
"Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it not." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Now more than ever do I realize that I will never be content with a sedentary life, that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.” — Isabelle Eberhardt
“I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” — Mary Anne Radmacher
“If you think adventure is dangerous, try routine. It’s lethal.” — Paulo Coelho
“Traveling — it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” — Ibn Buttuta
“A journey is best measured in friends rather than miles.” — Tim Cahill
“With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding.” — Sandra Lake
“Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember, and remember more than I have seen.” — Benjamin Disraeli
Related Articles
100 Best Photography Quotes of All Time
- February 3, 2024
- Last updated: February 4, 2024
- Photography , Quotes
Home » Travel Blog » 100 Best Photography Quotes of All Time
Words don’t make a photograph, but we’ve compiled a collection of wise words told by great photographers, writers, artists and entrepreneurs. We hope these photography quotes inspire and motivate you to create beautiful photographs.
Go capture the world!
100 Best Photography Quotes of All Time
1. “Skill in photography is acquired by practice and not by purchase.” ― Percy W. Harris
2. “The biggest cliche in photography is sunrise and sunset.” ― Catherine Opie
3. “I fell in love with the process of taking pictures, with wandering around finding things. To me it feels like a kind of performance. The picture is a document of that performance.” ― Alec Soth
4. “The whole nature of photography has changed with the advent of a camera in everybody’s hand. ― Sally Mann
5. “If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff.” ― Jim Richardson
6. “Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.” ― Robert Frank
7. “If I have any ‘message’ worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no shortcuts in photography.” ― Edward Weston
8. “What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.” ― Karl Lagerfeld
10. “If I saw something in my viewfinder that looked familiar to me, I would do something to shake it up.” ― Garry Winogrand
11. “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” ― Ansel Adams
12. “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever. It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” ― Aaron Siskind
13. “Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” ― Imogen Cunningham
14. “I found that photography was a great way of relaxing on the set.” ― Jeff Bridges
15. “Only photograph what you love.” ― Tim Walker
16. “Anyone can shoot chaos. But the most perceptive photographers can make compelling pictures out of uninteresting moments.” ― Alex Tehrani
18. “The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation.” ― Susan Meiselas
19. “A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people.” ― Annie Leibovitz
20. “Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform it by photographing it.” ― Morley Baer
21. “I tend to think of the act of photographing, generally speaking, as an adventure. My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.” ― Diane Arbus
22. “A good photograph is one that communicates a fact, touches the heart and leaves the viewer a changed person for having seen it. It is, in a word, effective.” ― Irving Penn
23. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” ― Arthur Brisbane
24. “Allow yourself the freedom to step away from perfection because it is only then that you can find success.” ― Chase Jarvis
26. “A good photographer records; a great photographer reveals.” ― Skyler Reid
27. “The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.” ― Andy Warhol
28. “We are making photographs to understand what our lives mean to us.” ― Ralph Hattersley
29. “There is one thing the photograph must contain, the humanity of the moment.” ― Robert Frank
30. “You just have to live and life will give you pictures.” ― Henri Cartier Bresson
31. “Where light and shadow fall on your subject – that is the essence of expression and art through photography.” ― Scott Bourne
32. “There will be times when you will be in the field without a camera. And, you will see the most glorious sunset or the most beautiful scene that you have ever witnessed. Don’t be bitter because you can’t record it. Sit down, drink it in, and enjoy it for what it is!” ― DeGriff
Read more articles on the blog:
- Top 100 Adventure Quotes of All Time
- 10 Best Travel Books to Inspire Your Next Trip
- Best Camera Lenses for Travel Photography
Top 100 Best Motivational Quotes of All Time
- Best Vlogging Camera With Flip Screen
33. “Anything more than 500 yards from the car just isn’t photogenic.” ― Edward Weston
34. “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” ― Ansel Adams
35. “Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” ― Dorothea Lange
36. “To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.” ― Edward Weston
37. “Photography can light up darkness and expose ignorance.” ― Lewis Hine
38. “What I have learnt and what I teach now is all about experimentation and learning to pick yourself up and try again when you fall down.” ― Lara Jade
39. “Sometimes I do get to places just when God’s ready to have somebody click the shutter.” ― Ansel Adams
40. “I like to photograph anyone before they know what their best angles are.” ― Ellen Von Unwerth
42. “There is only you and your camera. The limitations in your photography are in yourself, for what we see is what we are.” ― Ernst Haas
43. “If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument.” ― Eve Arnold
44. “I love photographing. It’s that simple.” ― Stuart Franklin
45. “I am forever chasing light. Light turns the ordinary into the magical.” ― Trent Parke
46. “My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.” ― Steve McCurry
47. “Photography imitates everything and expresses nothing.” ― Honoré Daumier
48. “To me, photography is the simultaneous recognition in a fraction of a second of the significance of an event.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson
50. “The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.” ― Robert Mapplethorpe
51. “Photography to me is catching a moment which is passing, and which is true. ― Jacques-Henri Lartigue
52. “As much as I love music, in my mind, photography is what makes me the happiest – that’s for sure.” ― Julian Lennon
53. “Photography is a language more universal than words.” ― Minor White
54. “Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That’s the thing about painting, photography, cinema.” ― David Lynch
55. “Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.” ― Garry Winogrand
56. “I treat the photograph as a work of great complexity in which you can find drama. Add to that a careful composition of landscapes, live photography, the right music and interviews with people, and it becomes a style.” ― Ken Burns
58. “Wherever there is light, one can photograph.” ― Alfred Stieglitz
59. “Twelve significant photographs in one year is a good crop.” ― Ansel Adams
60. “There is a vast difference between taking a picture and making a photograph.” ― Robert Heinecken
61. “Photographs open doors into the past, but they also allow a look into the future.” ― Sally Mann
62. “As I have practiced it, photography produces pleasure by simplicity. I see something special and show it to the camera. A picture is produced. The moment is held until someone sees it. Then it is theirs.” ― Sam Abell
63. “I think good dreaming is what leads to good photographs.” ― Wayne Miller
64. “If you can smell the street by looking at the photo, it’s a street photograph.” ― Bruce Gilden
- Top 100 Best Travel Quotes of All Time
- Useful travel: Study online while traveling
- Best Walking Shoes For Women
- Best Travel Backpack for Women: A Guide On How To Find The Perfect One
65. “I went into photography because it seemed like the perfect vehicle for commenting on the madness of today’s existence.” ― Robert Mapplethorpe
66. “It doesn’t matter if you’re photographing a porter in a market in Marrakech or you’re photographing the king of Morroco. You have the same sympathetic approach to everybody. You be nice to everybody, basically.” ― Albert Watson
67. “Photography can never grow up if it imitates some other medium. It has to walk alone; it has to be itself.” ― Berenice Abbott
68. “I guess I’ve shot about 40,000 negatives and of these I have about 800 pictures I like.” ― Harry Callahan
69. “I always thought of photography as a naughty thing to do – that was one of my favorite things about it, and when I first did it, I felt very perverse.” ― Diane Arbus
70. “I think all art is about control – the encounter between control and the uncontrollable.” ― Richard Avedon
71. “Most things in life are moments of pleasure and a lifetime of embarrassment; photography is a moment of embarrassment and a lifetime of pleasure.” ― Tony Benn
72. “Photography is a small voice, at best, but sometimes one photograph, or a group of them, can lure our sense of awareness.” ― W. Eugene Smith
74. “I’ve always had a passion for technology, photography, startups, and connecting people. Bringing those aspects together made me successful.”― Kevin Systrom
75. “What it all boils down to for me is having the enthusiasm to do something for enjoyment and being stimulated by what’s around you. That’s what photography does for me.”― Graeme Le Saux
76. “It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.” ― David Bailey
77. “Photograph the world as it is. Nothing’s more interesting than reality.” ― Mary Ellen Mark
78. “Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.” ― George Eastman
79. “Photography is about finding things. And painting is different – it’s about making something.” ― Saul Leiter
80. “I don’t trust words. I trust pictures.” ― Gilles Peress
82. “Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.” ― Cecil Beaton
83. “A good snapshot stops a moment from running away.” ― Eudora Welty
84. “If you have something to say with a camera then show it, otherwise it’s better to bake a cake.” ― Jason Eskenazi
85. “When you photograph people in color you photograph their clothes. When you photograph people in black and white, you photograph their soul!” ― Ted Grant
86. “When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.” ― Alfred Eisenstaedt
87. “Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.” ― David Alan Harvey
88. “Photography is an immediate reaction, drawing is a meditation.” ― Henri Cartier-Bresson
90. “If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll only hear about it.” ― Jay Maisel
91. “Be yourself. I much prefer seeing something, even it is clumsy, that doesn’t look like somebody else’s work.” ― William Klein
92. “The best camera is the one that’s with you.” ― Chase Jarvis
93. “Since I’m inarticulate, I express myself with images.” ― Helen Levitt
94. “You know, I really don’t think you learn from teachers. You learn from work. I think what you learn, really, is how to be- you have to be your own toughest critic, and you only learn that from work, from seeing work.” ― Garry Winogrand
95. “In photography there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.” ― Alfred Stieglitz
96. “Photography, as we all know, is not real at all. It is an illusion of reality with which we create our own private world.” ― Arnold Newman
97. “Beauty can be seen in all things, seeing and composing the beauty is what separates the snapshot from the photograph.” ― Matt Hardy
98. “Just put on the lens and go.” ― Miroslav Tichý
99. “You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.” ― Joan Miró
100. “There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes.” ― Abraham Lincoln
Like it? Pin it!
Luisa Colón
- Published: February 3, 2024
You may also like...
10 Clever Props to Use for All Sorts of Photo Subjects
Best Camera Lenses for Travel Photography: Tips For Your Next Trip
SHARE WITH YOUR FRIENDS!
This post may contain affiliate links. Please visit our Privacy Policy for more info.
Useful links
AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE
Nomad is Beautiful is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
2024 © All rights reserved - Nomad Is Beautiful
Web by Nimble.help (EN) | (SK) | Graphic design & Logo: Gabriela Holcer
Going Awesome Places
Detailed itineraries + travel guides
105 Best Travel Quotes To Inspire WANDERLUST with Photos
Last Updated March 15, 2024 William Tang
You are here: Home » Travel Inspiration » 105 Best Travel Quotes To Inspire WANDERLUST with Photos
Sometimes you just need that extra bit of motivation to push you out the door or a good reminder of what makes travel life-changing. Through the years, we’ve been collecting the best travel quotes that’ll truly inspire some serious wanderlust.
By combining these wanderlust quotes with photos to create the most fitting pictures, use the table of contents below to jump straight down to organized categories such as trip with friends quotes, short travel quotes, meaningful wanderlust quotes about life and discovery, and more!
What you’ll get from this article
- A list of our favourite travel quotes.
- Wanderlust quotes are categorized to make it easy to find something that you’re looking for.
In This Article
Top 10 travel quotes
Quotes about travel by authors, short travel quotes, quotes on going off the beaten path when travelling, quotes about travel by philosophers, trip with friends quotes, inspirational quotes about travel, meaningful wanderlust quotes about travel and life, travel quotes about adventure and discovery, happiness in travel, songs with travel in them, wanderlust quotes by famous people, movies that have great quotes about traveling, final thoughts, frequently asked questions, read more inspiring travel stories, how can you save money on travel, travel resources for your next trip, best travel quotes to inspire wanderlust.
“Best” is always subjective and yes there are many other great takes on quotes that can inspire one to travel or speak to why the idea of travel is so powerful and life-changing.
Below, we’re going to be listing the best travel quotes with the associated person that wrote or said them. We’ve created pin-able images for many of the quotes for you to use and share.
For organization, wanderlust inspired quotes are broken down into high level categories. Some may belong to multiple but I tried my best to segment them into appropriate buckets.
We’ve also dropped a few nuggets of wisdom and color commentary for a few that we really love.
As we mentioned, the selection of the “best” quotes is subjective. Every quote speaks to every individual differently because of where you are in your life, the experiences you’ve had, your mind space, where you want to be, and your aspirations.
These are the best in our eyes because they aren’t deep in meaning and haven’t been overused to death.
1. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Passed on from generation to generation is the idea that we need to fit in our own box and follow the norms set for us. It can be societal, cultural, or anything. We’ve found joy in our lives not following that conventional path.
Starting Going Awesome Places and turning it into a full time job sounded crazy (still kind of is) but we carved our own way through it. Sure there are parallel paths but I’d like to think we’ve blazed our own trail.
2. “We take photos as a return ticket to a moment otherwise gone.” – Katie Thurmes
I’ll be the first to admit that we take way too many photos when we travel but when we go back and look at the own albums (whether on our phones or photobooks we print), it really is a wonderful portal back in time to moments and time gone but not forgotten.
3. “This wasn’t a strange place; it was a new one.” – Paulo Coelho
Now that’s the incredible thing about travel. If you open your mind and your heart, anywhere new is a wonderful adventure of discovery and not strange of weird.
Take the incredible journey I had in our 9 day Ethiopia itinerary . Sure it was uncomfortable and challenging but I embraced it all.
4. “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Lao Tzu
You can make your dreams come true with a simple step. It might be the hardest step that you’ve ever had to take because you don’t know where the journey will take you but all it takes are the first baby steps.
Sometimes it can be literal when you take that step off the plane when we went skydiving in New Zealand .
5. “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
Where we grow up in many ways define who we are and what we know. Like it or not, places like our favorite restaurants in North York , the Oxford County Cheese Trail , or local walks in the parks in Richmond Hill , are a core part of who you are.
It’s our own little bubble and when we are able to bust out of it to see what the world is like, it will challenge you to open your eyes, mind, and be a better person. In Mary’s words, you will never be the same again.
6. “Wanderlust: a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world”
We cheated a little here but we sometimes throw around the word wanderlust but what does it actually mean? With this fun travel quote, now you know!
Now who has that impulse to explore the world?
7. “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” – Andre Gide
My mind immediately went to the new worlds we’ve seen while going to the best places to scuba diving in the world but this is one of the best quotes about travel because it encourages us to leave the comforts of home to make new discoveries.
You can take this from the perspective of us being land mammals or the fact that we naturally want to be close to the things that we feel at home with. Whether small or large, you won’t learn something new until you put yourself out there and venture to places unknown.
And no, it’s not just “man” but all the wonderful people of this earth!
8. “Jobs fill your pocket, but adventures fill your soul.” – Jamie Lyn Beatty
This is one of the best travel quotes because it is SO TRUE .
The experiences you gather while travelling are honestly worth more than all the money you can make.
9. “There’s a sunrise and a sunset every single day, and they’re absolutely free. Don’t miss so many of them.” – Jo Walton
As a photographer, my favourite moments are during sunrise and sunset. Every time we compile a list of the best photography spots like this one in Prague , there’s at least one sunrise or sunset included.
There’s a calmness, stillness, and serenity to the start and end of the day and yes, they’re totally free.
10. “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you can control it. ” – John Steinbeck
As a married couple, there’s a deep honesty to this travel quote. As a couple, travel will test your relationship to the max and we always say that even more -so than moving in is to go on a trip together to see if you have partner in life.
In John Steinbeck ‘s travel quote, he talks about how you have to let travel flow the way it wants to go. You can try to bend it, mold it, and control it but you have to let it take you
Some of the best wanderlust sayings are by accomplished writers. They’re incredibly deep, thoughtful, and literary.
11. “Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
This is one of the most well-known wanderlust quotes that speaks to how the journey is more important than the destination. Many of us travel without that end point in mind and that’s totally okay!
12. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” – Mark Twain
Travel is the greatest teacher of them all. It’s something that has truly opened my mind and is something that more of us need. I’d like to think that we don’t travel for travel’s sake but we do it with purpose – to open our minds, break barriers, and gain broader understanding of the world.
13. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert
The more you travel the more you realize that what you know and take for granted is but just a tiny bubble on this great earth. While I don’t know if I’ll ever see it all but to travel is to expand your horizons.
14. “Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.” – Anita Desai
Everything you encounter – people, food, culture, fortunes, and mishaps stay with you forever and you become better for it.
15. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller
I’ve been feeling a little empty ever since COVID-19 and our lockdown existence. It’s truly made me realize how important it is my life.
16. “I haven’t been everywhere but it’s on my list.” – Helen Sontag
Bucket-lists are such a topic of contention these days but I say there’s nothing wrong about dreaming and building your list of places you want to go, what you want to do, and things you want to experience. Just expect it to be a long list.
17. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
18. “It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.” – Ursula K. Le Guin
19. “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin
20. “People don’t take trips, trips take people.” – John Steinbeck
I’m pretty OCD when it comes to planning and I’m sure it comes through on the itineraries we publish but some of the best travel moments always come from the unexpected. In many ways, as much as I want to be in control, I feel that I am but a passenger.
21. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
There’s a level of fulfilment when travelling and I love that I can expand my horizons and see our world in a new and different way.
Sometimes you just need something short and sweet to convey your love of travel.
Here are our favorite short travel quotes but there are also quotes that cross with other categories so make sure to browse through the entire list as there are definitely more short quotes than just these ones below.
22. “Oh the places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss
You probably don’t know yet but you’ll be going to a ton of awesome places in your lifetime.
23. “Don’t quit your day dream.” – Anonymous
Always be dreaming and more than that, make it a reality.
24. “Where to next?” – Anonymous
This is more like the question that I get asked the most beyond “where’s your favorite place you’ve been to?”. This
If you’re a traveler, this is a question that you get almost every single time. It’s also a fantastic short travel quote because it’s almost rhetorical. There’s always somewhere you’re planning on going or want to go to.
It’s also a bit of a loaded question because I’m sure your list is quite long.
25. “Travel has a way of stretching the mind.” – Ralph Crawshaw
26. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.” – Anonymous
27. “Live with no excuses and travel with no regrets.” – Oscar Wilde
Not just an amazing travel quote but great words to live by in all facets of your life.
28. “Don’t listen to what they say, go see.” – Chinese Proverb
In travel, it’s easy for someone to say that you can know everything you need to know by reading about it in the books or looking at photos but it’s something else entirely to see, experience, and feel it in person.
29. “I want to make memories all over the world.” – Anonymous
30. “Dare to live the life you’ve always wanted.” – Anonymous
We try to live without regret and this is a great short quote that we try to live life by.
31. “The journey, not the arrival matters.” – T.S. Eliot
32. “All you need to know is that it’s possible.” – Wolf, an Appalachian Trail Hiker
33. “He who would travel happily must travel light.” – Antoine de St. Exupery
I don’t always travel that light with our packing lists but this is a great short travel quote that’s always the forefront of my mind. I always ask myself, “do I really need this?”.
Here, I’m in the middle of Tokyo with the original Peak Design 5L Sling that makes a great light travel set up.
Sticking to the road less travelled can be the most rewarding. Here are a couple of quotes that push me to always incorporate something a little different on my trips.
34. “Whenever you find yourself on the side of majority, it’s time to pause and reflect.” – Mark Twain
It’s so easy to follow the crowd and be sucked into what everyone’s doing on Instagram or places that are the most popular. I’ve always found that the best trips are the ones that most people don’t know about.
35. “Those who follow the crowd usually get lost in it.” – Rick Watson
36. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.” – Robert Frost
To some extent all great quotes come from a place of philosophical thought but to keep things organized, these are some of the most famous quotes by legendary philosophers that have stood the test of time.
37. “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine
Wisdom, experiences, happiness, and wonder – it’s out there for you to explore.
38. “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius
39. “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta
If you’ve read about how Going Awesome Places came to be , you’ll know that I kind of stumbled upon it by accident. It’s through travel that I’ve become a better storyteller. Ibn Battuta was absolutely right.
40. “Travel brings power and love back into your life.” – Rumi Jalalud-Din
This quote speaks to the greatest reward of travel. Travel has given me so much on many levels. I’m gracious beyond words.
41. “The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.” – G.K. Chesterton
42. “I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” – Mark Twain
This has to ring so true right. The best test of a friendship is to travel and you quickly find out whether you can stand them or not.
43. “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill
44. “Life was meant for great adventures and close friends.” – Anonymous
45. “True friends never apart maybe in distance never in heart.” – Helen Keller
46. “We are all travelers in the wilderness of the world & the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
47. “The more I traveled, the more I realized fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” – Shirley MacLaine
48. “As with any journey, whom you travel with is more important than the destination.” – Anonymous
49. “Life is about doing things that don’t suck with people who don’t suck.” – Anonymous
There’s enough suckage in life. Spend time with those that don’t suck.
50. “One of the great things about travel is that you find out how many good, kind people there are.” – Edith Wharton
51. “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.” – Ernest Hemingway
52. “As soon as I saw you, I knew a grand adventure was about to happen.” – Winnie The Pooh
Sometimes you just know who’s going to make an awesome travel partner.
53. “You can pack for every occasion, but a good friend will always be the best thing you could bring!” – Anonymous
54. “In life, it’s not where you go – it’s who you travel with.” – Charles M. Schulz
As much as I love solo travel, it just isn’t the same when you can’t share your travel experiences with someone else.
55. “No road is long with good company.” – Turkish proverb
56. “Friends that travel together, stay together.” – Anonymous
57. “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill
58. “If you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far go together.” – African Proverb
59. “Sharing adventures means enjoying them 100% more.” – Anonymous
We seek good wanderlust quotes because we’re looking to be inspired. In a simple sentence, you’ll feel that itch to book that ticket. These quotes speak to a way of life, and why you need to just go.
60. “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Chief Seattle
Sustainable travel is so important and its core principle can be said in this simple travel quote.
61. “Our happiest moment as tourists always seems to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.” – Lawrence Block
62. “Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and think of what could go right.” – Anonymous
63. “Live your life by a compass, not a clock.” – Stephen Covey
64. “We travel for romance, we travel for architecture, and we travel to be lost.” – Ray Bradbury
65. “Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and think of what could go right.” – Anonymous
Travel is about taking that leap of faith. It could be a big investment in money. It could be a big risk quitting your job or taking a sabbatical. It could be scary doing it on your own. Whatever it is, think about how incredible the experiences will be to push you over that edge.
66. “Wanderlust isn’t about running away from it all. It’s about experiencing the outside to discover the inside.” – Unknown
This is so true. Some might have the perspective that intrepid travellers are running away from something at home. The reality is that for many, travel is a way for us to learn more about ourselves and running towards truth.
Beyond inspiration, travel and wanderlust quotes tell us how we should think about life and what is important.
67. “We travel not to escape life, but for life to not escape us.” – Anonymous
Time moves faster than ever. There are only so many “I’ll do that later” you can use before you run out. Don’t let those opportunities slip on by.
68. “With age, comes wisdom. With travel, comes understanding.” – Sandra Lake
69. “To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Andersen
This is one of my all-time favourites that can easily go into the short travel quotes section. It’s a motto in life that’s truly transformative.
70. “Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” – David Mitchell
71. “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” – Alan Keightley
72. “When overseas you learn more about your own country, than you do the place you’re visiting.” – Clint Borgen
73. “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” – Mae West
You have one life to live. Make it count is what I say.
74. “Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.” – Anotole France
Adventure is such a core part of our travel DNA and these quotes about travel should inspire you to launch your very own.
75. “To live will be an awfully big adventure.” – Peter Pan
76. “Adventure is worthwhile.” – Aesop
77. “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” – Neale Donald Walsch
When the adrenaline is pumping, and you don’t know what’s coming next is when I feel the most alive. That includes being terrified of heights and jumping out of a plane in the Abel Tasman .
78. “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” – Anonymous
79. “Great things never came from comfort zones.” – Anonymous
80. “Travel doesn’t become adventure until you leave yourself behind.” – Anonymous
81. “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” – Herman Melville
82. “The gladdest moment in human life, methinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton
83. “Just go. Go see all the beauty in the world.” – Anonymous
There is truly so much beauty in the world. Everywhere I go, I’m constantly amazed.
Above all else, travel is what puts a smile on many people’s faces. This collection of wanderlust quotes should give you what people call “the travel feels” these days.
84. “Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.” – Roy M. Goodman
85. “The life you have led doesn’t need to be the only life you have.” – Anna Quindlen
86. “Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.” – Maya Angelou
There are so many ways to interpret this one but I think of it as always staying positive whether it’s someone feeling down or when shit happens when you travel.
87. “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” – Anonymous
I have a couple of these songs on my road trip mixtape. Songs are such a great way to convey ideas and these are a few lyrics that make me want to travel even more.
88. “And I think to myself, what a wonderful world”. – Louis Armstrong, “It’s a Wonderful World”
This isn’t normally something you associate with travel but when you think about those skies of blue, clouds of white, trees of green, colors of the rainbow, and all the faces of people going by, I can’t help but think about all the things that make travel so amazing.
89. “Life is short; I wanna live it well. One life, one story to tell.” – Switchfoot, “Live It Well”
If you know me well, you’ll know that Switchfoot is my all-time favourite band. Their lyrics are what I love the most about them because they always have incredibly deep meaning. Life is precious, you’ve got one shot to make it count.
90. “But hold me fast, hold me fast, cause I’m a hopeless wanderer.” – Mumford & Sons, “Hopeless Wanderer”
91. “Gonna travel, gonna travel wild and free. I’m gonna pack my bags because this great big world is calling me.” – Elvis Presley, “Harem Holiday”
92. “Tell everybody I’m on my way. New friends and new places to see. With blue skies ahead, yes I’m on my way.” – Phil Collins, “On My Way”
They might not be authors or philosophers but they equally have important things to say about the impact of travel and why it matters.
93. “If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.” – Anthony Bourdain
The late Anthony Bourdain was someone that truly understood travel. He was such a great storyteller and this quote reminds me of my earlier days when I was backpacking around Europe and just not having a care in the world.
94. “Don’t count the days. Make the days count.” – Muhammad Ali
95. “The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey
96. “Your imagination is your preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein
97. “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
Travel does change you and always for the better. Anthony Bourdain goes a step further by also encourages us to leave the places we visit better off.
98. “To awaken alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark
99. “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” – Dalai Lama
100. “Paris is always a good idea.” – Audrey Hepburn
There are a couple of wanderlust quotes from movies that stand out. Some are well-known and others you might not’ve heard of or watched.
101. “I’m shaking the dust of this crummy town off my feet and I’m gonna see the world!” – George Bailey from “It’s a Wonderful Life”
102. “The world is not in your books and maps, it’s out there.” – The Hobbit
Pictures tell a thousand words and videos many more but there’s nothing like being in these places that people talk about and taking it in with all of your senses.
103. “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.” – Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
104. “You only get one life. It’s actually your duty to live it as fully as possible.” – Me Before You
105. “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere.” – Beauty and the Beast
I’m not sure if we’ve ever done a list this long but we hope that you’ve been able to pull a few favorites of your own with the best quotes about travel.
Many of these have anchored but have also set me free when it comes to traveling the world. In one way or another, these quotes have driven me to take the leap, to continue to explore, and to get outside of my comfort zone.
Wanderlust is defined as “a strong desire to travel”.
Best quotes about travel are ones that are easy to understand, have deep analogies to life, and of course create strong feelings of wanderlust.
Not without specific permission but don’t be shy to ask .
Not without permission but just ask !
Yes, we’ve made it easy for these to be pinnable on Pinterest and other social media channels.
Yes, these are all of our own travel photos taken through the years.
We use Canva to create all of our wanderlust quotes.
“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller “I haven’t been everywhere but it’s on my list.” – Helen Sontag “Stop being afraid of what could go wrong and think of what could go right.” – Anonymous “We travel not to escape life, but for life to not escape us.” – Anonymous “I want adventure in the great wide somewhere.” – Beauty and the Beast
“Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson “Jobs fill your pocket, but adventures fill your soul.” – Jamie Lyn Beatty Thi “We take photos as a return ticket to a moment otherwise gone.” – Katie Thurmes “Life is about doing things that don’t suck with people who don’t suck.” – Anonymous “To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Andersen “You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” – Mae West
“Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien “To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Andersen “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.” – Anonymous “Oh the places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss “People don’t take trips, trips take people.” – John Steinbeck “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – St. Augustine “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Chief Seattle
“Oh the places you’ll go.” – Dr. Seuss “Don’t quit your day dream.” – Anonymous “Where to next?” – Anonymous “Travel has a way of stretching the mind.” – Ralph Crawshaw “I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m on my way.” – Anonymous “Don’t listen to what they say, go see.” – Chinese Proverb “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.” – Confucius “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Chief Seattle
If you reshare the content, you can as long as you link to this article or tag our account. If you’d like to print one of these, you can do so without altering the image.
Yes, you certainly can!
So what are your favorite travel quotes? Are there quotes that we’ve missed that you would’ve loved to have seen make the list? Drop a comment down below!
- How to travel Bora Bora on a budget
- Your guide to visiting Easter Island
- What it’s really like to safari in South Africa
- Most beautiful places in Africa to visit
- Crazy skydiving experience in New Zealand
- If this is your first time on Going Awesome Places, we love finding ways to make travel cheaper. I do this by taking advantage of car rental coupon codes , hotel codes for Hilton , Marriott , IHG , Best Western , Hyatt and Radisson , and lastly, making use of eSIM such as Airalo to make sure I don’t get dinged by roaming.
If you’re in the process of planning your trip and putting together your itinerary, these are genuinely the best resources that the Going Awesome Places team stands by 100% .
Credit cards: Don’t get burned by hidden fees on top of terrible exchange rates. When we travel now, we use the Wise Card . Simply load it with the currency you need before you go and use it as a regular VISA or their digital wallet card. Use their free app to track how much you have and top up when you need to.
Flights: Of all the booking search engines, Skyscanner is the most helpful and easy to use thanks to their Everywhere feature . Kayak is also another that’s we will often check as well.
Car Rental: If you’re looking to save money, these car rental coupon codes will be a true game-changer. Otherwise, DiscoverCars and RentalCars are great places to start.
Airport Parking: You’ll need a spot to leave your car at the airport so why not book a spot at a discount. Use code AWESOME7 to get at least $5 off at Airport Parking Reservations or Park Sleep Fly packages.
Data: We’ve been a huge fan of wifi hotspot devices like PokeFi (use code GAP24300) because their rates are so good and you can use it globally but recently, we’ve really loved using eSIMs. The best one is Airalo . Save money by getting region-specific eSIMs and use referral code WILLIA9500 to get $3 USD credit on your first purchase. Ubigi is another one that we’ve had success with where they uniquely offer 5G coverage. Use code AWESOME10 to save 10% on your first order.
Hotels: Our go-to is Booking.com because they have the best inventory of properties including hotels and B&Bs plus they have their Genius tier discounts . The exception is Asia where Agoda always has the best prices. TripAdvisor is also useful for reviews and bookings.
Vacation Rentals: Your first instinct will be to check Airbnb but we always recommend checking VRBO as well if you’re looking for a vacation rental.
Tours: When planning our trips, we always check both Viator and GetYourGuide to at least see what’s out there in the destination that we’re going to. They often have different offerings and prices so check both.
Travel Insurance: Learn how to buy the best travel insurance for you. This isn’t something you want to travel without.
- Insured Nomads – Popular insurance provider for frequent travelers and comes with great coverage and special perks.
- RATESDOTCA – Search engine Canadians looking for the cheapest insurance including multi-trip annual policies.
- SafetyWing – A perfect fit for long-term nomads.
- Medjet – Global air medical transportation.
- InsureMyTrip – Best for seniors, families, and those with pre-existing conditions.
If you need more help planning your trip, make sure to check out our Travel Toolbox where we highlight all of the gear, resources, and tools we use when traveling.
About William Tang
William Tang is the Chief of Awesome behind the award-winning Going Awesome Places which is focused on outdoor adventure, and experiential travel. His true passion lies in telling stories, inspiring photography and videos, and writing detailed itineraries and travel guides. He is a member of Travel Media Association of Canada (TMAC), Society of American Travel Writers (SATW), Adventure Travel Trade Association (ATTA), and Travel Massive. He has also been featured in publications such as Reader's Digest, Entrepreneur, Men's Journal, and Haute Living. Make sure to learn more about William Tang to find out his story and how Going Awesome Places started.
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
Find us on social media
37 Inspirational Travel Quotes
I’m a poet and i didn’t even know it.
Almost every time I log onto Facebook, I’m greeted by a litany of inspirational quotes on life and travel. After collecting a folder full of my favorites, I started writing my own.
So, I’m proud to present six thoughts on travel, on top of some of my favorite photos from the road…
Out of the hundreds of inspiration travel quotes that I’ve downloaded from Facebook , here are 31 of my absolute favorites.
Here are 79 more travel quotes.
EXPLORE SOMEWHERE NEW
79 Inspirational Quotes on Travel & Life
That Travel Smell
Buy a print.
All photos on this site are available as limited edition fine art photographic prints. Please get in touch for sizes and rates.
- WHAT PHOTO ARE YOU INTERESTED IN?
- Comments This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
Inspiration The 100 Most Inspiring Photography Quotes
“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” – Ansel Adams
In this article, we have curated a selection of the most inspiring quotes about photography of all time, from the most renowned practitioners in the medium’s history. As photographers, we can sometimes struggle with maintaining motivation and focus, or struggle to find inspiration. We hope that these quotes will provide the encouragement and impetus needed to continue on your photographic journey.
1. “The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words.” – Elliott Erwitt
2. “Taking pictures is savouring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.” – Marc Riboud
3. “All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.” – Richard Avedon
4. “For me, the subject of the picture is always more important than the picture.” – Diane Arbus
5. “I can get obsessed by anything if I look at it long enough. That’s the curse of being a photographer” – Irving Penn
6. “I like to photograph anyone before they know what their best angles are.” – Ellen Von Unwerth
7. “If your pictures are not good enough you are not close enough.” – Robert Capa
8. “Photographs open doors into the past, but they also allow a look into the future.” – Sally Mann
9. “Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location.” – Joe McNally
10. “There’s nothing more interesting than the landscape of the human face” – Irvin Kershner
11.”There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” – Ansel Adams
12. “The painter constructs, the photographer discloses.” – Susan Sontag
13. “It’s not how a photographer looks at the world that is important. It’s their intimate relationship with it.” – Antoine D’Agata
14. “I’m mystified that anyone thinks liking color is a bad thing” – Saul Leiter
15. “A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people.” – Annie Leibovitz
16. “To photograph: it is to put on the same line of sight the head, the eye and the heart.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
17. “To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.” – Edward Weston
18. “Still images can be moving and moving images can be still. Both meet within soundscapes” – Chien-Chi Chang
19. “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” – Dorothea Lange
20. “The photographer is filled with doubt. Nothing will soothe him.” – Raymond Depardon
21.“Emotion is really the only thing about pictures I find interesting. Beyond that it is just a trick.” – Christopher Anderson
22. “I think good dreaming is what leads to good photographs.” – Wayne Miller
23. “The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation.” – Susan Meiselas
24. “Better to live five minutes of happiness rather than an entire life in a conventional way.” – Guy Bourdin
25. “A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you the less you know.” – Diane Arbus
26. “By choosing a precise intersection between subject and time, WE may transform the ordinary into the extraordinary and the real into the surreal.” – Constantine Manos
27. “In photography, there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.” – Alfred Stieglitz
28. “Photography helps people to see.” – Berenice Abbott
29. “The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!” – Ansel Adam
30. “You’re as good as your last picture. One day you’re hero, the next day you’re a bum” – Weegee
31.“I am not interested in shooting new things – I am interested to see things new.” – Ernst Haas
32. “Photography, to me, is the dewdrop that reflects my inner and outer worlds simultaneously.” – Raghubir Singh
33. “Which of my photographs is my favorite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” – Imogen Cunningham
34. “The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.” – Andy Warhol
35. “In photography, there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated.” – August Sander
36. “One doesn’t stop seeing. One doesn’t stop framing. It doesn’t turn off and turn on. It’s on all the time.” – Annie Leibovitz
37. “Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.” – David Alan Harvey
38. “Look and think before opening the shutter. The heart and mind are the true lenses of the camera.” – Yousuf Karsh
39. “Photography has no rules, it is not a sport. It is the result which counts, no matter how it is achieved.” – Bill Brandt
40. “The best images are the ones that retain their strength and impact over the years, regardless of the number of times they are viewed.” – Anne Geddes
41.“Photograph the world as it is. Nothing’s more interesting than reality.” – Mary Ellen Mark
42. “Looking and seeing are two different things. What matters is the relationship with the subject.” – Christophe Agou
43. “If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” – Lewis Hine
44. “The instant of photographing, instead of creating distance, is a moment of clarity and emotional connection for me” – Nan Goldin
45. “Art is all about doing what you shouldn’t.” – Nobuyoshi Araki
46. “As photographers, we are hired for our opinions to a certain extent. It will be a visual take, a very subjective interpretation” – Dan Winters
47. “The whole point of taking pictures is so that you don’t have to explain things with words.” – Elliott Erwitt
48. “All I can say about the work I try to do is that the aesthetic is in reality itself.” – Helen Levitt
49. ‘I have a burning desire to see what things look like photographed by me’. – Garry Winogrand
50. “The still must tease with the promise of a story the viewer of it itches to be told.” – Cindy Sherman
51. “Images can describe, abstract, interpret, but they are not absolute” – Carolyn Drake
52. “I wanted to make pictures that felt natural, that felt like seeing, that didn’t feel like taking something in the world and making a piece of art out of it.” – Stephen Shore
53. “If I knew how to take a good photograph, I’d do it every time.” – Robert Doisneau
54. “The viewer is yet another eye that is part of the compact that makes a photograph what it is.” – Alex Webb
55. “Photography is about being patient. I’m quiet, I watch the situation. I let things happen and photograph them when they happen;” – Olivia Arthur
56. “Photographs are a way of revealing hidden relationships that are only present for a moment in space and time.” – Robert Herman
57. “Making any statement of your feelings is risky. It’s just like making pictures.” – Joel Meyerowitz
58. “In photography, like in all things, there are people who can see and others who cannot even look.” – Félix Nadar
59. “A few words about the question of whether photography is art or not: I never understood the question.” – Ernst Haas
60. “Photography, for me, is just the perfect excuse.” – Cristina De Middle
61. “A photographer must choose a palette as painters choose theirs.” – Joel Sternfeld
62. “I do what I feel, that’s all, I am an ordinary photographer working for his own pleasure. That’s all I’ve ever done.” – André Kertész
63. “In reality, all we photographers photograph is ourselves in the other—all the time,” – Evelyn Hofer
64. “I find it particularly exciting when a picture evokes anything near that word, ‘mystery’.” – Jeff Mermelstein
65. “All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for the inability to notice.” – Elliot Erwitt
66. “With photography, I like to leave a lot of the story, even to myself” – Alex Prager
67. “What would please me most is to make photographs as incomprehensible as life.” – William Klein
68. “My photographs are a kind of tourism because it’s as if you’re traveling to Mali when you see them.” – Malick Sidibé
69. “I never, ever went out without my camera, even to buy bread.” – Willy Ronis
70. “Dig in, follow your instincts and trust your curiosity.” – Susan Meiselas
71. “I would photograph an idea rather than an object, a dream rather than an idea.” – Man Ray 72. “If you wait, people will forget your camera, and the soul will drift up into view.” – Steve McCurry
73. “Utter truth is essential, and that is what stirs me when I look through the camera.” – Margaret Bourke-White
74. “Photography is the language of humanity” – Reza
75. “Wherever there is light, one can photograph.” – Alfred Stieglitz
76. “I didn’t decide to be a photographer; I just happened to fall into it.” – Berenice Abbott
77. “Whatever else a photograph may be about, it is always about time.” – Richard Misrach
78. “The subject matter is so much more important than the photographer.” – Gordon Parks
79. “Photography is the only language that can be understood anywhere in the world.” – Bruno Barbey
80. “Photography is a strange phenomenon… You trust your eye and cannot help but bare your soul.” – Inge Morath
81. “Life is a movie; death is a photograph.” – Susan Sontag
82. “In a portrait, I’m looking for the silence in somebody.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
83. “In nature, light creates the color. In the picture, color creates the light.” – Hans Hofmann
84. “Photography is the art of not pushing the button” – Frank Horvat
85. “As soon as people see a camera, they change, and what you see you lose.” – Vivian Cherry
86. “A picture is the expression of an impression. If the beautiful were not in us, how would we ever recognize it?” – Ernst Haas
87. “Good photography is unpretentious.” – Walker Evans
88. “In a portrait, you always leave part of yourself behind.” – Mary Ellen Mark
89. “The world makes up my pictures, not me.” – Lee Friedlander
90. “I believe that the essence of photography is black and white. Color is but a deviance.” – Ruth Bernhard
91. “Photography is not something you retire from.” – Annie Leibovitz
92. “Photography allows you to learn to look and see. You begin to see things you’d never paid attention to.” – Saul Leiter
93. “I only ever take one picture of one thing. Literally. Never two.” – William Eggleston
94. “Every photograph is an encounter, an intimate, reciprocal confession” – Paolo Roversi
95. “I really believe there are things nobody would see if I didn’t photograph them.” – Diane Arbus
96. “Ultimately photography is about who you are. It’s the truth in relation to yourself. And seeking truth becomes a habit.” – Leonard Freed
97. “The unconscious obsession that we photographers have is that wherever we go we want to find the theme that we carry inside ourselves.” – Graciela Iturbide
98. “I think of photography like therapy.” – Harry Gruyaert
99. “Creativity is a wild mind and a disciplined eye” – Dorothy Parker
100. “A photograph has picked up a fact of life, and that fact will live forever” – Raghu Rai
Looking for more inspirational photography quotes?
– Check out our Top 20 inspirational quotes from street photography greats and our Top 20 most moving black-and-white photography quotes
All images © their respective owners
- Privacy Overview
- Strictly Necessary Cookies
- 3rd Party Cookies
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website or helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.
This website uses Google Analytics to collect anonymous information such as the number of visitors to the site, and the most popular pages.
Keeping this cookie enabled helps us to improve our website.
Please enable Strictly Necessary Cookies first so that we can save your preferences!
54 Travel Quotes to Inspire Your Wanderlust (Shareable Images!)
The wonderful thing about traveling is that it takes you out of your comfort zone and pushes you into new situations that can challenge and change you. Travel quotes are designed to help inspire just that.
It’s OK to struggle and have bad days when traveling because more often than not, those turn into the most captivating stories; but it’s always nice to have a handy quote to help re-inspire you and pick yourself back up.
Here are some of our most beloved travel quotes for your travel life. I hope some of these will encourage you to take the first step, and explore beyond your front doorstep. Have courage and diverge.
There is a whole world of adventure and marvel out there waiting to be discovered.
Travel Quotes: Our Personal Favorites
To see the world, things dangerous to come to, to see behind walls, draw closer, to find each other, and to feel. That is the purpose of life. – (Movie) Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Sometimes, you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes, in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself. – Unknown
Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all peoples cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends. – Maya Angelou
Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, Wow! What a ride! – Hunter S Thompson
More Great Travel Life Quotes
The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page. – St. Augustine
Not all those who wander are lost. – JRR Tolkein
Fill your life with adventures, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show. – Unknown
We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us. – Unknown
You weren’t born to just pay bills and die. – Anonymous
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Lao Tzu
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone. – Neale Donald Walsch
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving. – Lao Tzu
We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment. – Hilaire Belloc
A journey is best measured in friends, not miles. – Tim Cahill
Adventure is worthwhile in itself. – Amelia Earhart
Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore. – Andre Gide
You don’t have to be rich to travel well. – Eugene Fodor
We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls. – Anaïs Nin
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. – David Mitchell
We leave something of ourselves behind when we leave a place, we stay there, even though we go away. And there are things in us that we can find again only by going back there. – Pascal Mercier
To travel is to live. – Hans Christian Anderson
One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things. – Henry Miller
Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life. – Jack Kerouac
If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home. – James A. Michener
I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. You live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen non percent of. – Louis C.K.
Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before. – Dalai Lama
We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open. – Jawaharial Nehru
Time flies. It’s up to you to be the navigator. – Robert Orben
Take the time to put the camera away and gaze in wonder at what’s there in front of you. – Erick Widman
You will never be completely at home again because part of your heart will be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place. -Miriam Adeney
A traveler without observation is a bird without wings. – Moslih Eddin Saadi
He who does not travel does not know the value of men. – Moorish Proverb
I am not born for one corner; the whole world is my native land. – Seneca
Somewhere on your journey, don’t forget to turn around and enjoy the view. – Unknown
So much of who we are is where we have been. – William Langewiesche
Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living. – Miriam Beard
Travel is glamorous only in retrospect. – Paul Theroux
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments and places that take our breath away. – Anonymous
The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see. – G.K. Chesterton
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist. – Oscar Wilde
Life is short and the world is wide. – Simon Raven
Travel as much as you can, as far as you can, as long as you can. Life’s not meant to be lived in one place.- Anonymous
Jobs fill your pocket, adventures fill your soul. – Jaime Lyn Beatty
If we were meant to stay in one place, we’d have roots instead of feet, he said. – Rachel Wolchin
The trouble is, you think you have time. – Buddha
Of all the books in the world, the best stories are found between the pages of a passport. – Saber Ben Hassen
Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing the lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain. – Jack Kerouac
Every hundred feet the world changes. – Roberto Bolaño
Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown. – Gaby Basora
All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware. – Martin Buber
When overseas you learn more about your own country than you do the place you’re visiting. – Clint Borgen
He who would travel happily must travel light. – Antoine de St. Exupery
Those who are afraid of death are afraid of life. – François Lelord
Oh, the places you’ll go. – Dr. Seuss
Have any favorite travel quotes that didn’t make the list? Let us know in the comments!
More on travel inspiration:.
- 30 Best Travel Movies that Inspire Travel
- 17 Cheap Places to Travel Around the World
- Plan Your Dream Trip: Step by Step Guide
- How to Save Money for Travel: A Step by Step Plan
- 10 Cheapest Places to Travel in Europe
- 35 Epic Norway Pictures to Inspire Your Next Trip
- 19 North Island New Zealand Photos That Inspire Travel
- 25 Cambodia Photos To Inspire Wanderlust
- 36 Philippines Photos To Inspire Your Next Vacation
- 33 Ireland Photos Guaranteed to Cause Wanderlust
Did you like this story? Share it!
Travel planning resources, about lina stock.
Lina is an award-winning photographer and writer that has been exploring the world since 2001. She has traveled to 100 countries on all 7 continents. Member: SATW, NATJA, ATTA, ITWA
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
- Quote of the Day
- Picture Quotes
Photography And Travel Quotes
Standart top banner.
Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends.
Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.
Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking.
There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.
I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.
A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.
A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.
I like animals. I like natural history. The travel bit is not the important bit. The travel bit is what you have to do in order to go and look at animals.
We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.
I am a passionate traveler, and from the time I was a child, travel formed me as much as my formal education.
Voyage, travel, and change of place impart vigor
If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears.
We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
What you've done becomes the judge of what you're going to do - especially in other people's minds. When you're traveling, you are what you are right there and then. People don't have your past to hold against you. No yesterdays on the road.
If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.
Tourists don't know where they've been, travelers don't know where they're going.
No matter where you go, there you are. (Uriel to Harry Dresden)
The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.
Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness.
The life you have led doesn't need to be the only life you have.
I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.
Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey.
Travel brings power and love back into your life.
Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it.
last adds STANDART BOTTOM BANNER
Send report.
- The author didn't say that
- There is a mistake in the text of this quote
- The quote belongs to another author
- Other error
Top Authors
Get Social with AzQuotes
Follow AzQuotes on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Every day we present the best quotes! Improve yourself, find your inspiration, share with friends
SIDE STANDART BANNER
- Javascript and RSS feeds
- WordPress plugin
- ES Version AZQuotes.ES
- Submit Quotes
- Privacy Policy
Login with your account
Create account, find your account.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I'll receive a commission if you purchase through my link, at no extra cost to you. Please read the full disclosure here.
180 Nature Photography Quotes and Caption To Inspire Photographers
Nature is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?
Whether it’s being on the beach with crashing waves or the sight of a stunning sunset, being in nature can be truly awe-inspiring.
And what better way to capture those moments than through photography?
But wait, a great nature photo deserves an equally great caption, and that’s where we come in.
We’ve gathered the best nature photography quotes and captions for you to choose from, so you can spend less time thinking of the perfect words and more time enjoying the beauty around you.
Whether you’re looking for a caption for your Instagram post or just an inspiring quote to encourage you to get outside in nature, we’ve got you covered.
So let’s get started and find the perfect words to complement your stunning nature photos!
Nature Photography Quotes
“When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” ~ Ansel Adams
“It all ultimately comes down to showing respect to nature and understanding the species you want to photograph” ~ Riddhi Mukherjee
“It is up to the viewers to understand that it is worth preserving this natural world as it is important for the survival of our world and thus for the generations to come.” ~ Piet Haaksma
“I appreciate these moments where I can get away from life and focus on living.” ~ TJ Thorne
When asked about his inspiration for landscape photography: “An unbounded love for Mother Nature, complemented by a passion to travel.” ~ Sankar Salvadi
“I wish that all of nature’s magnificence, the emotion of the land, the living energy of place could be photographed.” ~ Annie Leibovitz
“I love landscape photography because it clears my thoughts and it brings light and inspiration into my mind.” ~ Jan Bainar
“Actually, it’s nature itself that creates the most beautiful pictures, I’m only choosing the perspective.” ~ Katja Michael
“I want to interpret the natural world and our links to it.” ~ Frans Lanting
“The typical nature photograph shows a butterfly on a pretty flower. The conservation photograph shows the same thing, but with a bulldozer coming at it in the background.” ~ Joel Sartore
“For me, it’s always just been about experiencing the things I love and documenting them. I have gotten a lot of joy out of what I do, and I feel lucky to be able to spread that joy.” ~ Chris Burckard
“A photograph is an opportunity to keep a moment forever.” ~ Destin Sparks
“I think a photograph, of whatever it might be – a landscape, a person – requires personal involvement. That means knowing your subject, not just snapping at what’s in front of you.” ~ Frans Lanting
“Memory selects single important images, just as the camera does. In that manner, both are able to isolate the highest moments of living.” ~ Galen Rowell
“Photographs are believed more than words; thus, they can be used persuasively to show people who have never taken the trouble to look at what is there.” ~ Eliot Porter
“Many photographers think they are photographing nature when they are only caricaturing her.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Nature is pure spirit, it is the biggest artist. If you want to document its art, you have to see Art in nature.” ~ Orsolya Haarberg
“Nature is so powerful, so strong. Capturing its essence is not easy – your work becomes a dance with light and the weather. It takes you to a place within yourself.” ~ Annie Leibovitz
“No, you don’t shoot things. You capture them. Photography means painting with light. And that’s what you do. You paint a picture only by adding light to the things you see.” ~ Katja Michael
“The earth is art, the photographer is only a witness.” ~ Yann Arthus-Bertrand
“I don’t come taking millions of pictures. I spend time with them and simply observe. If you wait long enough, those amazing images will come.” ~ Ami Vitale
“Photography allows you to be a part of the action and document stories. it is a perfect extension of my body. I can take it pretty much everywhere and tell a story with a photograph.” ~ Chris Burckard
“Much is missed if we only have eyes for the bright colours. Nature should be viewed without distinction.” ~ Eliot Porter
“When the magic hour arrives, my thoughts centre on light rather than on the landscape.” ~ Galen Rowell
“Photographers deal in things which are continually vanishing and when they have vanished there is no contrivance on earth which can make them come back again.” ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson
“Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter.” ~ Ansel Adams
“Photograph: a picture painted by the sun without instruction in art.” ~ Ambrose Bierce
“A great photograph is one that fully expresses what one feels, in the deepest sense, about what is being photographed.” ~ Ansel Adams
“To approach animals in their most natural, native settings. I have to understand the mysteries of their behaviour. With careful preparation, I can show the animal in its best light, demonstrating its beauty, strength, and intelligence.” ~ Paul Nicklen
“The thing I love about photography is that for just a moment, you can make everyone else look at the world the way you see it.” ~ Amy Spalding
“Photographs allow for connections to be made and for time to pause to appreciate all the world has to offer.” ~ Dustin Thibideau
“God creates the beauty. My camera and I are witness.” ~ Mark Denman
“Never stop looking, no matter where you are, everywhere there are good photographs.” ~ Art Wolfe
“Photography is a major force in explaining man to man.” ~ Edward Steichan
“Images can help us understand the urgency many photographers feel to protect wild places.” ~ Cristina Mittermeier
“We are making photographs to understand what our lives mean to us.” ~ Ralph Hattersley
“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.” ~ Karl Lagerfeld
“If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” ~ Lewis Hine
“Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.” ~ Dorothy Lange
“Photography is inspired by beauty, captured with passion.” ~ Destin Sparks
“A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is thereby a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety.” ~ Ansel Adams
“Taking pictures is savouring life intensely, every hundredth of a second.” ~ Marc Riboud
“Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location.” ~ Joe McNally
“Every photo I take is part of me, bearing testimony to who I am. When I photograph a landscape, the landscape is photographing itself through me. I embrace the landscape, become the landscape, and bear witness to the landscape. As I always say, all you can discover in the world is what you have inside.” ~ Franco Fontana
“You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” ~ Galen Rowell
“This is the gift of the landscape photograph, that the heart finds a place to stand.” ~ Emmet Gowin
“I have not tried to reproduce nature: I have represented it.” ~ Paul Cezanne
Nature Quotes
“If you truly love nature you will find beauty everywhere.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.” ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” ~ Gary Snyder
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” ~ Albert Einstein
“In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.” ~ John Muir
“For in the true nature of things, if we rightly consider every green tree is far more glorious than if it were made of gold or silver” ~ Martin Luther King Jr.
“When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.” ~ John Lennon
“I think Nature’s imagination is so much greater than man’s, she’s never gonna let us relax.” ~ Richard Phillips Feynman
“Being able to smell the fresh air, and disconnect from the news and your phone – there’s nothing like it!” ~ Jason Ward
“Simplicity is the beauty of nature, and silence is its fragrance.” ~ Nitin Namdeo
“The beauty of nature is best known in waves of silence and stillness.” ~ Angie Weiland-Crosby
“Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts.” ~ Rachel Carson
“The silence of nature honestly speaks louder than any words.” ~ Thena Franssen
“Art speaks only to the mind, while nature speaks to all the faculties.” ~ George Sand
“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more that what we could learn from books.” ~ John Lubbock
“There is a way that nature speaks, that land speaks. Most of the time we are simply not patient enough, quiet enough, to pay attention to the story.” ~ Linda Hogan
“The earth laughs in flowers.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“To stand apart from nature is to deny a part of your soul.” ~ Angie Weiland-Crosby
Every flower is a soul blossoming in nature.” ~ Gerard De Nerval
“I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.” ~ Frank Lloyd Wright
“By discovering nature, you discover yourself.” ~ Maxime Lagace
“Lose yourself in nature and find peace.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I go to nature to be soothed and healed, and to put my senses in order.” ~ John Burroughs
“Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.” ~ Isaac Newton
“An understanding of the natural world and what’s in it is a source of not only a great curiosity, but great fulfilment.” ~ David Attenborough
“Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are.” ~ Gretel Ehrlich
“Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift. ~ Albert Einstein
“Look past your thoughts, so you may drink the pure nectar of this moment.” ~ Rumi
“Colours are the smiles of nature.“ ~ Leigh Hunt
“Time spent amongst trees is never wasted time.” ~ Katrina Mayer
“Time is different in an ancient place. Not slower, but somehow bigger, perhaps less transient.” ~ Ruth Rudner
“The most interesting part of the natural world are the edges, places where ocean meets land, meadow meets forest, timberline touches the heights.” ~ Galen Rowell
“My emotions, instincts, and interests are all with nature.” ~ Eliot Porter
“Enoughness is a sense of fulfilment that comes from within and throughout our natural environment.” ~ Cristina Mittermeier
“Choose only one master – nature.” ~ Rembrandt
“Wilderness, our original home, is the place from which all life comes, the place that offers us challenge and beauty, adventure and comfort, triumph, and memory.” ~ Ruth Rudner
“Nature has always had more force than education.” ~ Voltaire
“The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.” ~ Claude Monet
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” ~ William Shakespeare
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” ~ Lao Tzu
“Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” ~ Aristotle
“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely, or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy amidst the simple beauty of nature.” ~ Anne Frank
“Water is the most expressive element in nature. It responds to every mood from tranquillity to turbulence.” ~ Walter J. Phillips
“Nature does nothing uselessly.” ~ Aristotle Captions
To walk in nature is to witness a thousand miracles
Nature never goes out of style
Nature doesn’t need people, people need nature
In the trees, in the breeze..seek nature’s peace and bliss
Nature is painting for us, day after day, picture of infinite beauty
Every flower has its own story
Nature is my definition of beautiful
Bloom where you are planted
Mother Nature is my kind of girl
Get lost in the forest & Don’t find a way back
The times I spend in nature are the some of the moments I feel most alive
Beauty is hidden in everything. Just learn how to observe
The best view comes after the hardest climb
Smell the sea, and feel the sky. Let your soul and spirit fly
Letting nature take its course
On the top of mountains & beneath the stars
A beautiful photograph can point your mind toward beautiful things
Get lost in nature and you will find yourself
Nature and silence go better together
In all things of nature there is something of the marvellous
Peace can be found in every part of nature
Nature is not on the internet
Sunsets are proof that endings can be beautiful
Good vibes happen on the tides
Some see a weed, some see a wish
Nature – cheaper than therapy
Day dreams of river streams
I want to be wild, beautiful, and free. Just like the sea
Every artist dips his brush in his own soul and paints his own nature into his pictures
The shoreline at sunset is simply….beautiful
Nature is my favourite colour
Nature never stops amazing
Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift
Seas the day
In nature, nothing is perfect, and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted and bent in weird ways and still be beautiful.
Nature doesn’t ask for your attention. It commands it.
They say all you need is love, but I need nature
Nature beckons and I must listen
It isn’t nurture or nature. It’s nurtured by nature
Every sunset is an opportunity to reset
Nature makes you realise what it means to live
Try to be a rainbow in someone’s cloud
Take a break from the world’s chaos and find solace in the beauty of nature. It’s a love affair worth having
Just living is not enough…One must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower
Sunrise is still my favourite colour, and rainbow is second
Peace is seeing the sunrise or a sunset and knowing who to thank
Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations
Every sunset brings the promise of a new dawn
Beautiful things don’t ask for attention
The ocean is full of untamed magic
Nature Quotes and Captions for the Seasons
Autumn reminds us to see the beauty in change
“When I have found a landscape which I want to photograph, I wait for the right season, the right weather, and the right time of day or night, to get the picture which I know to be there.” ~ Bill Brandt
Take me where the summer season never ends
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer
Spring is nature’s way of saying, ‘Let’s party!’
Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower
Those extra hours of sunlight—make the most out of them!
There is something infinitely healing in the repeated patterns of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.” ~ Rachel Carson
Autumn, the year’s last loveliest smile
Feeling alive while I float in the summer breeze
With the changing seasons comes new beginnings
“Autumn carries more gold in its pockets than all the other seasons.” ~ Jim Bishop
No matter how long the winter, spring is sure to follow
Sun, summer, and self-care
“Nature gives to every time and season some beauties of its own.” ~ Charles Dickens
Dear Summer, please don’t leave me
“Despite the forecast, live like it’s spring.” ~ Lilly Pulitzer
“All the trees are losing their leaves, and not one of them is worried.” ~ Donald Miller
“Spring adds new life and new beauty to all that is.” ~ Jessica Harrelson
You’ll find me chasing the sun
“They who sing through the summer must dance in the winter.” ~ Italian Proverb
Just a little bit of summer is enough to make one content for the whole year
“Winter passes and one remembers one’s perseverance.” — Yoko Ono
Nature has its style for every season, which keeps reviving with time
“We’re all nurtured by Mother Nature’s cycles and seasons.” ~ Costa Georgiadis
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.
“On the shore of nature’s magic, I dreamed summer knew no end.” ~ Angie Weiland-Crosby
“Winter is not a season, it’s a celebration.” ~ Anamika Mishra
Freedom and summer breeze
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.” ~ John Steinbeck
Never stop chasing your summer
Dear Winter, I’m breaking up with you. I think it’s time I started seeing other seasons. P.S. Summer is hotter than you
“Winter is an etching, spring a watercolour, summer an oil painting, and autumn a mosaic of them all.” ~ Stanley Horowitz
Don’t waste the season of life you are in now because you want the next one to come
A season full of nature’s delights
“No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.” ~ Hal Borland
“A fallen leaf is nothing more than a summer’s wave goodbye.” ~ Unknown
“Live fully in the season you are in, because you won’t get in back.” ~ Caroline Howard
I hope you enjoyed this collection of nature photography quotes and captions.
Being out in nature truly is a beautiful thing, and capturing it through photography is a wonderful way to share its beauty with others.
I also know that finding the perfect caption can be tough, so I wanted to make it easier for you.
If you found this article helpful, I’d love to hear from you! Leave us a comment below and let us know your thoughts.
And don’t forget to share your stunning nature photos with the world!
That’s it for now – Keep clicking and stay caffeinated
Like this post? PIN it so you can save it for later
Other Posts You Might Like:
- Photography Quotes To Spark Your Creativity
- Inspiring Landscape Photography Quotes
- Sunrise Quotes: Capturing the Magic of a Fresh Start
- 100+ Inspirational Waterfall Quotes To Bring Out Your Inner Explorer
- 250+ Sunset Quotes and Captions to Inspire You Every Day
- Funny Travel Quotes: 100+ Fun Quotes And Captions About Travel
80+ Great Travel Photography Quotes To Inspire Your Wanderlust
Don’t miss a post – sign up Here if you haven’t already
Note – Unless otherwise stated, all photos are mine and remain my copyright images – Sam Wilson Photography.
Sam is the creator of cameracoffeeandcabernet.net, a website dedicated to photography and solo travel. Based in Australia, Sam combines her passion for photography and travel to bring you tips, insights and experiences to help you plan, pack, and make the most of your photography while on the road.
Similar Posts
Creating Beautiful Sunstars In Your Photos
Sunstars are a great way to enhance your images. Learn how to easily create the sunstar effect with your camera.
Frame Within A Frame: Easy Ways To Improve Your Composition
Learn what frame within a frame photography is and how it can help you capture amazing photos. Discover helpful and easy ways to improve your compositions
Exposure Compensation: How To Use It For Better Landscape Photos
How does exposure compensation work? It can improve your photos, but what is it and how does it work? Get exposure right the first time with this guide!
The best travel photography quotes curated to inspire you to take more photos, travel more and share your experiences on socials as you go
15 Tips to Improve Your Landscape Photography Composition
Improve your landscape photography with these composition techniques. Discover tips and examples for framing, symmetry, leading lines, and more.
Travel Expectations Versus Reality
5 tips that you can implement to manage your expectations so you get the most out of your next travel experience
Leave a Reply Cancel reply
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.
100 quotes about photography by famous photographers
100 best photography quotes from famous photographers
As well as taking some of the most celebrated images in the world, many famous photographers have plenty of inspirational things to say about their craft. Poignant, inspirational, and sometimes amusing, these quotes are great reading for photographers stuck at home - and looking for something to get them thinking about their own photography successes and failures.
We've rounded up 100 of the best photography quotes that might help how you approach thinking about, composing and taking your images.
Read more: 215 photography tips, video tutorials and photo techniques 20 famous photographers you should follow on Instagram
Best photography quotes: What is photography?
01. “Photography for me is not looking, it’s feeling. If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” Don McCullin
02. Making a photograph is rather like writing a paragraph or a short piece, and putting together a whole string of photographs is like producing a piece of writing in many ways. There is the possibility of making coherent statements in an interesting, subtle, complex way." David Goldblatt
03. “Photography is a response that has to do with the momentary recognition of things. Suddenly you’re alive. A minute later there was nothing there. I just watched it evaporate. You look one moment and there’s everything, next moment it’s gone. Photography is very philosophical.” Joel Meyerowitz
04 . “To photograph truthfully and effectively is to see beneath the surfaces.” Ansel Adams
Get the Digital Camera World Newsletter
The best camera deals, reviews, product advice, and unmissable photography news, direct to your inbox!
05. “Photographing a cake can be art.” Irving Penn
06 . “You can’t teach people photography, they’ve got to learn how to do it the best way possible for them. They can learn from looking at pictures... but they don’t really get intimate with the medium until they’ve made a few bad shots.” Cecil Beaton
07. “It isn’t the alphabet that’s important. The important thing is what you are writing, what you are expressing. The same thing goes for photography.” Andre Kertesz
08. A lot of people seem to think that art or photography is about the way things look, or the surface of things. [...] They don't understand that it's not about a style or a look or a setup. It's about emotional obsession and empathy. Nan Goldin
Best photography quotes: What makes a good picture?
09. “If it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, that’s a good picture." Eddie Adams
10. “Photography is truth. And cinema is truth twenty-four times a second.” Jean-Luc Godard
• Best online photography courses
11 . “If you don’t have anything to say, your photographs are not going to say much.” Gordon Parks
12 . “The best pictures differentiate themselves by nuances…a tiny relationship – either a harmony or a disharmony – that creates a picture.” Ernst Haas
13 . “Just because people use Instagram and take cellphone pictures, it doesn’t mean the pictures are meaningful, anymore than a text someone sends a friend is great literature. Is it something that’s going to remain? Is it going to inspire us?” Steve McCurry
14 . “To me a photograph is a page from life, and that being the case, it must be real.” Weegee
15 . "A good photograph is like a good hound dog, dumb, but eloquent." Eugène Atget
16 . "The best images are the ones that retain their strength and impact over the years, regardless of the number of times they are viewed." Anne Geddes
17 . "A photograph is a collision between a person with a camera and reality. The photograph is typically as interesting as the collision is." Charles Harbutt
18 . "A good picture is born from a state of grace. Grace becomes manifest when one is freed from conventions, free as a child in his first discovery of reality. The game is then to organize the triangle." Sergio Larrain
Best quotes on the fundamental principles of photography
19 . “Photography is not about the thing photographed. It is about how that thing looks photographed.” Garry Winogrand
20 . The magic of photography is metaphysical. What you see in the photograph isn't what you saw at the time. The real skill of photography is organised visual lying." Terence Donovan
21 . “It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things, but in photography... it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.” David Bailey
22 . “Of course, there will always be those who look only at technique, who ask ‘how’, while others of a more curious nature will ask ‘why’. Personally, I have always preferred inspiration to information.” Man Ray
23 . “Photography is a medium in which if you don’t do it then, very often you don’t do it at all, because it doesn’t happen twice. A rock will probably always be more or less there just the way you saw it yesterday. But other things change, they’re not always there the day after or the week after.” Paul Strand
24 . “Ultimately, simplicity is the goal in every art, and achieving simplicity is one of the hardest things to do, yet it’s easily the most essential.” Pete Turner
25 . “You must let the person looking at the photograph go some of the way to finishing it. You should offer them a seed that will grow and open up their minds.” Robert Doisneau
26 . “All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for the inability to notice.” Elliott Erwitt
Best quotes on how to approach a shoot
27 . “Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.” David Alan Harvey
28 . “There is no such thing as taking too much time, because your soul is in that picture.” Ruth Bernhard
29 . “The key is to photograph your obsessions; whether that’s old people’s hands or skyscrapers. Think of a blank canvas, because that’s what you’ve got, and then think about what you want to see – not anyone else.” David Lachapelle
30 . “My favourite words are possibilities, opportunities and curiosity. If you are curious, you create opportunities, and if you open the doors, you create possibilities.” Mario Testino
31 . "The satisfaction comes from working next to 500 photographers and coming away with something different." David Burnett
32 . “I think a photograph, of whatever it might be – a landscape, a person – requires personal involvement. That means knowing your subject, not just snapping away at what’s in front of you.” Frans Lanting
33 . “I can’t tell you how many pictures I’ve missed, ignored, trampled or otherwise lost, just ’cause I’ve been so hell-bent on getting the shot I think I want.” Joe McNally
34 . “Try to understand not just that we are living in a certain building or in a certain location, but to become aware that we are living on a planet that is going at enormous speed through the universe. For me it’s more a synonym. I read a picture not for what’s really going on there, I read it more for what is going on in our world generally.” Andreas Gursky
35 . "The pitfall of photography is that you can end up looking at everything through a camera, instead of seeing it for itself. The viewfinder isolates you. When you look through one, you're cutting everything else out of your vision. The camera can open many doors, but sometimes you need to put it down and live." Maggie Steber
36 . “If I knew what the picture was going to be like, I wouldn’t make it. It was almost like it was made already... the challenge is more about trying to make what you can’t think of.” Cindy Sherman
The importance of instinct
37 . "If you want to make good photographs, a camera has to be second nature to you. Devoting too much attention to technical decisions can interfere with your creative processes." Robert Farber
38 . “It would be mistaken to suppose that any of the best photography is come at by intellection; it is like all art, essentially the result of an intuitive process, drawing on all that the artist is rather than on anything he thinks, far less theorizes about - Helen Levitt
39 . "It seems to me that women have a bigger chance at success in photography than men… Women are quicker and more adaptable than men. And I think they have an intuition that helps them understand personalities more quickly than men." Lee Miller
40 . “It is very hard to say where you’re going until you get there. That kind of thing is based very much on instinct. As a photographer, one of the most important lessons I have learnt is that you have to learn to listen to and trust your own instinct. It has helped to guide me – this far at least.” James Nachtwey
41 . "Technique undoubtedly helps make photography magical, but I prefer to work with atmosphere. I think that the obsession with technique is a male thing. Boy's toys. They love playing... but once you've perfected something you have to start searching for a new toy. I would rather search for a new model or location." Ellen von Unwerth
42 . “Photography concentrates one’s eye on the superficial. For that reason it obscures the hidden life which glimmers through the outlines of things like a play of light and shade. One can’t catch that even with the sharpest lens. One has to grope for it by feeling.” Franz Kafka
43 . “To consult the rules of composition before making a picture is a little like consulting the law of gravitation before going for a walk.” Edward Weston
44 . “The better images occur when you’re moving to the fringes of your own understanding. That's where self-doubt and risk taking are likely to occur. It’s when you trust what’s happening at a non-intellectual non-conscious level that you can produce work that later resonates, often in a way that you can’t articulate a response to." Jerry Uelsmann
45 . “The secret of photography is the camera takes on the character and personality of the handler.” Walker Evans
46 . “The camera is a remarkable instrument. Saturate yourself with your subject and the camera will all but take you by the hand.” Margaret Bourke-White
47 . "Witness is borne and puzzles come together at the photographic moment, which is very simple and complete. The mind-finger presses the release on the silly machine and it stops time and holds what its jaws can encompass and what the light will stain." Lee Freidlander
Thoughts on technique
48 . “Self-conscious artiness is fatal, but it certainly would not hurt to study composition in general. Having a basic understanding of composition would help construct a better organized image.” Berenice Abbott
49 . “I go straight in very close to people, and I do that because it’s the only way you can get the picture. You go right up to them. Even now, I don’t find it easy. I don’t announce it. I pretend to be focusing elsewhere. If you take someone’s photo, it is very difficult not to look at them just after. But it’s the one thing that gives the game away. I don’t try and hide what I’m doing – that would be folly.” Martin Parr
50 . “Black and white are the colours of photography. To me they symbolise the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.” Robert Frank
51 . "The more specific you are, the more general it’ll be.” Diane Arbus
52 . “If your photographs aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” Robert Capa
53 . “By making a frame you’re being selective, then you edit the pictures you want published and you’re being selective again. You develop a point of view that you want to express. You try to go into a situation with an open mind, but then you form an opinion and you express it in your photographs.” Mary Ellen Mark
54 . “Limit your tools, focus on one thing, and just make it work… you become very inventive with the restrictions you give yourself.” Anton Corbijn
55 . “A lot of photographers think that if they buy a better camera they’ll be able to take better photographs. A better camera won’t do a thing for you if you don’t have anything in your head or in your heart.” Arnold Newman
56 . “You are responsible for every part of your image, even the parts you’re not interested in.” Jay Maisel
57 . “The most important piece of equipment after the camera is a good pair of shoes. A writer can work from a hotel room but a photographer has to be there, so he/she is in for a hell of a lot of hiking.” David Hurn
58 . “During the work, you have to be sure that you haven’t left any holes, that you’ve captured everything, because afterwards it will be too late” Henry Cartier-Bresson
59 . “No amount of toying with shades of print or with printing papers will transform a commonplace photograph into anything other than a commonplace photograph.” Bill Brandt
60 . “I’m so worried that I’m going to perfect [my] technique someday. I have to say it’s unfortunate how many of my pictures do depend upon some technical error.” Sally Mann
Best quotes on how to improve your photography
61 . “Those who want to be serious photographers, you're really going to have to edit your work. You're going to have to understand what you're doing. You're going to have to not just shoot, shoot, shoot. To stop and look at your work is the most important thing you can do” Annie Leibovitz
62 . "If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff." Jim Richardson
63 . "Never stop looking, no matter where you are, everywhere there are good photographs." Art Wolfe
64. “You become technically proficient whether you want to or not, the more you take pictures.” William Eggleston
65. “Look at lots of exhibitions and books, and don't get hung up on cameras and technical things. Photography is about images." Fay Godwin
66 . “The more pictures you see, the better you are as a photographer.” Robert Mapplethorpe
67 . "One of the biggest mistakes photographers make is not having work that defines their interests and strengths. No one is going to hire you for what you say you like to do. You have to show them that you are capable of it first." Ami Vitale
68 . "Be yourself. I much prefer seeing something, even it is clumsy, that doesn't look like somebody else's work." William Klein
69 . “Chance is always there. We all use it. The difference is, a poor photographer meets chance one out of a hundred times and a good photographer meets chance all the time.” Brassaï
70 . "A photographer is an acrobat treading the high wire of chance, trying to capture shooting stars." Guy Le Querrec
71 . “There is a brief moment when all there is in a man’s mind and soul and spirit is reflected through his eyes, his hands, his attitude. This is the moment to record.” Yousuf Karsh
72 . “You only get one sunrise and one sunset a day, and you only get so many days on the planet. A good photographer does the math and doesn’t waste either.” Galen Rowell
Best quotes on how to shoot people
73 . “It’s one thing to make a picture of what a person looks like; it’s another thing to make a portrait of who they are.” Paul Caponigro
74 . “A photographic close-up is perhaps the purest form of portraiture, creating a confrontation between the viewer and the subject that daily interaction makes impossible, or at least impolite.” Martin Schoeller
75 . “To me, the face – the eyes, the expression of the mouth – is the thing that reflects character. It is the only part of the body that permits us to see the inner person.” Philippe Halsman
76 . “We all have a sort of mask of expression. You say goodbye, you smile, you are scared. I try to take all these masks away and little by little subtract until you have something pure left. A kind of abandon, a kind of absence.” Paolo Roversi
77 . “I never think about a shoot before I do it. Because there's no formula for people. What I try to do is to strip everything away rather than go in with preconceived notions. If I do that, I might miss a gem or a jewel that the person is offering me." Platon
78 . “People are aware of the power of a camera, and this instinctively makes most subjects uncomfortable and stiff. But Bebeto taught me to linger in a place long enough, without photographing, so that people grew comfortable with me and the camera’s presence.” Lynsey Addario
79 . "A good portrait is the rapport that is established between two people, there has to be someone in front of the camera and someone behind it." Jeanloup Sieff
80 . "It doesn't matter if you're photographing a porter in a market in Marrakech or you're photographing the king of Morocco. You have the same sympathetic approach to everybody. You be nice to everybody, basically." Albert Watson
81 . "The majority of the people I've taken photographs of, I've had conversations with. 'What are your goals and aspirations?'. 'What are you about?' It's not just about me capturing the image; I want to know what you are about." Jamel Shabazz
82 . “A portrait is not made in the camera but on either side of it.” Edward Steichen
83 . “The photographer, even in fashion and portraiture, has to have a standpoint. It's important to know what you stand for, no? Most people just take pictures but they stand for nothing. They follow trends and don't know why." Peter Lindbergh
84 . "I don’t need to know anything about the people I photograph, but it’s important that I recognise something about myself in them." Rineke Dijkstra
Best quotes on finding your passion
85. “If a day goes by without my doing something related to photography, it’s as though I’ve neglected something essential to my existence.” Richard Avedon
86 . “Which of my photographs is my favourite? The one I’m going to take tomorrow.” Imogen Cunningham
87 . "There's no dividing line between adventure and photography." Chris Noble
88 . “There’s a time when people say your work is revolutionary, but you have to keep being revolutionary. I can’t keep shooting pop stars all my life. You have to keep changing, keep pushing yourself, looking for the new, the unusual.” Rankin
89 . “One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.” Dorothy Lange
90 . "Photography is something you learn to love very quickly. I know that many, many things are going to ask me to have their pictures taken and I will take them all." Jacques-Henri Lartigue
91 . “I think if I ever get satisfied, I’ll have to stop. It’s the frustration that drives you.” Eve Arnold
To the point: Best short quotes on photography
92 . "Only photograph what you love." Tim Walker
93 . “I didn’t write the rules. Why should I follow them?” W Eugene Smith
94. "If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn't need to lug around a camera." Lewis Hine
95 . "The first 10 000 shots are the worst." ` Helmut Newton
96 . "Photography: so many attempts - so few masterpieces." James Elliott
97 . "For every negative that is a disappointment, there is one that is a joy." Edward S Curtis
98. “Photography’s 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent moving furniture.” Gregory Heisler
99 . “It’s more important to click with people than to click the shutter.” Alfred Eisenstaedt
100 . “Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.” Peter Adams
Read more: The best coffee table books on photography
The best books on portrait photography
The best books on food photography
The best books on street photography
44 tips cards for photographers
Thank you for reading 5 articles this month* Join now for unlimited access
Enjoy your first month for just £1 / $1 / €1
*Read 5 free articles per month without a subscription
Join now for unlimited access
Try first month for just £1 / $1 / €1
Tom May is a freelance writer and editor specializing in art, photography, design and travel. He has been editor of Professional Photography magazine, associate editor at Creative Bloq , and deputy editor at net magazine. He has also worked for a wide range of mainstream titles including The Sun, Radio Times, NME, T3, Heat, Company and Bella.
Related articles
120 Best Travel Quotes (with Photos) to Fuel Your Wanderlust
Travel quotes possess a unique power, encapsulating the essence of our journeying experiences. Whether they are motivational quotes about traveling or inspirational travel quotes on exploration, these words often resonate deeply within us. I have curated a collection of inspiring quotes paired with captivating images to convey the profound sentiments evoked by travel.
When merged with striking visuals, these quotes possess the ability to transport others to the essence of your travel encounters. My selection of travel quotes is designed to ignite inspiration and drive, urging you and fellow wanderers to embark on new explorations. Whether as travel quotes for Instagram or Pinterest , these words are crafted to accompany your travel stories seamlessly. For an extra dose of wanderlust, explore my adventure quotes as well!
Prepare to be stirred by a fusion of my cherished travel quotes and poignant photographs captured during my journeys. Let these words and images kindle your wanderlust!
120 Best Travel Quotes
Travel adventure quotes.
1. “Not all who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
2. “He who would travel happily must travel light.” – Antoine de St. Exupery
3. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Gustave Flaubert
4. “It is better to travel well than to arrive.” – Buddha
Phuket Travel Tips
5. “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
6. “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill
7. “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.” – Mark Twain
8. Is there something you want to do that freaks you out? Go for it! Sometimes, the scariest ideas turn into the best travel memories.
11. “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux
12. “Great things never came from comfort zones.”
Best Hong Kong Outlying Islands
13. “We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment.” – Hilaire Belloc
14. “The travel route to wisdom starts with the first step, even if it is taken in the wrong direction.” – Paulo Coelho
15. “The best trips are the ones where you don’t make any plans and just see where the wind takes you.”
16. “Adventure may hurt you, but monotony will kill you.”
Famous Travel Quotes
17. “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other places, other lives, other souls.” – Anais Nin
18. “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” – Dalai Lama
19. “Never let your memories be greater than your dreams.”
The Ultimate Black Forest Travel Guide
20. “No place is ever as bad as they tell you it’s going to be.” – Chuck Thompson
23. “Take only memories, leave only footprints” – Chief Seattle
24. “Travel makes one modest, you see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”
25. “Jobs fill your pockets, adventures fill your soul.” – Jamie Lyn Beatty
26. “Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.”
27. “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” – Saint Augustine
28. “Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.”
29. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all” – Helen Keller
Time to Travel Quotes
30. “The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton
31. “Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard
32. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
33. “Traveling is like an adventure where you don’t know what’s going to happen next, but you’re excited to find out.”
34. “The world is a magical place, and it’s full of adventures waiting to be had.”
35. “I thought I wanted a career. Turns out I just want a paycheck to buy plane tickets.”
36. “I want to make memories all over the world.”
37. “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” -Jack Kerouac
Inspirational Travel Quotes
38. “We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.”
41. “The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, see them as they are.” – Samuel Johnson
42. “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
43. “Without new experiences, something inside us sleeps. The sleeper must be awakened.”
44. “Travel, because money returns. Time doesn’t.”
45. “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” -H. Jackson Brown Jr.
Travel Quotes for Couples
46. “Adventures are best served together.”
47. “Let’s get lost.”
48. “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.” – Ernest Hemingway
49. “Travel brings power and love back to your life.” — Rumi
50. “Actually, the best gift you could have given her was a lifetime of adventures.”– Lewis Carroll
51. “To be brave is to love someone unconditionally, without expecting anything in return.” – Margaret Mitchell
53. “Be careful who you make memories with. Those things can last a lifetime.” — Ugo Eze
54. “I’ve fallen in love with adventures, so I begin to wonder if that’s why I’ve fallen for you.” – E. Grin
55. “A couple who travel together, grow together.” – Ahmad Fuadi
Memory Travel Quotes
56. “The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.” – Gilbert K. Chesterton
57. “Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow.”
58. “I’m in love with cities I’ve never been to and people I’ve never met.” – John Green
59. “Traveling- it leaves you speechless then turns you into a storyteller.” -Ibn Battuta
60. “Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.” – Terry Pratchett
61. “You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy plane tickets, which is kind of the same thing.”
62. “Traveling is a way to discover new cultures and ways of life, to learn about the world and ourselves, and to create lasting memories.”
63. “Live with no excuses and travel with no regrets.” -Oscar Wilde
64. “Girls just wanna have sun.”
65. “Culture shock is feeling homesick but not knowing where home is.” – Rick Steves
66. “The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” – Rudyard Kipling
67. “It is not down in any map; true places never are.” – Herman Melville
Short Travel Quotes
68. “The world is a canvas to the imagination.” – Henry David Thoreau
70. “Life is a journey, not a destination.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
71. “I’m not a tourist, I’m a traveler.” – Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) in 24
72. “Backpacking is money spent on education.”
73. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
74. “To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Andersen
75. “The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
76. “Never stop doing things for the first time.”
77. “Travel is like an endless university. You never stop learning.” -Harvey Lloyd
78. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all. – Helen Keller
79. “Travel is my therapy.”
80. “Wherever you go, go with all your heart.”
81. “Do not dare not to dare.”
82. “Be afraid. And do it anyway.”
Instagram Travel Quotes
83. “I Googled my symptoms. Turns out I just needed to go on a vacay.”
84. “The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey
85. “I wish I had never gone traveling.” Said no one, EVER!
86. “Because when you stop and look around, this life is pretty amazing.”
89. “I am not a great reader. I am more of a man of action. But I do like a good book about travel and adventure.” – Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford)
90. “I’ve got 99 problems. But I’m on vacation, so I’m ignoring them all!”
Funny Travel Quotes
91. “This is my resting beach face.”
92. “I love those days when my only decision is window or aisle.”
93. “The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and beer.”
94. “I followed my heart, and it led me to the airport.”
95. “I’m getting used to wearing flip-flops everywhere. It’s a dangerous place to be. Next thing you know, I’m gonna show up to a board meeting in sandals.”
96. “I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.”- Mark Twain
97. “You know it’s time for vacation when you start looking like the person on your driver’s license.”
98. “In Travel Mode. Do not disturb.”
99. “Girls don’t wait for the prince anymore. They pack and travel the world.”
Solo Travel Quotes
100. “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca
101. “To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries.” – Aldous Huxley
102. “The man who goes alone can start today, but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.” – Henry David Thoreau
103. “I am not the same having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
104. “This heart of mine was made to travel this world.”
105. “My Friend: I’m getting a house. Another Friend: I’m having a baby. His Friend: I’m getting married…Me: I’m headed to the airport.”
107. “Travel doesn’t become an adventure until you leave yourself behind.”
108. “The more I traveled, the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” – Shirley MacLaine
109. “There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
110. “I’m a travel addict on the road to recovery. Just kidding. I’m headed to the airport.”
Family Travel Quotes
111. “Traveling with kids is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.”
112. “Traveling with kids is not a vacation. It’s an adventure.”
113. “Traveling with kids is like taking a time machine back to when you were a kid and experiencing everything with them.”
114. “Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children are roots and wings.” -Hodding Carter
115. “Traveling in the company of those we love is home in motion.” -Leigh Hunt
116. “The world is a playground, and traveling with kids is like having a VIP pass.”
117. “The greatest legacy we can leave our children is happy memories.” -Og Mandino
118. “Forget toys. It’s time to travel.”
119. “Every day we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.” -Charles R Swindoll
120. “Making memories one family trip at a time.”
Travel Captions
Unleash your creativity by crafting personalized pins and infuse them with the enchanting allure of these remarkable travel quotes.
“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the most pleasant sensations in the world.” ~ Freya Stark
A 2-day Yangon Itinerary
“There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.” ~ Jack Kerouac
“I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” ~ Mary Anne Radmacher
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things” ~ Henry Miller
“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” ~ Bill Bryson
“For my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.”~ Robert Louis Stevenson
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” ~ Lao Tzu
“The more I traveled the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends” ~ Shirley MacLaine
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. ~ Mark Twain
“Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.” ~ Lawrence Block
Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life. – Jack Kerouac
“A traveler without observation is a bird without wings” ~ Moslih Eddin Saadi
Final Thoughts on the Best Travel Quotes
May these travel quotes ignite a passion within you to embrace life to the fullest and perceive the world through a lens of excitement. Whether you seek a respite from the rigors of office life or embark on a thrilling backpacking expedition, each encounter you face will serve as invaluable lessons and cherished memories.
Incorporate these travel quotes into your journal entries, share them across your social media platforms to rally friends to join your adventures, or use them as captivating captions for your upcoming posts. Let the spirit of wanderlust proliferate and inspire a wave of exploration!
Greece Travel Guide
Bangkok Travel Tips for First-Time Visitors to Thailand
My Top Tips For Travel in Phuket
- Privacy Overview
- Strictly Necessary Cookies
My website uses cookies so that I can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to my website and helping me to understand which sections of Mind The Travel you find most interesting and useful.
You can adjust all of your cookie settings by navigating the tabs on the left hand side.
Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that I can save your preferences for cookie settings.
If you disable this cookie, I will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit my website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.
101 Epic Photography Quotes + Sayings
by Mark and Kristen Morgan
Published: September 5, 2022
Photography is a long journey, but it can be enjoyed by anyone. We believe a good photographer is always experimenting and looking for their next photo so this long list of photography quotes is meant to inspire your next shoot.
We’ve organized this guide featuring quotes about photography into various topics so you can easily search for a particular theme.
Best Photography Quotes
1. “Light makes photography. Embrace light. Admire it. Love it. But above all, know light. Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.” – George Eastman
2. “Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work.” – Martin Parr
3. “Only photograph what you love.” – Tim Walker
4. “The camera is an excuse to be someplace you otherwise don’t belong. It gives me both a point of connection and a point of separation.” – Susan Meiselas
5. “Photography is truth. The cinema is truth twenty-four times per second.” – Jean-Luc Godard
6. “The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera.” – Dorothea Lange
7. “My camera is my passport.” – Steve McCurry
8. “Life is like a camera. Just focus on what’s important and capture the good times, develop from the negatives, and if things don’t work out, just take another shot.” – Anon
9. “When I have a camera in my hand, I know no fear.” – Alfred Eisenstaedt
10. “The best thing about a picture is that it never changes, even when the people in it do.” – Andy Warhol
11. “You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at the picture for a second and think of it all your life.” – Joan Miro
12. “If I have any message worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no shortcuts in photography.” – Edward Weston
13. “Kodak sells film, but they don’t advertise film; they advertise memories.” – Theodore Levitt
14. “Normally, the best photos are arrived at not by coincidence.” – Paul Goldstein
15. “All the technique in the world doesn’t compensate for the inability to notice.” – Elliott Erwitt
16. “If you are out there shooting, things will happen for you. If you’re not out there, you’ll only hear about it.” – Jay Maisel
17. “I appreciate these moments where I can get away from life and focus on living.” – TJ Thorne
18. “Great photography is about depth of feeling, not depth of field.” – Peter Adams
Nature Photography Quotes
19. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” – William Shakespeare
20. “Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and more.” – Vincent Van Gogh
21. “Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.” – Albert Einstein
22. “Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.” – Lao Tzu
23. “Actually, it’s nature itself that creates the most beautiful pictures, I’m only choosing the perspective.” – Katja Michael
24. “Nature never goes out of style.” – Unknown
25. “It all ultimately comes down to showing respect to nature and understanding the species you want to photograph.” – Riddhi Mukherjee
26. “Adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
27. “Joy in looking and comprehending is nature’s most beautiful gift.” – Albert Einstein
28. “The richness I achieve comes from Nature, the source of my inspiration.” – Claude Monet
29. “Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy.” – Isaac Newton
30. “I love landscape photography because it clears my thoughts and it brings light and inspiration into my mind.” – Jan Bainar
31. “Choose only one master – nature.” – Rembrandt
32. “If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” – Laura Ingalls Wilder
33. “I like to shoot peaceful and minimalistic pictures with respect for nature, pictures that get your attention a bit longer.” – Piet Haaksma
34. “The typical nature photograph shows a butterfly on a pretty flower. The conservation photograph shows the same thing, but with a bulldozer coming at it in the background.” – Joel Sartore
35. “Nature always wears the colors of the spirit .” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Black and White Photography Quotes
36. “When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in Black and white, you photograph their souls!” – Ted Grant
37. “In photography, there are no shadows that cannot be illuminated.” – August Sander
38. “Things are not quite so simple always as black and white.” – Doris Lessing
39. “We see in color all the time. Black and white is therefore immediately an interpretation of the world, rather than a copy.” – Michael Kenna
40. “The special factor about black and white photography is that it doesn’t just copy the reality, but it represents it with its own language.” – Gian Marco Marano
41. “Black and white is abstract; color is not. Looking at a black and white photograph, you are already looking at a strange world.” – Joel Sternfeld
42. “A good color picture is usually a good black and white too.” – John Beardsworth
43. “The world is in color, you have to work at black and white.” – Andrew Maclean
44. “Black and white images take you beyond what most people photograph.” – Rob Sheppard
45. “There’s something strange and powerful about black and white imagery.” – Stefan Kanfer
46. “Black and white can transform a scene into something magical.” – Rob Sheppard
47. “Smile so damn bright that even black and white can’t dull your shine.” – Tilicia Haridat
48. “Black and white always looks modern, whatever that word means.” – Karl Lagerfeld
49. “Color is descriptive. Black and white is interpretive.” – Eliott Erwitt
50. “The most colorful thing in the world is black and white, it contains all colors and at the same time excludes all.” – Vikrmn
Funny Photography Quotes
51. “Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
52. “Taking pictures is like tiptoeing into the kitchen late at night and stealing Oreo cookies.” – Diane Arbus
53. “Actually, I’m not all that interested in the subject of photography. Once the photo is in the box, I’m not all that interested in what happens next. Hunters, after all, aren’t cooks.” – Henri Cartier-Bresson
54. “If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” – Lewis Hine
55. “When the world asks, “what was it like?” Only the photographers can say, “See!” – Mark Denman
56. “Photography is an itch that won’t go away. No matter how much you scratch it.” – Dara McGrath
57. “Once photography enters your bloodstream, it is like a disease.” – Anon
58. “Since I’m inarticulate, I express myself with images.” – Helen Levitt
59. “A photograph is like a recipe – the memory is the finished dish.” – Carrie Latet
60. “No place is boring, if you’ve had a good night’s sleep and have a pocket full of unexposed film.” – Robert Adams
61. “I never have taken a picture I’ve intended. They’re always better or worse.” – Diane Arbus
62. “Don’t pack up your camera until you’ve left the location.” – Joe McNally
63. “The best photographers do not need 50,000 dollars worth of gear. Look what Ansel Adams did with a Kodak brownie camera. A good photographer has a way of seeing (perspective) that is different from the mundane.” – David Hultgren
64. “Just be prepared to look back in a few years on yourself, and your photos, and laugh.” – Ben Chrisman
65. “There are no bad pictures; that’s just how your face looks sometimes.” – Abraham Lincoln
66. “People say photographs don’t lie, mine do.” – David LaChapelle
67. “The quickest way to make money at photography is to sell your camera.” – Anonymous
68. “Photography is pretty simple stuff. You just react to what you see, and take many, many pictures.” – Elliott Erwitt
Wedding Photography Quotes
69. “I love the people I photograph. I mean, they’re my friends. I’ve never met most of them or I don’t know them at all, yet through my images I live with them.” – Bruce Gilden
70. “If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff.” – Jim Richardson
71. “Photography is a way of feeling, of touching, of loving. What you have caught on film is captured forever… It remembers little things, long after you have forgotten everything.” – Aaron Siskind
72. “If you can’t feel what you’re looking at, then you’re never going to get others to feel anything when they look at your pictures.” – Don McCullin
73. “I like to photograph anyone before they know what their best angles are.” – Ellen Von Unwerth
74. “Don’t shoot what it looks like. Shoot what it feels like.” – David Alan Harvey
75. “The most important thing at a wedding is to photograph the bride. The second most important thing is not to forget the groom.” – Alix Reuters
76. “If you force it and you keep looking for moments then you’ll end up shooting what you think the wedding should look like rather than actual moments that are unfolding in front of you.” – Joe Buissink
77. “A thing that you see in my pictures is that I was not afraid to fall in love with these people.” – Annie Leibovitz
78. “It is a profound honor as a photographer to witness two people falling in love.” – Jesh de Rox
79. “It is more important to click with people than to click the shutter.” – Alfred Eisenstaedt
80. “What I love about Black & White photographs is that they’re more like reading the book than seeing the movie” – Jennifer Price
81. “Life is in color, but black and white is more realistic.” – Samuel Fuller
82. “It is one thing to photograph people. It is another to make others care about them by revealing the core of their humanness.” – Paul Strand
83. “Anyone can shoot chaos. But the most perceptive photographers can make compelling pictures out of uninteresting moments.” – Alex Tehrani
84. “All of us imagine a wedding as the happiest time for a family but that doesn’t cross off the fact that it is also the most chaotic time.” – Pooja Agnihotri
85. “Photography is the beauty of life captured.” – Tara Chisolm
86. “The best images are the ones that retain their strength and impact over the years, regardless of the number of times they are viewed.” – Anne Geddes
Ansel Adams Photography Quotes
Ansel Adams was an American landscape photographer who is well known for his images of the American West. You can check out his gallery here .
87. “When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.” – Ansel Adams
88. “The negative is the equivalent of the composer’s score and the print the performance.” – Ansel Adams
89. “A good photograph is knowing where to stand.” – Ansel Adams
90. “You don’t take a photograph, you make it.” – Ansel Adams
91. “If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph.” — Ansel Adams
92. “There are always two people in every photo: the photographer and the viewer.” – Ansel Adams
93. “In my mind, I visualize how a particular… sight will appear on a print. If it excites me, there is a good chance it will make a good photograph. It is an intuitive sense, an ability that comes from a lot of practice.” – Ansel Adams
94. “It is my intention to present – through the medium of photography – intuitive observations of the natural world which may have meaning to the spectators.” – Ansel Adams
95. “Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer – and often the supreme disappointment.” – Ansel Adams
96. “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” – Ansel Adams
97. “Twelve significant photographs in any one year is a good crop.” – Ansel Adams
98. “Sometimes I arrive just when God’s ready to have someone click the shutter.” – Ansel Adams
99. “There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.” – Ansel Adams
100. “You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.”- Ansel Adams
101. “Not everybody trusts paintings but people believe photographs.” – Ansel Adams
More Quotes
- Inspirational travel quotes
- Best hiking quotes
- Quotes about the sunset
- Epic New York quotes
- Quotes for a road trip
- Fun waterfall quotes
- Quotes about national parks
- Mountain climbing quotes
- Best beach day quotes
More Photography
- 60+ best photography spots in NYC
- Best Grand Canyon viewpoints
- Mesa Arch sunrise photography guide
- Best Bryce Canyon photo spots
- Sunrise and sunset spots in Sedona
- Where to photograph the Golden Gate Bridge
- Best sunrise and sunset spots at Grand Canyon
- Best photography spots in Yosemite
Want more photography content? Head over to our Photography Guides from around the world.
We hope this guide featuring the best photography quotes helps to inspire your next photoshoot!
Please let us know if you have any questions about photography quotes or photography in the comments below.
Happy Shooting ,
Mark and Kristen
Enjoy this Photography Quotes guide? Pin it for later !
Note : This article contains affiliate links. When you make a purchase using one of these affiliate links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
All Rights Reserved © Where Are Those Morgans, LLC. Republishing this article and/or any of its contents (text, photography, maps, graphics, etc.) in whole or in part is strictly prohibited.
Mark and Kristen Morgan are travel, hiking and photography experts. Over the last 6 years traveling full time, they have explored more than 40 countries and 30 US states.
Where Are Those Morgans has been featured in USA Today, Gestalten, Get Your Guide, CityPASS and Condé Nast Traveler along with various other publications. Read more about us .
Leave a Comment Cancel reply
Subscribe to our newsletter
Get the latest in travel straight to your inbox
Click here to subscribe
Photo Organizers: Travel and Photography Quotes
by Adminpost | Aug 2, 2017 | Celebrate and Share | 1 comment
Travel and photography go hand in hand. This month we shared some of our favorite photo related travel quotes.
No place is boring if you had a good night’s sleep and a pocket full of unexposed film.
~ Robert Adams
Photography is a form of time travel. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson
The only things I own which are still worth what they have cost me are my travel memories…
the mind-pictures of places which I have been hoarding like a miser. ~ Burton Homes
Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs. ~ Susan Sontag
If you need help organizing and preserving your lifetime of photos, videos and keepsakes, find a photo organizer near you at the Association of Personal Photo Organizers .
Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs. ~ Susan Sontag. Funny, when I read that, I totally related to it, as someone who was a professional travel photographer for over 20 years, that sentiment was right on. As luck would have though, I have been reading Sontag’s On Photography, the collections of writings she did about photography, and just came across that passage. Turns out she did not really intend it in a positive way. She was essentially saying that when we travel, we can often use the camera and the act of photographing as a way of limiting our experience of traveling. “Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs… Most tourists feel compelled to put the camera between themselves and whatever is remarkable that they encounter… Using a camera appeases the anxiety which the work-driven feel about not working when they are on vacation and supposed to be having fun.” Ouch!
I noticed during the beginnings of my travel career that I tended to shoot scenes from a distance and avoided contact with my subjects. The photos were often disconnected and not very engaging. I realized that travel was about connecting and the best and most obvious way to do that was to talk to my subjects prior to photographing them. I could ask them questions and engage with them. At that point asking them to pose was easy and always resulted in a far better photo than if I settled for a candid shot. Most importantly I could look at that photo months or years later, and remember the connection I made with that person, the experience lived on in the photo.
Maybe I also learned something from that person (even if it was in sign language), and occasion they might invite me to share a meal with them or a drink. They often would tell me about places and subjects off the beaten track that other tourists or pro photographers would not know about. I teach my students this approach because honestly, it can be applied whether you are visiting across the ocean or photographing across town. Connection is what we want when we travel and photograph, the camera can be a tool to either enable this or distract from it.
Submit a Comment Cancel reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Recent Posts
- A Family Business of Photo Managers: Kristin & Madisyn Goodman
- Essential Tools and Services of Pro Photo Managers: A Top 10 list from the Pros!
- “Why Sort Your Photos?” with Amanda Littlecott
- Zoomers to Boomers: Photo Managers from Four Generations – Madisyn Goodman
- Zoomers to Boomers: Photo Managers from Four Generations – Ana Pratas
Recent Comments
- Tips for Documenting your Family’s Story – Your Found Memories on Are You the Family Historian? Four ways to make the life of a family historian easier—and more meaningful
- Cathy Bauer on Use This Filing System to Organize Your Digital Photos
- The Ultimate Guide to Dating Your Family Photos - Good Life Photo Solutions | Photo Organizing Fort Worth Dallas Texas | Andi Willis on Organize Your Photo Life: Create a Family Timeline
- How do I put the time and location on my Photos? - Museums-Answers on Be a Photo Detective: Tricks to Dating Your Family Snapshots
- Comment Sauver Mes Diapositives En Tant Que Photo? on I have thousands of old slides – what should I do with them?
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- February 2023
- January 2023
- December 2022
- November 2022
- October 2022
- September 2022
- August 2022
- December 2021
- November 2021
- September 2021
- October 2020
- August 2020
- February 2019
- January 2019
- December 2018
- November 2018
- October 2018
- September 2018
- August 2018
- February 2018
- January 2018
- December 2017
- November 2017
- October 2017
- September 2017
- August 2017
- February 2017
- January 2017
- December 2016
- November 2016
- October 2016
- February 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- August 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- Career as Photo Organizer
- Celebrate and Share
- Digital Photos
- Film and Video
- Keepsakes and Memorabilia
- Photo organizing
- Printed Photos
- Uncategorized
- Entries feed
- Comments feed
- WordPress.org
Privacy Overview
- Discussions
- Reading Challenge
- Kindle Notes & Highlights
- Favorite genres
- Friends’ recommendations
- Account settings
Photography Quotes
Browse By Tag
- Love Quotes 96.5k
- Life Quotes 76.5k
- Inspirational Quotes 72k
- Humor Quotes 43k
- Philosophy Quotes 29.5k
- Inspirational Quotes Quotes 26.5k
- God Quotes 26k
- Truth Quotes 23.5k
- Wisdom Quotes 23.5k
- Romance Quotes 22.5k
- Poetry Quotes 21.5k
- Death Quotes 19.5k
- Happiness Quotes 18.5k
- Life Lessons Quotes 18k
- Hope Quotes 17.5k
- Faith Quotes 17.5k
- Quotes Quotes 16.5k
- Inspiration Quotes 16.5k
- Spirituality Quotes 15k
- Motivational Quotes 15k
- Religion Quotes 14.5k
- Writing Quotes 14.5k
- Relationships Quotes 14k
- Life Quotes Quotes 14k
- Success Quotes 13.5k
- Love Quotes Quotes 13.5k
- Time Quotes 12.5k
- Motivation Quotes 12k
- Science Quotes 11.5k
- Knowledge Quotes 11k
Welcome back. Just a moment while we sign you in to your Goodreads account.
IMAGES
COMMENTS
100+ Travel Photography Quotes. The most valuable things in life are a man's memories. And they are priceless. Andre Kertesz. My favorite thing is to go where I've never been. Diane Arbus. Sometimes I arrive just when God's ready to have someone click the shutter. Ansel Adams.
A travel photographer becomes involved with his or her surroundings and the people; the resulting pictures become more intimate.". - Jim Richardson. 10. "Having a camera around your neck gives you a good excuse to be nosy.". - Martin Parr. 11. "The earth is art; the photographer is only a witness.".
Short and Snappy Travel Photography Quotes. "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes." ~ Marcel Proust. "Just to travel is rather boring, but to travel with a purpose is educational and exciting." ~ Sargent Shriver. "Wherever you go becomes a part of you somehow." ~ Anita Desai.
12. "No place is boring if you had a good nights' sleep and a pocket full of unexposed film.". ― Robert Adams. 13. "Photography is a form of time travel.". ― Neil DeGrasse Tyson. Rome, Italy sunset. 14. "My life is shaped by the urgent need to wander and observe, and my camera is my passport.".
Here are the best travel quotes from famous artists, world travelers, and other literary greats. ... Travel Tips; Travel Photography; 73 Best Travel Quotes To Inspire Your Next Vacation.
To me it feels like a kind of performance. The picture is a document of that performance.". ― Alec Soth. 4. "The whole nature of photography has changed with the advent of a camera in everybody's hand. ― Sally Mann. 5. "If you want to be a better photographer, stand in front of more interesting stuff.".
Top 50 Travel Quotes Of All Time. 1. "Adventure is worthwhile.". - Aesop. It doesn't get more simplistic than Aesop's take on traveling, the ancient Greek storyteller. This classic travel quote continues to inspire me. 2. "Traveling - it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.". - Ibn Battuta.
It's our own little bubble and when we are able to bust out of it to see what the world is like, it will challenge you to open your eyes, mind, and be a better person. In Mary's words, you will never be the same again. 6. "Wanderlust: a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel and explore the world".
Almost every time I log onto Facebook, I'm greeted by a litany of inspirational quotes on life and travel. After collecting a folder full of my favorites, I started writing my own. ... PHOTOGRAPHY. Imagery from 14 years of world travel. STORYTELLING. Travel guides, journals & photo essays. GRATITUDE. 28-days of thank you's and honest ...
27. "In photography, there is a reality so subtle that it becomes more real than reality.". - Alfred Stieglitz. 28. "Photography helps people to see.". - Berenice Abbott. 29. "The single most important component of a camera is the twelve inches behind it!". - Ansel Adam.
54 of the best travel quotes out there. Get inspired to travel the world and explore more. Includes shareable photos with quotes. 54 of the best travel quotes out there. ... Lina is an award-winning photographer and writer that has been exploring the world since 2001. She has traveled to 100 countries on all 7 continents. Member: SATW, NATJA ...
Photography And Travel Quotes. A tourist is a fellow who drives thousands of miles so he can be photographed standing in front of his car. Emile Genest. Travel, Car, Tourists. 8 Copy quote. Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends. Pat Conroy. Travel, Adventure, Vacation. 17 Copy quote.
All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.". — Richard Avedon. "A true photograph need not be explained, nor can it be contained in words.". — Ansel Adams. "The truth is the best picture, the best propaganda.". — Robert Capa. "Good photography is unpretentious.". — Walker Evans.
Nature Photography Quotes. "When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence." ~ Ansel Adams. "It all ultimately comes down to showing respect to nature and understanding the species you want to photograph" ~ Riddhi Mukherjee.
Eugène Atget. Anne Geddes (Image credit: Photo by Scott Gries/Getty Images) 16. "The best images are the ones that retain their strength and impact over the years, regardless of the number of times they are viewed." Anne Geddes. 17. "A photograph is a collision between a person with a camera and reality.
Photography Quotes. "If your photos aren't good enough, then you're not close enough.". — Robert Capa. "When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become ...
Funny Travel Quotes. 91. "This is my resting beach face.". 92. "I love those days when my only decision is window or aisle.". 93. "The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and beer.". 94. "I followed my heart, and it led me to the airport.".
Know it for all you are worth, and you will know the key to photography.". - George Eastman. 2. "Photography is the simplest thing in the world, but it is incredibly complicated to make it really work.". - Martin Parr. 3. "Only photograph what you love.". - Tim Walker. 4.
2. If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough. Robert Capa. This famous quote by Robert Capa doesn't just apply to portrait photography. If you want to make a photo look more interesting, sometimes all that's needed is a change of perspective. 3.
Travel and photography go hand in hand. This month we shared some of our favorite photo related travel quotes. No place is boring if you had a good night's sleep and a pocket full of unexposed film. ~ Robert Adams. Photography is a form of time travel. ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson. The only things I own which are still worth what they have cost me ...
It's in the soul of the artist.". "A photographer is like a cod, which produces a million eggs in order that one may reach maturity.". 1042 quotes have been tagged as photography: Karl Lagerfeld: 'What i like about photographs is that they capture a moment that's gone forever, impossible...
6 likes, 0 comments - princeinsta2023 on May 12, 2024: "Shyari #photography #travel #poetry #love #lovequotes #life #lifequotes #travel #urdu #instareel #quotes #trendingreels #shyari #ex...". Prince | Shyari 💕 #photography #travel #poetry #love #lovequotes #life #lifequotes #travel #urdu #instareel #quotes #trendingreels #shyari #ex ...