Looking for the best travel quotes to sum up your 2020-induced wanderlust?
If 2020 taught us anything, it’s that our deepest challenges can initiate the largest growth spurts. For many of us, 2020 meant the cancellation of travels, work plans, and important gatherings—all essential components of our well-being and ability to thrive. Despite these shortcomings, many of us have delightfully fermented in the silver linings of the situation: things like spending more time with family and delving deeper into our spiritual practices.
But let’s focus on travel. Being leaders in sacred and spiritual travel, we’re especially aware of what COVID-19 has meant for travel. Though they were painful for us and our pilgrims, our trip cancellations this year were in part due to our willingness to practice acceptance amidst a troubling global dilemma.
Travel is a primary vehicle for the development of the soul, thus the world is undoubtedly troubled. We’re currently traveling less. Meanwhile, countries are experiencing less tourism though they depend on it.
With all this in mind, I’ve gathered a series of travel quotes that have been shared on the Sacred Earth Journeys social media over the months. These are to reinspire adventure and to help readers attend to the call to travel as soon as possible in 2021.
Enjoy these travel quotes. Meditate on them yourself before reading my own interpretations.
1. “The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.’ And so it starts.” – Joseph Campbell
This is one of those Campbell travel quotes that, when read, inspires a certain lust for travel… It reminds us of the possibility of not being fully integrated in our own consciousnesses—that’s what it is!: The idea that taking the journey can be mind-bending in all the most necessary ways for it is the journey that unlocks deeper parts of our being.
2. “All of us are pilgrims on this earth. I have even heard it said that the earth itself is a pilgrim in the heavens.” – Maxim Gorky
Gorkey offers us a mind-bending interpretation of pilgrimage, one that invokes the Law of Correspondence (as above, so below). The idea that Mother Earth is on her own pilgrimage through the stars reminds us that being a pilgrim is ultimately the law of life. Though this year has stagnated us in this respect, we can look deeper and realize these times are all part of the bigger picture of the story of our lives. We are on our pilgrimages regardless.
3. “If your journey is meant to be the trip of a lifetime, beware for the road is rife with distractions that will pull you off center; if you don’t love it, pass it by, without judgment, without scorn. Keep moving until you find what you do love.” – Phil Cousineau
Phil Cousineau’s words have easily earned their place among these masterful quotes of great thinkers. In 2021, Cousineau will be leading our journey to Italy, La Dolce Vita: The Sweet Life of Mythic Italy, as well as two to Greece, The Hydra Writer’s Retreat and In the Footsteps of Odysseus and Penelope.
As per the quote… Have we, in 2020 fallen for any distractions that inevitably pulled us off course? What can we do today to bring ourselves back into alignment going into 2021? Remember: “If you don’t love it, pass it by.”
4. “It is confidence in our bodies, minds and spirits that allows us to keep looking for new adventures, new directions to grow in, and new lessons to learn—which is what life is all about.” – Oprah Winfrey
Oprah is right. I know many who’ve thrived during the COVID crisis simply because they’ve kept their wellness practices in check. They’ve worked hard in their mindfulness, their fitness, their spirituality… They’ve nourished an inner reality that in turn kept external opportunity (including adventures) open to them in unique forms.
We never have to live like our lives—our pilgrimages—are on hold. There’s always a choice to nourish new parts of ourselves, to begin new hobbies, to continue to grow. Some may choose book reading, others picking up an instrument or partaking in a new form of fitness (like learning to handstand or slackline). It’s up to us to continue to be the master manifestors of our own realities.
5. “If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.” – Siddhartha Gautama
In 2020, COVID and its circumstances have taught us adaptability. This year, we’ve learned that changing direction (even if we’ve made it far in the “wrong” direction), is essential when needed. COVID has kept many of us at home, whether unemployed or not, and in ripe conditions for soul-searching and questioning the meaning of our lives.
6. “Though the road’s been rocky it sure feels good to me.” – Bob Marley
It’s kind of like that saying “Smooth seas don’t make for skilled sailors.” When things are “good,” life feels sweet, like a bright painting or a warm afternoon full of fresh-cut grass with sliced oranges. When things are “bad,” things can feel…dark. The reason dark times feel good to Bob Marley is because he knows the hard times are what the pilgrimage of the soul is all about.
Ascending the mountain was never meant to be easy. Inevitably it will be full of both smooth and rough patches. The key is to add both of these patches to the repertoire of our personal growth. There’s a lesson in every strife and an increase in resilience in every struggle.
With that being said, 2020 has been the epitome of “rocky” for many. Though this piece is packed full of clever sayings and advice for maintaining a sense of adventure, let us not forget the ones who have suffered most. Their feelings are valid and suffering deserving of the utmost compassion and understanding.
Here’s to a positive mind and furthering our growth through travel in 2021!
~Jacob Lopez, staff writer
