There is no place to go, and so we travel. You and I; and what for, just to imagine we could go somewhere else.

Edward Dahlberg

Robert Louis Stevenson

Spirit of place! It is for this we travel, to surprise its subtlety; and where it is a strong and dominant angel, that place, seen once, abides entire in the memory with all its own accidents, its habits, its breath, its name.

Alice Meynell

Travel makes a wise man better, and a fool worse.

Thomas Fuller

Traveling is like gambling: it is always connected with winning and losing, and generally where it is least expected we receive, more or less than what we hoped for.

Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will – whatever we may think.

Lawrence Durrell

Travel is ninety percent antici pation and ten percent recollection.

Edward Streeter

No man should travel until he has learned the language of the country he visits. Otherwise he voluntarily makes himself a great baby – so helpless and so ridiculous.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I had always loved beautiful and artistic things, though before leaving America I had had a very little chance of seeing any.

Emma Albani

I think that wherever your journey takes you, there are new gods waiting there, with divine patience – and laughter.

Susan M. Watkins

I should like to spend the whole of my life in travelling abroad, if I could anywhere borrow another life to spend afterwards at home.

William Hazlitt

A wise traveller never despises his own country.

Carlo Goldoni

When we are young we travel to see the world, afterwards to make sure it is still there.

Cyril Connolly

On the Galapagos Islands, the shells of land tortoises are so large that they are sometimes used as bathtubs.

Some people in Israel live on communes, called kibbutzim – places where everyone lives together and shares all the work. Children do not live with their parents in these communes but rather with other children of the same age. Parents may visit them and sometimes take them back to their apartments to play, but at bedtime the children return to a common house and sleep in a room with two or three other young people, who become like brothers and sisters to them.

In Bermuda, a person’s nickname, such as “Slim” or “Shorty,” is listed along with his first and last name in the telephone directory.

People in Reykjavik, Iceland, don’t have to worry about staying warm. The entire city is heated by natural underground hot springs.

In Amman, Egypt, there is a fine race track where camels run the races instead of horses.

In Scotland, where the game of golf was invented, sheep are often allowed to graze on the courses to keep the putting greens cropped.

In some of the more remote areas of Mexico, after women do their laundry, they put on the wet clothes to let the air and hot sun dry them more quickly.

A ticket for a bullfight in Mexico can be for a seat either in the shade (sombra) or in the sun (sol). The cheaper seats are in the sun section.

When a family moves in Cherrapunja, India, the thatched roof of the old house is moved to the new one. During this process, it looks as if it is walking away by itself – several boys get under the roof and carry it to the site of the new home. When they are under the thatch, the boys can see nothing but their feet and hand signals from an adult who walks with them. The grownup signals to the youngsters when to stop or turn.

It is easy to make one’s bed on the island of Fiji since it simply involves rolling up a mat. Most Fijians have no furniture in their houses.

In New Guinea, people sleep inside big, basketlike bags made of woven reeds so that they won’t be bitten by insects.

The Sikhs, a religious group of India, use hair nets to hold their beards because they never shave or cut their hair.

The sauna, a kind of steam bath invented in Finland, is sometimes followed by a light thrashing with birch twigs, rolling in the snow, or both, to improve the circulation.

Pedestrians in Tokyo, Japan, can find relief from smog caused by heavy traffic. They use street corner vending machines that dispense oxygen.

The circus in Russia, attended by 45 million people each year, is considered a high form of art. There is even an ice circus in which a popular act is a hockey game played by teams of bears!

In Greek nightclubs, when the audience likes a singer, they throw dishes onto the stage. No matter how many broken plates are crashing, the singer never stops. The club owner supplies the plates but the customers pay for them.

In Western European countries, it is considered impolite to give someone an even number of flowers.

Indian religious law forbids the killing of any kind of life, including snakes. As a result, there are about 5,000 fatal cases of cobra bites each year.

In Japan, many things are done exactly the opposite of the way they are here: Mourners wear white instead of black; wine is heated, not chilled; fish is served raw, rather than cooked; and when you take a bath, you scrub yourself outside the bathtub, not in it!

In Japan, no one may ride in a maroon car. That color is reserved for the imperial family.

On the island of Bali, cremations of the dead are happy occasions because the people there believe that dying sets the soul free so that it can now enter heaven. Some families save money for many years in order to be able to afford a splendid cremation.

TRAVELLING

Millions of people all over the world spend their holidays travelling. They travel to see other countries and continents, modern cities and the ruins of ancient towns, they travel to enjoy picturesque places, or just for a change of scene. It is always interesting to discover new things, different ways of life, to meet different people, to try different food, to listen to different musical rhythms.

Those who live in the country like to go to a big city and spend their time visiting museums and art galleries, looking at shop windows and dining at exotic restaurants. City-dwellers usually like a quiet holiday by the sea or in the mountains, with nothing to do but walk and bathe and laze in the sun.

Most travellers and holiday-makers take a camera with them and take pictures of everything that interests them – the sights of a city, old churches and castles, views of mountains, lakes, valleys, plains, waterfalls, forests; different kinds of trees, flowers and plants, animals and birds.

Later, perhaps years later, they will be reminded by the photos of the happy time they have had.

People travel by train, by plane, by boat and by car.

All means of travel have their advantages and disadvantages. And people choose one according to their plans and destinations.

If we are fond of travelling, we see and learn a lot of things that we can never see or learn at home, though we may read about them in books and newspapers, and see pictures of them on TV. The best way to study geography is to travel, and the best way to get to know and understand the people is to meet them in their own homes.