Road trips are easily our favorite way to travel.
Whether it’s jumping in the car or campervan to hit the road, there’s something so alluring about the open road with the freedom and spontaneity that comes with it. It’s the way the road snakes endlessly ahead, surrounded by stunning scenery, and it’s the liberation to stop wherever you please while discovering hidden gems along the way.
So it’s no wonder you’re looking for some quotes about road trips to inspire your wanderlust (or your Instagram feed!)
Whether you’re here for some thought-provoking travel and road trip quotes or your next Instagram road trip caption, we’ve got you covered!
From long drive quotes to short and sweet ones, travel quotes about adventures and even some funny quotes, we’ve scoured the internet, our favorite books, movies and songs, and even our own brains for all the best quotes about road trips!
So buckle in and enjoy the ride… (pun always intended!)
Contents
✍️ Original Road Trip Quotes from We Dream of Travel
When looking for quotes about road trips, we found the same ones used over and over again.
So we decided to come up with a few of our own! Plus, thinking of new ones was a good way to spend some time on the road!
Below is a list of original road trip quotes guaranteed to be unique to this guide.
- “I traveled the whole world to discover the greatest adventure was you.” – Adam Marland, We Dream of Travel
- “Road trips are not about anywhere you’ll go, they’re about going anywhere.” – Sophie Marland, We Dream of Travel
- “It’s not a successful road trip until you’ve forgotten what day of the week it is.” – Sophie Marland, We Dream of Travel
- “My best nights of sleep are not in a king-sized bed; they’re in the back of an overpacked station wagon parked under the stars.” – Adam Marland, We Dream of Travel
- “Travel teaches you a little about the world and a lot about yourself. Getting lost is the best way to find ourselves.” – Adam Marland, We Dream of Travel
- “You’ll learn more about a person in 30 days on the road than you will in 30 months at home.” – Sophie Marland, We Dream of Travel
- “All my favorite summers included road trips.” – Sophie Marland, We Dream of Travel
- “It’s a scientific fact that gas station hot dogs taste best on road trips.” – Adam Marland, We Dream of Travel
- “Even when I visit the most beautiful countries in the world, it’s the people I come home telling stories of.” – Sophie Marland, We Dream of Travel
- “When it comes to road trips, I have more memories stored on mix tapes than camera rolls.” – Adam Marland, We Dream of Travel
- “When you’re on the open road, there’s no such thing as an inconvenience, only a surprise adventure.” – Sophie Marland, We Dream of Travel
📚 Best Quotes About Road Trips from Books and Authors
It’s no surprise really that those with a penchant for words have created some of the best quotes about road trips. From authors of fictional tales to documentary travel writers, these quotes help you get lost on a road trip without even leaving home.
Many of these books make great reads to inspire your wanderlust too. In fact, Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck remains one of Adam’s favourite books and part of the inspiration for his first ever US road trip!
Whether you’re living in a van full time or just enjoying a weekend getaway, I’m sure you’ll enjoy these inspiring quotes!
- “All he needed was a wheel in his hand and four on the road.” – Jack Kerouac, On the Road: the Original Scroll
- “I travel not to go anywhere but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes
- “A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” – John Steinbeck,Travels with Charley: In Search of America
- “I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” – Rosalía de Castro
- “There is something about the momentum of travel that makes you want to just keep moving, to never stop.” – Bill Bryson
- “The journey is part of the experience – an expression of the seriousness of one’s intent. One doesn’t take the A train to Mecca.” – Anthony Bourdain,A Cook’s Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines
- “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I may have ended up where I intended to be.” – Douglas Adams
- “Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.” – Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road
- “I can speak to my soul only when the two of us are off exploring deserts or cities or mountains or roads.” – Paulo Coelho, Aleph
- “It’s aroad trip! It’s aboutadventure! . . . It’s not like we have somewhere togo.” – John Green,An Abundance of Katherines
- “Because the greatest part of a road trip isn’t arriving at your destination. It’s all the wild stuff that happens along the way.” – Emma Chase,Tamed
- “The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.” – Aaron Lauritsen,100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip
- “Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn’t mean to take.” – Angela N. Blount,Once Upon an Ever After
- “Still, round the corner, there may wait, a new road or a secret gate.” –J. R. R. Tolkien
- “There is nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.” – Jack Kerouac, On the Road: the Original Scroll
- “And just like that, we’re on our way to everywhere.” – Emery Lord,Open Road Summer
🎬 Best Road Trip Quotes from Movies and TV Shows
Many movies and TV shows centre around journeys and adventures, including some of the best travel shows. We’ve pulled together some of the top quotes about road trips from movies and TV shows to help motivate you to hit the road!
- “Well,we’re not in the middle of nowhere,but we can see it from here.” –Thelma & Louise
- “According to the map,we’ve only gone four inches.” – Dumb & Dumber
- “Just grab a friend and take a ride, together upon the open road.” – The Goofy Movie
- “Adventure is out there.” – Up
- “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” – J.R.R. Tolkien,The Lord of the Rings
- “We’re almost there, butnowhere near it. All that mattersis thatwe’re going.” – Gilmore Girls
- “Fifty years from now, when you’re looking back at your life, don’t you want to be able to say you had the guts to get in the car?“ – Transformers
Ok, so we may not exactly be going on a road trip in a Transformer… but I think the sentiment still applies!
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🎶 Quotes About Road Trips from Song Lyrics and Musicians
No journey on the road is complete without a good road trip playlist. Therefore, it only seemed right to include some road trip quotes from musicians and song lyrics. You may even want to add some of these to your road trip playlist to keep you going on that long car journey!
- “Map out your future–but doit inpencil. Theroad aheadis aslongasyou makeit. Makeitworththetrip.” – Jon Bon Jovi
- “No one you have been and no place you have gone ever leaves you. The new parts of you simply jump in the car and go along for the rest of the ride. The success of your journey and your destination all depends on who’s driving.” – Bruce Springsteen,Born to Run
- “So remember when we were driving, driving in your car. Speed so fast I felt like I was drunk. City lights lay out before us. And your arm felt nice wrapped ’round my shoulder. And I had a feeling that I belonged. I had a feeling I could be someone. (be someone, be someone)” – Tracy Chapman, Fast Car
- “I don’t know where I’m going from here but I promise it won’t be boring.” –David Bowie
- “I love being on the road. I love that lifestyle, traveling city to city, rocking out and moving on to the next place.” –Caleb Johnson
- “Road trippin’ with my two favorite allies – fully loaded we got snacks and supplies. It’s time to leave this town it’s time to steal away. Let’s go get lost anywhere in the U.S.A.” – Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Road Trippin’
- “Get your motor runnin’, Head out on the highway, Lookin’ for adventure…” – Steppenwolf, Born to be Wild
- “On the road again, Goin’ places that I’ve never been, Seein’ things that I may never see again, And I can’t wait to get on the road again” – Willie Nelson, On The Road Again
- “You make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise.” —Florida Georgia Line, Cruise
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🚗 Inspirational Road Trip Quotes
The beauty of road trips comes from their spontaneity and individuality. You don’t have to really plan too much, you can just hop in the car and drive. You can also travel at the pace you want, whether that’s driving 90 down the freeway to reach your destination in record speed or meandering down each and every back road, exploring along the way.
No matter your travel style, we hope these inspirational and thought-provoking quotes about road trips will ignite your wanderlust and encourage you to get out there on an epic road trip adventure!
- “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.” –T.S. Eliot
- “Look on every exit as being an entrance somewhere else.” – Tom Stoppard
- “If you make the mistake of looking back too much, you aren’t focused enough on the road in front of you.” – Brad Paisley
- “It’s your road, andyours alone. Others may walkit withyou, but no one can walkit foryou.” – Rumi
- “If we wait until we are ready, we will be waiting for the rest of our life!” –Lemony Snicket
- “Live life with no excuses, travel with no regret.” – Oscar Wilde
- “The road goes on forever and the party never ends.” – Robert Earl Keen
- “You know more of a roadby having traveled it than by all the conjectures and descriptions in the world.” – William Hazlitt
- “The road must eventually lead to the whole world.”– Jack Kerouac
- “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.”– Pat Conroy
- “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
- “Look at life through the windshield, not the rearview mirror.” – Byrd Baggett
- “Themost beautifulthing in theworld is, of course, the world itself.” – Wallace Stevens
- “Every journey is simultaneously a beginning and an ending: I was leaving my old life behind and starting on a road trip to find a new me.” – Debi Tolbert Duggar,Riding Soul-O
- “There are no mistakes. Only new paths to explore.” – Gregory David Roberts
- “The only impossible journey is the one you never begin” – Tony Robbins
- “The world is too big to stay in one place, and life is too short to do just one thing.” – Unknown
- “I guess the lesson is you can’t go everywhere. You should still go everywhere you can.” – Charles Finch
- “Sometimes you find yourself in the middle of nowhere, and sometimes in the middle of nowhere, you find yourself.” – Unknown
- “A bend in the road, is not the end of the road….unless you fail to make the turn.” – Helen Keller
READ MORE: Northern Laos Road Trip Itinerary
✇ Famous Quotes About Road Trips
This section contains the most famous road trip quotes. These are the ones you’ve probably seen before, whether on Pinterest, an Instagram caption or even a mug! But they’re still some of our favourite road trip quotes, they’re famous for a reason!
- “Roads were made for journeys, not destinations.” – Confucius
- “We had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.”– Jack Kerouac, On the Road: the Original Scroll
- “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.” – George Harrison
- “A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu
- “To move, to breathe, to fly, to float, To gain all while you give, To roam theroads of lands remote, To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Andersen, The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography
- “If you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi Berra
- “Road trips aren’t measured by mile markers,but by moments.” – Unknown
- “Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.” – Mark Twain
- “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by.”– Robert Frost
- “I just go with the flow, I follow the yellow brick road. I don’t know where it’s going to lead me, but I follow it.” –Grace Jones
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💬 Short & Sweet Road Trip Quotes
Looking for something short and sweet that perfectly encapsulates the essence a road trip? Well these road trip quotes are for you…
- “Always take the scenic route.” – Unknown
- “No road is long with good company.” – Turkish Proverb
- “I’m not lost, I’m exploring.”
- “My favorite thing to do is to go where I’ve never been”. – Diane Arbus
- “Making memories, one road trip at a time.” – Unknown
- “Happiness is a road trip.” – Unknown
- “Life is too short to not go on that spontaneous road trip.”
- “It feels good to be lost in the right direction.” – Unknown
- “Live your life by a compass, not a clock.” –Stephen Covey
- “Take care of your car in the garage, and the car will take care of you on the road.”– Amit Kalantri
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🌅 Long Drive Quotes
There’s something soothing about taking a long drive on the open road.
You don’t even necessarily need a destination in mind. Just the freedom of the road ahead of you is enough to blow out the cobwebs and make you feel alive.
Be it a road trip through the mountains, across the desert or even to the city, a long drive can be just the cure you need.
These long drive quotes capture those feelings that you get from being on a long journey.
- “Sometimes the best therapy is a long drive and good music.” – Unknown
- “I love road trips. You get into this Zen rhythm; throw the sense of time out the window.”– Miriam Toews
- “Now, on this road trip, my mind seemed to uncrinkle, to breathe, to present to itself a cure for a disease it had not, until now, known it had.” –Elizabeth Berg,The Year of Pleasures
- “I’m really in the mood for a long drive with no real destination.” – Unknown
- “I climb behind the steering wheel… I drive off immediately without once looking back; it’s a long journey but it leads to freedom.” – Corinne Hofmann,The White Masai
- “The pleasure we derive from journeys is perhaps dependent more on the mindset with which we travel than on the destination we travel to.” – Alain de Botton
- “Hodophile (noun): a lover of roads; one who loves travel.”
- “When all’s said and done, all roads lead to the same end. So it’s not so much which road you take, as how you take it.”– Charles de Lint
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🤪 Funny Travel & Road Trip Quotes
While profound, inspirational road trip quotes are great, we all need a giggle sometimes! Plus, some of the funniest travel moments we’ve shared have been on road trips. We hope these funny quotes about road trips will cheer up your day and remind you of the good times behind the wheel (number 76 is definitely us!).
So read on for the best funny road trip quotes…
- “Kilometers are shorter than miles.Save gas,take your next trip in kilometers.” – George Carlin
- “In 1903 the Wright brothers invented airplanes, because in 1902 they took a road trip across the country with their family.” – Bill Engvall
- “We all have that one friend who is either on a roadtrip or planning a roadtrip or thinking about a road-trip or talking to people who are on a roadtrip or posting quotes about a roadtrip.” –Crestless Wave
- “The entire road trip could be summed up as one giant attempt to keep from crashing the car during fits of rage and fits of hysteria.” – Kari Martindale
- “Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.” – Jerry Seinfeld
- “At the end of the day, your feet should be dirty, your hair messy and your eyes sparkling.”– Shanti
- “It doesn’t matter how old youget,buying snacks for a road tripshould always look like an unsupervised 9 yearoldwas given $100.” – Unknown
- “Road trips require a couple of things: a well-balanced diet of caffeine, salt and sugar and an excellent selection of tunes – oh, and directions.” – Jenn McKinlay.
- “If you’re not lost, you’re not much of an explorer.” – John Perry Barlow
- “A tourist is a fellow who drives thousands of miles so he can be photographed standing in front of his car.” – Emile Ganest
- “The American tendency in travel; one goes not so much to see, but to tell of it afterward.” – John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
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🧭 Quotes About Adventures on the Road
No matter whether you’re taking a road trip with family, friends or solo, a great road trip will be filled with adventure. One of the many joys of exploring the world by car is the ability to take a detour and just enjoy the journey. Find little adventures along the way to reaching your final destination.
Enjoy these inspirational quotes about finding adventure on the road!
- “Adventure, without it, why live?” – Hortense Odlum
- “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
- “Nothing adventured, nothing attained.” – Peter McWilliams
- “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.” – William Least Heat Moon
- “Jobs fill your pockets, but adventures fill your soul.” –Jaime Lyn
- “Real adventure is defined best as ajourneyfrom whichyou may not come back alive, andcertainly notas thesame person.”– Yvon Chouinard
- “Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure.” – Bob Bitchin
- “Road trips are the equivalent of human wings. Ask me to go on one, anywhere. We’ll stop in every small town and learn the history and stories, feel the ground and capture the spirit. Then we’ll turn it into our own story that will live inside our history to carry with us, always. Because stories are more important than things.” – Victoria Erickson
- “The road less traveled is the road to adventure.” – Unknown
- “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.”– Gilbert K. Chesterton
- “To awaken alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world. You are surrounded by adventure. You have no idea of what is in store for you, but you will, if you are wise and know the art of travel, let yourself go on the stream of the unknown.” –Freya Stark
- “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”– Helen Keller
- “The biggestadventureyou can take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey
- “A man practices the art of adventure when he breaks the chain of routine and renews his life through reading new books, traveling to new places, making new friends, taking up new hobbies and adopting new viewpoints.”– Wilfred Peterson
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🏎 Best Road Trip Instagram Captions
Looking for some inspiration for your Instagram captions about your road trip? I know it can be a struggle to think of a new caption for each post.
A good quote can double as the perfect Instagram caption. So let these travel and road trip quotes work their magic on your Insta feed!
- “There’s nowhere to go but everywhere…” – Jack Kerouac, On the Road: the Original Scroll
- “My favorite thing is to go where I’ve never been.” – Diane Arbus
- “Happiness is a road trip with a good playlist.” –Unknown
- “You can’t find the right roads when the streets are paved.” –Bob Marley
- “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag
- “We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” – Walt Disney
- “I am not the same, having seen the moon shine on the other side of the world.” – Mary Anne Radmacher
- “The open road is there, it will always be there. You just have to decide when to take it.”– Chris Humphrey
- “Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.”– Jack Kerouac
- “Once a year, go somewhere you have never been before.” – Dalai Lama
- “Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.”–Margaret Lee Runbeck
- “Please understand, I have been waiting to leave ever since I figured out that there were roads willing to take me anywhere I wanted to go.” – Unknown
- “Look for chances to take the less-traveled roads. There are no wrong turns.” –Susan Magsamen
- “One’s destination is never a place, but rather a new way of seeing things.” –Henry Miller
- “You don’t choose the day you enter the world and you don’t choose the day you leave. It’s what you do in between that makes all the difference.” – Anna Spetimus
- “The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.”– Sir Richard Burton
- “Life is beautiful if you are on the road to somewhere.” – Orhan Pamuk,The New Life
- “Take only memories, leave only footprints.” – Unknown
- “A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck, Travels with Charley: In Search of America
- “She wasn’t where she had been. She wasn’t where she was going, but she was on her way.”– Jodi Hills
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🚧 Quotes About Road Trip Challenges
While road trips can be full of incredible experiences, it’s common to have a few bumps in the road (pun unashamedly intended once again). We’ve certainly had our fair share of challenges on road trips!
There’s something raw and honest about these quotes about road trip challenges, which may help you get through those more difficult moments. Often, these tougher times are the ones we look back on with the most fondness in the future!
- “Stop worrying about the pot holes in the road and enjoy the journey.” – Babs Hoffman
- “You may not find a path, but you will find a way.” – Tom Wolfe
- “When you go on a road trip, the trip itself becomes part of the story.”– Steve Rushin
- “Some beautiful paths can’t be discovered without getting lost.”– Erol Ozan
- “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
- “The struggles we endure today will be the ‘good old days’ we laugh about tomorrow.”– Aaron Lauritsen
- “An adventure is never an adventure when it happens. An adventure is simply physical and emotional discomfort recollected in tranquility.” – Tim Cahill
- “I wonder why it is that when I plan a route too carefully, it goes to pieces, whereas if I blunder along in blissful ignorance aimed in a fancied direction I get through with no trouble.” – John Steinbeck,Travels with Charley: In Search of America
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👯♀️ Quotes About Road Trips with Loved Ones
Solo road trips are great, but we love going on adventures together or with friends. We’ve both taken road trips with friends and family members, as well as new friends we’ve met while travelling! For us, one of the best things about travelling is the people you meet along the way. It’s these people that truly make the difference between a good trip and a great one.
Plus, let’s face it, the best road trip games need a companion (or two!) to play them with!
Let these quotes about travel with friends and family inspire your trip with a loved one.
- “Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter.”– Izaak Walton
- “I want to go on a road trip. Just you and me. The highway, the radio, the blue sky, the back roads, and windows down. We’ll talk about everything and nothing. We’ll sing our hearts out, and we’ll make memories we’ll never forget. Just you and me.” – Unknown
- “A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill
- “I get a friend to travel with me… I need somebody to bring me back to who I am. It’s hard to be alone.” – Leonardo DiCaprio
- “It doesn’t matter where you’re going, it’s who you have beside you.” –Unknown
- “Some roads aren’t meant to be travelled alone.” – Chinese Proverb
- “One of the great things about travel is that you find out how many good, kind people there are.”– Edith Wharton
- “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
- “Sometimes all you need is a great friend and a tank of gas.”–Thelma and Louise
- “What we find in a soul mate is not something wild to tame, but something wild to run with.” – Robert Brault
- “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
- “You can pack for every occasion, but a good friend will always be the best thing you could bring.” – Unknown
- “Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”– Ernest Hemingway
- “There is an unspoken bond you create with the friends you travel with.” – Kristen Sarah
- “Life ismeant for good friends and great adventures.” – Unknown
- “Happiness is… planning a road trip to somewhere new, with someone you love.” – Unknown
- “In life, it’s not where you go – it’s who you travel with.”– Charles M.Schulz
- “A road trip is a way for the whole family to spend time together and annoy each other in interesting new places.” – Tom Lichtenheld
🤔 Final Thoughts on our Favorite Road Trip Quotes!
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Phew… that was a LOT of quotes about road trips. We truly do love travelling by road and hope that these quotes may have convinced you that road trips are the best way to travel!
Let us know if any of these quotes have inspired you to take a road trip adventure. Do you have a favourite road trip quote on this list? Or are there any we’ve missed?! As always, leave us a comment and let us know what you think.
Don’t forget to check out ourother travel quotes blogs for more inspiration:
- 275+ Nature Quotes and Captions for Instagram
- 130+ Sunset Captions for Instagram
- Top Mountain Quotes
- 200+ Beach Quotes and Captions
- Best Quotes About the Sea
- 160+ Waterfall Quotes
- 120+ Quotes About Hiking
And if you need a little inspiration for something special for a road trip lover, check out these road trip gift ideas!
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