Are you looking for some serious travel inspiration? Here are some beautiful travel quotes by Pico Iyer. a writer and traveler who has spent his life exploring how journeys shape human minds.

Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer, known as Pico Iyer, was born in England to Indian parents, and he grew up moving between cultures, which gave him a deep appreciation for the way travel expands our understanding of the world. He studied at Oxford and Harvard before becoming a journalist and author, writing for major publications like Time and The New York Times.

His books, including ‘The Art of Stillness’ and ‘The Global Soul’, reflect on movement, belonging, and the way travel changes our perception of a home. He also has a beautiful essay named ‘Into The Gray‘, where he narrates his stories from Ireland.

In his essay ‘Why We Travel’, Iyer beautifully captures why people feel the urge to explore. He believes travel isn’t just about seeing new places – it’s about changing the way we see ourselves. Stepping into the unfamiliar helps us shed old routines, embrace fresh perspectives, and open our hearts to new experiences.

He writes that travel teaches us more than any news headline ever could, reminding us that the world is far more connected – and surprising – than we often think.

Here are the 10 best travel quotes by Pico Iyer

1. “We travel, initially, to lose ourselves; and we travel, next to find ourselves. We travel to open our hearts and eyes and learn more about the world than our newspapers will accommodate. We travel to bring what little we can, in our ignorance and knowledge, to those parts of the globe whose riches are differently dispersed. And we travel, in essence, to become young fools again- to slow time down and get taken in, and fall in love once more.”

2. “Travel spins us round in two ways at once: it shows us the sights and values and issues that we might ordinarily ignore; but it also, and more deeply, shows us all the parts of ourselves that might otherwise grow rusty.”

3. “And if travel is like love, it is, in the end, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, in dimmed by familiarity, and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.”

4. “Travel is not really about leaving our homes, but leaving our habits.”

5. “Going nowhere… isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.”

6. “Travel, for me, is a little bit like being in love because suddenly all your senses are at the setting marked ‘on’.”

7. “As soon as I’m on the road, I see, often palpably, that I know nothing at all, which is always a great liberation.”

8. “Heaven is the place where you think of nowhere else.”

9. “Every trip we take unfolds a myriad stories all at once, and after we get back home, we tell only a few of them, even to ourselves.”

10. “Places have charisma, in short, as much as people do.”

Pico Iyer’s reflections on travel remind us that journeys are not just about movement, but about transformation. ravel, as Iyer sees it, is not an escape but a way of coming home, to a deeper understanding of the world and our place within it.

What is your favorite travel quote by Pico Iyer? Share your thoughts with me in the comment section below!