I love family trip quotes for inspiration and, let's be honest, for Instagram captions! I organized these 40 family travel quotes into 3 categories: 1) Trips with Kids Quotes 2) Family Vacation Quotes and 3) Family Travel Quotes from Famous People. Happy exploring!
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Family Trip Quotes with Kids:
1) “Collect moments. Not things.” - Karen Salmansohn, Author
I am starting off with one of my favorite quotes as a parent and a traveler. I have this quote hanging in our kitchen as a reminder for our family of what really matters. Traveling with kids has its shares of challenges. Its good to have reminders and inspiration as the to why behind traveling with kids.
2) “Blessed are the curious for they shall have adventures.” - Lovelle Drachman
Curiosity is a precious thing to cultivate in kids! Adventuring and traveling can lead to a bigger world for your kids!
3) "Not all classrooms have four walls." - Anonymous
Any parent or educator or anyone who has spent any time with kids can attest to the truth of these words! Kids are innately curious about their surroundings so when their surrounding changes, they are bound to learn!
Love these Wood Flag Pins to add to your world traveling map!
4) "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all." - Helen Keller
My natural inclination is to seek safety for my kids. But, many times it is the spontaneous adventures that are the most memory-making! One time we were visiting Amsterdam with two small kids. And instead of taking a tram or taxi back to our rental apartment, we chose to walk. The walk ended up taking 3 hours but during that time we got to experience the many rings of canals, markets, and street life that we would have missed!
Family Trip Quotes about Giving Your Kids The World
5) "Travel is like an endless university. You never stop learning." - Harvey Lloyd Photographer
This is one of my favorite parts of travel for my kids as well as myself! Each new experience leads to new insights and learnings. For instance, on a boat ride in Thailand’s Phi Phi Islands, we learned about the natural wildlife (monkeys and eagles!) but also about the people who call the Islands home from our incredible guide Mars. My then 3 year old might forget the epic islands. But will never forget Mars’ kindness and that mommy monkey holding her baby!
6) “Experience, travel – these are as education in themselves.” – Euripides, Ancient Greek playwright
Well if an Ancient Greek over 2,000 years ago said it, it must be true! Many teachers have found this travel quote to be true around the world.
7) “Two of the greatest gifts we can give our children and roots and wings.” - Hodding Carter, political author
A beautiful maxim that I’ve seen throughout my life. I moved nearly every year as a child but my mom always reminded us that 2 things remain the same, our family and God. I am so thankful for our experiences to travel as a kid as well as the roots of home, wherever in the world that may have been! These family travel quotes encourage me to follow in my mom's footsteps.
8) “When you travel with children you are giving something that can never be taken away… experience, exposure, and a way of life.” - Pamela T. Chandler, author of The Adventured Star
Family travel is truly priceless!
Quotes about Stretching Your Horizon Through Family Trips
9) “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes
This follows the famous Mark Twain travel quote about being fatal to prejudice (in the next section). Such an important aspect to traveling with our kids is that their new experiences broaden not just their memories, but their viewpoints!
10) "If we were meant to stay in one place, we'd have roots instead of feet." - Rachel Wolchin
I love this family travel quote as a reminder to us as parents that part of our role is to encourage our children to grow and explore the world they live in.
11) "Jobs fill your pocket, but adventures fill your soul." – Jamie Lyn Beatty
A caveat is that many jobs can and do fill your soul! But I think this is a great encouragement to prepare our children not just for their future vocation but for their future adventures!
12) “Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” - Dolly Parton
Of course, we had to finish this section with a Dolly Parton quote! This may not usually be on lists of family travel quotes but I think it deserves to be! She walked the talk with her various educational programs impacting hundreds of thousands. Be sure to check out her Imagination Library program which sends free books monthly to children from birth to Kindergarten.
13) "Every day we make deposits in the memory banks of our children." - Charles Swindoll
14) "Memories made together last a lifetime." - Unknown
15) "We were together. I forget the rest." - Walt Whitman
16) "Deciding not to travel with kids because they won't remember, is like not reading them books becuase they won't remember the stories you read them." - Unknown
17) "Travel is the only thing that you buy that makes you richer." - Unknown
Maybe not the only thing but makes you richer for sure!
Family Vacation Quotes:
18) “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” - Ibn Battuta, 14th century Explorer
Maybe this is my favorite travel quote right here in the middle of the stack?! The wonder of travel and the stories that come from traveling to different lands cannot be overstated.
19) “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
This is one of my favorite family travel quotes because it gets to the heart of the impact of travel on one’s outlook on the world. For our kids, showing them the world is not just about a fancy vacation, but a broadening of their minds. We found this to be true when traveling and living in Taiwan. As a white mom raising biracial children, I assumed too much and learned more of the nuances each day.
One tiny example of my changed understanding was comments from “aunties” in our apartment building. At the beginning, I thought these well-meaning older women were being busybodies to comment if my toddler was wearing enough clothes for the weather etc. I learned though that they really saw us as part of their community and wanted to show their concern in these comments. I got so used to this that when we moved back to the States, I was slightly offended no one in the check-out aisle was commenting on if my kid had the right clothes on!
My Favorite Family Trip Quotes!
20) “To my mind, the greatest regard 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 author of many travel memoirs including one of my personal favorites, The Road to Little Dribbling
And this can be opened to local travel as well as dramatic international travel! I love the focus on not taking things for granted, truly a priceless takeaway from a family trip!
21) “What’s your favourite place?” “I don’t have a favourite place, I have my favourite people. And, whenever I’m with my favourite people, it becomes my favourite place.” - Nivaz Ahemad in Late Night Tales
Family vacations are about the people you travel with much more than the places you go to. I love this quote that makes that emphasis clear!
22) "To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries." - Aldous Huxley
This one might not be on a lot of family vacation quote lists but I have found it to be true! What we grow up thinking about a country is reflected in our first-hand knowledge and nothing can beat visiting in person!
23) "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
Trips and vacations may end but you (and your kids!) will always have the memories to remember and enjoy! Family travel quotes are so encouraging to me because they help me to see the many ways travel impacts our lives.
Unknown Author Travelling Quotes:
24) “Wanderlust: a strong desire to wander or travel and explore the world.” – Wikipedia definition
Doesn’t get much clearer than that! Wanderlust may be overused as an Instagram hashtag but I will never get tired of exploring the world with my family.
25) "Having kids is reason to travel, not a reason to stop.” – Author Unknown
This gets to the heart of the “why” for family travel. We travel because we have kids not in spite of them!
26) “We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous
My 7 year old just came in and picked this as her favorite quote of the bunch! Sometimes the simplest is the best!
27) “Travel is not a reward for working, it’s education for living.” – Anthony Bourdain (seen attributed to him or Anonymous)
Oftentimes, I’ve said to myself or others that I need a family vacation or I deserve one. This is one of the family travel quotes that flips that over and says travel is part of our living!
Family Trip Quotes about Travel Expanding Your Mind
28) “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.” – Scott Cameron
What an important thing for our kids to understand. Their place and space in this world as they grow up!
29) "Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination." - Roy S. Goodman
I probably need this reminder on my living room walls! Focusing on contentment in the present is so important for travel and the rest of life!
Family Travel Quotes from Famous People
30) “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca, 1st century philosopher
Don’t mess with Seneca on pithy to the point quotes! I think this is one of the great family travel quotes because it gets to the heart of a well rounded childhood.
31) “Don’t count the days. Make the days count.” - Muhammad Ali
This could be a life quote in addition to family travel quotes! In other words, even during the harder parts of travel (jet lag, I’m looking at you!), we can focus on the parts that will be lasting for our children.
32) “Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.” – Francis Bacon, Sr.
This may be the only family trip quote that I would disagree with. I think for both kids and adults, travel is both an education and an experience! (But hey, I’m no 16th-century philosopher!)
33) "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, former prime minister of India
It is truly a wonderful world whether across the ocean or in our own neighborhood backyard. We can teach our kids to appreciate everything with wonder and curiosity!
Wise Words from Terry Pratchett
34) “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, A Hat Full of Sky
This is another variation of the Bill Bryson quote. Like the previous one, traveling with kids helps them to see the world but also changes their view of their home too!
35) “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” - Robert Frost, Poet
Yes, this is one of the most famous American poems, but for good reason! It evokes the wondrous spirit of being spontaneous. Family travel quotes can help encourage us to see travel as not just in the exotic trips but also in our everyday life.
Travel Quotes from Philosophers
36) “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.” - St. Augustine
I didn’t know whether to include this one in the family travel quote list because it sounds a little judgmental. I understand the ability to travel is a luxury. Especially if someone lives in a country that doesn’t allow movement, doesn’t have documentation or financial resources. I don’t think travel is the only way to expand your mind. Education and reading and an open spirit to learning from all can as well.
37) “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” - Marcel Proust
Travel doesn’t have to be a huge expedition. It can simply offer a new perspective on a walk in your neighborhood.
38) “Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson
Can’t add much to this encouragement to see the beauty around us.
And now I leave you with 3 final family travel quotes:
39) “Not all those who wander are lost.” - J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings
Perhaps the most Instagrammed quote and the one with the most Etsy prints! I couldn’t not include this quote.
40) “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
I cannot add anything better to this Mark Twain quote. If I could, I would tattoo this to my arm! (little long and I don’t like permanent things lol!)
41) "Travelling in the company of those we love is home in motion." – Leigh Hunt, English 18thcentury poet
This is the newest family travel quote I added to my collection, and one of the most poignant. It brings together our love for our families and our love of travel!
