150 Amazing Exploration Quotes to Inspire You!

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Well, dear reader, my non-existent psychic powers are telling me that you’re here desperately seeking some of the best exploration quotes all of all time.

Well, if you’re emphatically nodding your head in agreement right now then you have come to the right place. Because if there’s one thing in the world I love almost as much as traveling, it’s quotes about exploration that kick-ass, take names, and inspire you (and others) to travel the world.

And even if you have don’t have perpetually itchy feet like me, this selection of 150 of the best explore quotes on the internet is bound to ignite your passion for travel faster than you can say “Skyscanner”.

After all, some of the best quotes about exploring will bring you back to long-forgotten times and places where you were doing what you love…exploring and traveling – all without the high price tag of a hotel room and an airplane ticket.

So, without further adieu, let’s use my 20+ years of solo travel experience to examine150 of the best exploration quotes ever!

Dear wonderful, beautiful, and oh-so-amazing reader (Yup, I lay it on thick for my dozens of fans). Since I am incapable of making it rain money, there’s a high probability (like 99.999%) that this post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure for more information. As an Amazon Associate, I earn a small commission from qualifying purchases.

Best Short Exploration Quotes and Quotes about Exploration

Sometimes – okay most of the time – my brain is going in about a thousand different directions. Therefore, I don’t really have the mental capacity to read quotes about exploration that are about 10,000 words long. Okay, maybe these exploration quotes aren’t that long, but you know what I mean.

So, if you’re looking for insanely powerful explore quotes that pack tons of meaning into as few words as humanly possible, then these fine AF exploration sayings are for you.

1. “Life is short and the world is wide”

2. “Exploration is curiosity put into action.” – Don Walsh

3. “Explore, dream, and then explore some more.”

4. “Jobs fill your pockets but adventures fill your soul.” – Jaime Lyn Beatty

5. “Never lose your sense of wonder.”

6. “I haven’t been everywhere but it’s on my list.” – Susan Sontag

7. “Of all the books in the world, the best stories are found between the pages of a passport.”

8. “Be fearless in the pursuit of what sets your soul on fire.” – Jennifer Lee

9. “It’s a big world out there, go explore.”

10. “Oh the places you’ll go.” – Dr/ Seuss

11. “Don’t listen to what they say. Go see.”

12. “The journey not the arrival matters.” – T.S. Eliot

13. “Travel is the only thing you buy that will make you richer.”

14. “Not all those who wander are lost.” – J.R.R. Tolkien

15. “Not all classrooms have four walls.”

16. “To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Anderson

17. “The world is yours, explore it.”

18. “I do not explain, I explore.” – Marshal McLuhan

19. “Never stop exploring/”

20. “Travel far enough, you meet yourself.” – David Mitchell

21. “Explore the unknown.”

22. “I’m not lost. I’m exploring.” – Jana Stanfield

23. “Go outside and explore.”

24. “Dare to live the life you’ve always wanted.”

Explore Quotes for Instagram and Quotes about Exploring New Places

If you’re in the market for excellent quotes about exploring new places then these explore quotes for Instagram will be more-than-a-little perfect for you.

After all, these lovely little explore quotes are profound but also quick and easy to read – making them perfect explore quotes for Instagram since most people on that platform have the attention span of a fly – maybe.

So, what are you waiting for? Go forth, use these quotes about exploration well, and gain the allegiance and devotion of your very own Instagram fandom of wonder.

25. “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” – Lao Tzu

26. “The goal is to die with memories not dreams”

27. “Travel is never a matter of money but of courage.”– Paolo Coelho

28. “Blessed are the curious for they will have adventures.”

29. “Live your life by a compass, not a clock.”– Stephen Covey

30. “Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you.”

31. “Live life with no excuses, travel with no regret” – Oscar Wilde

32. “So much of who we are is where we have been.” – William Langewiesche

33. “There’s no way we were born to just pay bills and die”

34. “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.”– Helen Keller

35. “We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment”– Hilaire Belloc

36. “Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit.” – Frank Borman

Famous Quotes about Exploring and Discovering New Places Quotes

Want some famous quotes about exploring? Or how about some epic discovering new places quotes? Either way, you’re covered with this most excellent assortment of the best exploration quotes that you ever did see.

And while these explore quotes may not be super shocking, they’ll probably leave you nodding your head in agreement since you’ve heard these quotes about exploration before and 100% love them to pieces.

You know, since these exploration quotes have been printed on every shirt made on Etsy…ever. I mean, “Catch flights, not feelings” anyone?

37. “Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”– Ralph Waldo Emerson

38. “A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for”– John A. Shedd

39. “If we were meant to stay in one place we’d have roots instead of feet.” – Rachel Wolchin

40. “We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.”

41. “The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page.”– St Augustine

42. “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” – T.S. Eliot

43. “Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.” – Dalai Lama

43. “Investment in travel is investment in yourself.”– Matthew Karsten

44. “The life you have led doesn’t need to be the only life you have”– Anna Quindlen

45. “Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”– Gustav Flaubert

Inspirational Exploration Quotes and Quotes about Exploration

I mean, really, who doesn’t need some inspirational exploration quotes after this past year and a half. I know I do! Especially after being stuck at home for 3+ months during lockdown, in a foreign country.

Yup, I want some badass quotes about exploration that will inspire others (me included) to get out there and see this crazy world of ours.

Therefore, if you have some badass explorers that you want to not-so-low-key inspire then these explore quotes may just be what you’re looking for.

46. “‘Stuff your eyes with wonder,’ he said. ‘Live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. it’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories.” – Ray Bradbury

47. “Seize the day (boys). Make your life extraordinary” – John Keating, Dead Poets Society

48. “It is a big beautiful world. Most of us live and die in the same corner where we were born and never get to see any of it. I don’t want to be most of us.” – Oberyn Martell, Game of Thrones

49. “Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” – Jack Kerouac

50. “Exploration is a wonderful way to open our eyes to the world, and to truly see that impossible is just a word.” – Richard Branson

51. “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste it, to experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

52. “Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore”– Andre Gide

53. “I have worn the dust of many foreign streets, but to brush it off would surely be a crime. I have the memories of many foreign adventures, but to forget them would surely be a sin. So, breath in the dust and keep the memories in.” – Rowland Waring-Flood

54. “We shall not cease exploration. and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time. ” – T.S. Eliot

55. “Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.” – Claude Bernard

56. “Traveling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. You are constantly off balance. Nothing is yours except the essential things – air, sleep, dreams, the sea, the sky – all things tending towards eternal or we imagine of it.” – Cesare Pavese

57. “He who is outside his door has the hardest part of his journey behind him/” – Dutch Proverb

58. “Fill your life with adventures, not things. Have stories to tell, not stuff to show off.”

59. “We were born to be free, to expand our horizons by going where we have never gone before, and not to hang out in the relative comfort and safety of the nest, the known. There is a place within us that is courageous beyond our human understanding; it yearns to explore beyond the boundaries of our daily life.” – Dennis Merritt Jones

60. “Do more things that will make you forget to check your phone.”

61. “Perhaps travel cannot prevent bigotry, but by demonstrating that all people cry, laugh, eat, worry, and die, it can introduce the idea that if we try and understand each other, we may even become friends.” – Maya Angelou

62. “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! what a ride!'” – Hunter S. Thompson

Explore the Unseen Quotes

These “explore the unseen quotes” are there to encourage you to get out the front door and marvel at all the awesomeness that this great world of ours has to offer.

And you know what, you can use these hella fantastic exploration quotes to get your readers/followers to do the same. So, stop wasting time and start using these explore quotes to get people to travel the world.

63. “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

64. “You can shake the sand from your shoes, but it will never leave your soul.”

65. “A person does not grow from the ground like a vine or a tree, one is not part of a plot of land. Mankind has legs so it can wander.” – Roman Payne

66. “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” – E.L. Doctorow

67. “Better to see something once than hear about it a thousand times”

68. “Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that mountain.”- Jack Kerouac

69. “The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams.”

70. “Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux

71. “The world’s mine oyster…” – William Shakespeare

72. “One’s destiny is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

73. “Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost

74. “A journey is a lot like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck

Exploration Quotes and Motivational Quotes about Exploration

Three cheers for motivational quotes about exploration that encourage you to stop dreaming and start living the life you deserve!

So, what are you waiting for? Use these exploration quotes to get people out of their comfort zone so they can admire all the awesomeness that this globe of ours has to offer.

75. “In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.” – Ansel Adams

76. “Go, fly, roam, travel, voyage, explore, journey, discover, adventure.”

77. “Once the travel bug bites, there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life.” – Michael Palin

78. “Until you cross the bridge of your insecurities, you can’t begin to explore your possibilities.” – Tim Fargo

79. “When you give yourself to places, they give you yourself back; the more one comes to know them, the more one seeds them with the invisible crop of memories and associations that will be waiting for when you come back, while new places offer up new thoughts, new possibilities. Exploring the world is one the best ways of exploring the mind, and walking travels both terrains.” – Rebecca Solnit

80. “If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn, and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.” – Anthony Bourdain

81. “Adventure is a path. Real adventure – self-determined, self-motivated, often risky – forces you to have firsthand encounters with the world. The world the way it is, not the way you imagine it. Your body will collide with the earth and you will bear witness. In this way you will be compelled to grapple with the limitless kindness and bottomless cruelty of humankind – and perhaps realize that you yourself are capable of both. This will change you. Nothing will ever again be black-and-white.”- Mark Jenkins

82. “We need the tonic of wildness…At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be indefinitely wild, unsurveyed, and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of nature.” – Henry David Thoreau

83. “Trust me, it’s paradise. this is where the hungry come to feed. For mine is a generation that circles the globe and searches for something we haven’t tried before. So never refuse an invitation, never resist the unfamiliar, never fail to be polite, and never outstay your welcome. Just keep your mind open and suck in the experience. And if it hurts, you know what? It’s probably worth it.” – Alex Garland from The Beach

84. “Let those who wish have their respectability- I wanted freedom, freedom to indulge in whatever caprice struck my fancy, freedom to search in the furthermost corners of the earth for the beautiful, the joyous, and the romantic.” – Richard Halliburton

85. “Adventure is allowing the unexpected to happen to you. Exploration is experiencing what you have not experienced before. How can there be any adventure, any exploration, if you let somebody else – above all, a travel bureau – arrange everything beforehand?” – Richard Aldington

86. “Exploring is an innate part of being human. We’re all explorers when we’re born. Unfortunately, it seems to get drummed out of many of us as we get older, but it’s there, I think, in all of us. And for me, that moment of discovery is just so thrilling, on any level, that I think anybody that’s experienced it is pretty quickly into it.” – Edith Widder

87. “You can accelerate your development by giving yourself a fresh set of challenges, or the same set viewed from a different angle, every day. Explore a different path – if it leads nowhere, explore another.” – Paul Foxton

88. “The gladdest moment in human life is a departure into unknown lands.”– Sir Richard Burton

89. “We were meant to explore this earth like children do, unhindered by fear, propelled by curiosity and a sense of discovery. Allow yourself to see the world through new eyes and know there are amazing adventures here for you.” – Laurel Bleadon Maffei

90. “It’s important for the explorer to be willing to be led astray.” – Roger von Oech

91. “Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.”– Lawrence Block

92. “This I believe: that the free, exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world.” – John Steinbeck

Best Exploration Quotes about Life

Looking for some exploration quotes that also tell you a great deal about life? If so then this section is for you! Because these awesome quotes about exploration also provide you with great insights into life and the very essence of human existence.

So, take a look at these explore quotes right now, and feel free to use them in any blog posts on Instagram photos to help inspire everyone around you.

93. “Great things have small beginnings.” – Francis Drake

94. “Every man can transform the world from one of monotony and drabness to one of excitement and adventure.”– Irving Wallace

95. “Wandering re-establishes the original harmony which once existed between man and the universe.” – Anatole France

96. “It is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown. The only true failure would be not to explore at all.” – Ernest Shackleton

97. “Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca

98. “I will go anywhere, as long as it is forward.” – David Livingstone

99. “All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveler is unaware.” – Martin Buber

100. “Life is about the gray areas. Things are seldom black and white, even when we wish they were and think they should be, and I like exploring this nuanced terrain.” – Emily Giffin

101. “We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.”– Anaïs Nin

102. “I will come again and conquer you because as a mountain you can’t grow… but as a human, I can.” – Edmund Hillary

103. “You must go on adventures to find out where you truly belong” – Sue Fitzmaurice

104. “Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller.” – Ibn Battuta

105. “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that 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

106. “Remember that happiness is a way of travel – not a destination.”– Roy M. Goodman

107. “Life is an experiment in which you may fail or succeed. Explore more, expect least.” – Santosh Kalvar

108. “A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” – Charles Darwin

109. “A life lived every day doing only what needs to be done may seem convenient but your heart and soul don’t live for convenience they live for exploration, imagination, and the pursuit of dreams. Do what must be done but also do what your heart and soul want to be done.” – Avina Celeste

110. “All you need to know is that it’s possible.” – Wolf

111. “With the right mindset and spirit, only the sky’s the limit”

112. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

113. “My greatest fear is not living my life.” – Ed Stafford

114. “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.” – Lao Tzu

115. “Do just once what others say you can’t do, and you will never pay attention to their limitations again.” – James Cook

116. “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” –Alan Keightley

117. “I had ambition not only to go farther than any man had ever been before but as far as it was possible for a man to go.” – James Cook

118. “We have to establish our credentials as an explorocracy; so to survive and rule ourselves, we have to explore.” – China Mieville

119. “My only fear is that I might awaken in my bed, destined to live a common life once again.” – Marco Polo

120. “What is a Wanderess? Bound by no boundaries, contained by no countries, tamed by no time, she is the force of nature’s course.” – Roman Payne

Funny Exploration Quotes and Quotes about Exploration

Travel, and exploration in general, can be a rough experience since the reality of it isn’t nearly as romantic as the dream of it. So, to capture the hilarity of the sometimes ridiculous things that happen to us as we travel around the globe, here are some funny exploration quotes for you to check out.

Trust me, you’ll crack a smile at the very least since this assortment of funny quotes about exploration features famous exploration sayings from iconic comedians like Jerry Seinfeld and GEORGE CARLIN, just to name a few.

121. Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas, take your next trip in kilometers.” – George Carlin

122. Sometimes the road less traveled is less traveled for a reason.” – Jerry Seinfeld

123. “The first condition of understanding a foreign country is to smell it.” – Rudyard Kipling

124. “When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.” – Clifton Fadiman

124. “Adventure, yeah, I guess that’s what you call it when everybody comes back alive.” – Mercedes Lackey

125. “drink heavily with locals when possible.” – Anthony Bourdain

126. Two great talkers will not travel far together.” – Spanish Proverb

127. “Climbing K2 or floating the Grand Canyon in an inner tube. There are some things one would rather have done than do.” – Edward Abbey

128. “A tourist is a fellow who drives thousands of miles so he can be photographed standing in front of his car.” – Emile Ganest

129. “Airplane travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport photo.” – Al Gore

Best Christopher Columbus Quotes and Best Jacques Cousteau Quotes

Love them or hate them, Christopher Columbus and Jacques Cousteau are probably two of the most famous explorers in human history.

Therefore, I wanted to include some of their best quotes in this selection of best exploration quotes and explore quotes for travelers.

So, if you’re looking for great quotes about exploration, then check some of the best Christopher Columbus quotes and best Jacques Cousteau quotes below. Who knows, you may just be inspired to do a bit of traveling yourself.

130. “People protect what they love.” – Jacques Cousteau

131. “For the execution of the voyage to the Indies, I did not make use of intelligence, mathematics or maps.” – Christopher Columbus

132. “The sea, once it casts its spell, holds one in its net of wonder forever.” – Jacques Cousteau

133. “By prevailing over all obstacles and distractions, one may unfailingly arrive at his chosen goal or destination.” – Christopher Columbus

134. “When one man, for whatever reason, has the opportunity to lead an extraordinary life, he has no right to keep it to himself.”  – Jacques Cousteau

135. “Following the light of the sun, we left the Old World.” – Christopher Columbus

136. “We forget that the water cycle and the life cycle are one.” – Jacques Cousteau

137. “Tomorrow morning before we depart, I intend to land and see what can be found in the neighborhood.” – Christopher Columbus

138. “From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.” – Jacques Cousteau

139. “I have come to believe that this is a mighty continent which was hitherto unknown.” – Christopher Columbus

140. “The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.” – Jacques Cousteau

141. “These people are very unskilled in arms… with 50 men they could all be subjected and made to do all that one wished.” – Christopher Columbus

142. “If we go on the way we have, the fault is our greed and if we are not willing to change, we will disappear from the face of the globe, to be replaced by the insect.” – Jacques Cousteau

143. “Riches don’t make a man rich, they only make him busier.” – Christopher Columbus

144. “It takes generosity to discover the whole through others. If you realize you are only a violin, you can open yourself up to the world by playing your role in the concert.”  – Jacques Cousteau

145. “Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.” – Jacques Cousteau

146. “Mankind has probably done more damage to the Earth in the 20th century than in all of previous human history.” – Jacques Cousteau

147. “The sea, the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.” – Jacques Cousteau

148. “No sooner does man discover intelligence than he tries to involve it in his own stupidity.” – Jacques Cousteau

149. “However fragmented the world, however intense the national rivalries, it is an inexorable fact that we become more interdependent every day.” – Jacques Cousteau

150. “Man, of all the animals, is probably the only one to regard himself as a great delicacy.” – – Jacques Cousteau

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Well my friends, that just about wraps up this wickedly long list about the best explore quotes on the internet today!

Tell me, did all your fave exploration quotes and quotes about exploration make the list? If not then let me know in the comments below so that I can add them to this post now!

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