30 Best Anthony Bourdain Travel Quotes

Dive into a curated collection of Anthony Bourdain travel quotes that inspire wanderlust and offer profound insights on life—Experience Bourdain’s wisdom, wit, and worldly perspective in each quote.

Anthony Bourdain, a culinary virtuoso and globe-trotter, left an indelible mark on the world through his storytelling and exploration of diverse cultures.

Beyond his expertise in the kitchen, Bourdain had a way with words that has deeply inspired travelers, food enthusiasts, and those pondering the more significant questions of life.

This collection focuses on Anthony Bourdain travel quotes that capture the essence of wanderlust and offer profound insights into life itself.

Whether you’re an avid traveler or enjoy the poetic wisdom of Anthony Bourdain quotes about life, you’ll find solace, motivation, and enlightenment here.

Spanning across various countries, flavors, and philosophies, these Anthony Bourdain quotes travel to the corners of the human soul, inviting us to reconsider our viewpoints.

Immerse yourself in this curated list of travel quotes Anthony Bourdain has blessed us with, and find your journey in his words.

Best Anthony Bourdain Travel Quotes

1. “To be treated well in places where you don’t expect to be treated well, to find things in common with people you thought previously you had very, very little in common with, that can’t be a bad thing.”

2. “Travel changes you. As you move through this life and this world, you change things slightly, you leave marks behind, however small. And in return, life — and travel — leaves marks on you.”

3. “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.”

4. “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.”

5. “Nothing unexpected or wonderful is likely to happen if you have an itinerary in Paris filled with the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower.”

6. “Plans should be ephemeral, so be prepared to move away from them.”

7. “It seems that the more places I see and experience, the bigger I realize the world to be. The more I become aware of, the more I realize how relatively little I know of it, how many places I have still to go, how much more there is to learn.”

8. “Do we really want to travel in hermetically sealed popemobiles through the rural provinces of France, Mexico and the Far East, eating only in Hard Rock Cafes and McDonalds? … I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.”

9. “Your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”

10. “It’s an irritating reality that many places and events defy description. Angkor Wat and Machu Picchu, for instance, seem to demand silence, like a love affair you can never talk about. For a while after, you fumble for words, trying vainly to assemble a private narrative, an explanation, a comfortable way to frame where you’ve been and whats happened. In the end, you’re just happy you were there – with your eyes open – and lived to see it.”

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11. You learn a lot about someone when you share a meal together.

12. “It’s those little human moments that stick with you forever, the random acts of kindness.”

13. “Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”

14. “There’s something wonderful about drinking in the afternoon. A not-too-cold pint, absolutely alone at the bar – even in this fake-ass Irish pub.”

15. It’s been an adventure. We took some casualties over the years. Things got broken. Things got lost. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

16. “Drink heavily with locals whenever possible.”

17. “I wanted adventures… I wanted kicks – the kind of melodramatic thrills and chills I’d yearned for since childhood, the kind of adventure I’d found as a little boy in the pages of my Tintin comic books. I wanted to see the world – and I wanted the world to be just like the movies.”

18. “If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. The extent to which you can walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food, it’s a plus for everybody. Open your mind, get up off the couch, move.”

19. “Skills can be taught. Character you either have or you don’t have.”

20. “I think food, culture, people and landscape are all absolutely inseparable.”

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21. “Food is everything we are. It’s an extension of nationalist feeling, ethnic feeling, your personal history, your province, your region, your tribe, your grandma. It’s inseparable from those from the get-go.”

22. “Without experimentation, a willingness to ask questions and try new things, we shall surely become static, repetitive, and moribund.”

23. “When dealing with complex transportation issues, the best thing to do is pull up with a cold beer and let somebody else figure it out.”

24. “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.”

25. “I know what I want. I want it all. I want to try everything once.”

26. “Looking at these photographs, I know that I will never understand the world I live in or fully know the places I’ve been. I’ve learned for sure only what I don’t know—and how much I have to learn.”

27. “I learned a long time ago that trying to micromanage the perfect vacation is always a disaster. That leads to terrible times.”

28. “I’m a big believer in winging it. I’m a big believer that you’re never going to find perfect city travel experience or the perfect meal without a constant willingness to experience a bad one. Letting the happy accident happen is what a lot of vacation itineraries miss, I think, and I’m always trying to push people to allow those things to happen rather than stick to some rigid itinerary.”

29. “Meals make the society, hold the fabric together in lots of ways that were charming and interesting and intoxicating to me. The perfect meal, or the best meals, occur in a context that frequently has very little to do with the food itself.”

30. “I don’t have to agree with you to like you or respect you.”

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