11 Anthony Bourdain quotes that will inspire you to travel with your whole heart
Today would mark the 63rd birthday of Anthony Bourdain, and that means it’s time to honour his legacy by living life to the fullest, just like he did.
Bourdain was the epitome of eating well, living large, and travelling like you’re supposed to — with an open mind, open heart, and thirst for adventure. Known for his best-selling books and TV series such as Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown, Bourdain is one of the most inspirational travel and culinary figures of our time.
Whether you’re stuck at an office job waiting for your next trip, or taking on the world one adventure at a time, we could always use a reminder to keep raising the bar.
Here are 11 Anthony Bourdain quotes that will inspire you to travel with your whole heart and never look back.
1. “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.”
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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.”
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3. “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.”
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4. “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.”
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5. “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.”
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6. “I wanted adventures. I wanted to go up the Nung river to the heart of darkness in Cambodia. I wanted to ride out into a desert on camelback, sand and dunes in every direction, eat whole roasted lamb with my fingers. I wanted to kick snow off my boots in a Mafiya nightclub in Russia. I wanted to play with automatic weapons in Phnom Penh, recapture the past in a small oyster village in France, step into a seedy neon-lit pulqueria in rural Mexico. I wanted to run roadblocks in the middle of the night, blowing past angry militia with a handful of hurled Marlboro packs, experience fear, excitement, wonder. 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”
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7. “Life–and travel–leaves marks on you. Most of the time, those marks–on your body or on your heart–are beautiful. Often, though, they hurt.”
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8. “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.”
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9. “Travel is about the gorgeous feeling of teetering in the unknown.”
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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 what’s 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. “Like I said before, your body is not a temple, it’s an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
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