The best decision of my life was to quit my job and backpack in Asia. It was a hard decision. Leaving everything behind is certainly not easy but traveling full-time has taught me so many things!
I learned to appreciate more the things I have, to be more patient and to have the courage to always follow my dreams. My journey led me to incredible places such as Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Japan and many others and the memories I created are priceless.
I met incredible people and even though sometimes things don’t go as expected, those memories are the funniest after all. Who can forget having no accommodation in Jakarta or getting lost in Myanmar?
As a fellow backpacker I want to share with you my all-time favorite backpacking quotes. This is my go-to list when I’m looking for inspiration. Enjoy these awesome captions about backpacking!
Note – When there is no author specified it means that the quote’s author is unknown.
1. Short Backpacker Quotes
You know what they say – strong essences are kept into small bottles. I’ve handpicked the most inspiring short captions about backpacking. Enjoy reading!
1. Keep calm and backpack the world.
2. Don’t be a tourist, be a traveler.
3. Backpacking is the cure of greediness.
4. “You might be poor on money, but rich on life” – Kasper Raunholst
5. I would gladly live out of a backpack if it meant I could see the world.
6. “Backpacking is the art of knowing what not to take.” – Sheridan Anderson.
7. There’s no greater adventure than backpacking to unknown places.
8. Grab your backpack and go. The destination is not important, the journey is!
9. “Everything you own must be able to fit inside one suitcase; then your mind might be free.” – Charles Bukowski
10. “See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream.” – Ray Bradbury
11. “Live, travel, adventure, bless, and don’t be sorry.” – Jack Kerouac
12. “To travel, to experience and learn: that is to live.” – Tenzing Norgay
13. “I don’t know where I’m going, but I promise it won’t be boring.” – David Bowie
14. “The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.” – Oprah Winfrey
2. Funny Backpacking Quotes
If you’re looking for funny backpacking captions, you’re in the right place. These quotes will definitely brighten your day and make you smile.
15. My backpack is my best friend. We’ve been through a lot together.
16. Backpacking is a luxury. Not everyone can afford to leave everything behind and travel the world.
17. “Life is an adventure, it’s not a package tour.” – Eckhart Tolle
18. “I dislike feeling at home when I am abroad.” – George Bernard Shaw.
19. People told me I was crazy to travel the world with a backpack. I told them they were crazy to spend their lives between 4 walls.
20. Screw the map – travel and get lost!
21. “I travel light; as light, that is, as a man can travel who will still carry his body around because of its sentimental value.” – Christopher Fry.
22. “You don’t have to be rich to travel well.” – Eugene Fodor.
3. Love Backpacking Quotes
Backpacking with your loved one is not always easy. A lot of communication and patience is needed to make it work. However, I’m sure that love wins after all! Enjoy reading these backpacking quotes and captions about love.
23. “When traveling with someone, take large doses of patience and tolerance with your morning coffee.” – Helen Hayes
24. If all you want is luxury hotels and private pools, I’m not the guy for you!
25. “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, Tom Sawyer Abroad
4. Backpacking Captions for Instagram
Are you looking for inspiring captions about backpacking for your Instagram? These quotes work perfectly with any photo about backpacking. I always find something to use for my captions in this list.
26. “That’s the difference between backpackers and holidaymakers. The former can’t help but invite hassle whilst the latter pays to escape it.” – Harry Whitewolf
27. Lost buses, street food, hostels and lost stuff – the best memories of any traveler.
28. “Own only what you can always carry with you: known languages, known countries, known people. Let your memory be your travel bag” – Alexandr Solzhenitsyn
29. “Carry as little as possible but choose that little with care” – Earl Shaffer
30. Backpacking makes you realize how little you really need to be happy.
31. “If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion and avoid the people, you might better stay home.” – James A. Michener
32. “Leave home, leave the country, leave the familiar. Only then can routine experience – buying bread, eating vegetables, even saying hello – become new all over again.” – Anthony Doerr
33. “I am a traveler. I am a nomad. I rarely sleep in the same bed more than three or four nights. And I know hotel life better than anyone.” – Diane von Furstenberg
34. “The moments you have experienced are the only possession that nobody can take away from you.” – Unknown
35. “If at some point you don’t ask yourself, ‘What have I gotten myself into?’ then you’re not doing it right.” – Roland Gau
36. “Traveling is brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends.” – Cesare Pavese
37. “To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world.” – Freya Stark
38. “No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow.” – Lin Yutang
39. “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
40. “I’m gonna tell my momma that I’m a traveler. I’m gonna follow the sun.” – Parov Stelar
41. “I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel’s sake. The great affair is to move.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
42. “The traveler sees what he sees. The tourist sees what he has come to see.” – G.K. Chesterton
43. “Long-term travel doesn’t require a massive bundle of cash; it requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way.” – Rolf Potts.
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44. “I see my path, but I don’t know where it leads. Not knowing where I’m going is what inspires me to travel it.” – Rosalia de Castro
45. “I travel because it makes me realize how much I haven’t seen, how much I’m not going to see, and how much I still need to see.” – Carew Papritz
46. “Home is where the heart is, and my heart is wherever I am at the moment.” – Lily Leung
47. “I love waking up in the morning not knowing what’s gonna happen or who I’m gonna meet, where I’m gonna wind up.” – Jack Dawson
48. “I travel not to cross countries off a list, but to ignite passionate affairs with destinations.” – Nyssa P. Chopra
5. Inspirational Backpacking Captions and Quotes
Here are a few other inspirational backpacking quotes. These words of wisdom will make you want to book your next trip asap. After all, being spontaneous is the best part of backpacking.
49. “Travel like Ghandi, with simple clothes, open eyes and an uncluttered mind.” – Rick Steves
50. “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
51. “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.” – Anthony Bourdain
52. “The tourists come here to stay put in their hotels, with their holiday-friendly staff, private beaches, private bars and private sunshine. And yet still, when they get back home, they’ll claim they’ve been to Egypt.” – Harry Whitewolf
53. “They’re the fakes… Those who travel to exotic places, but never walk the streets or meet the people. Preferring instead their cosy interiors of buses, hotels and holiday bars.” – Harry Whitewolf
54. “If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.” – Glenn Clark
55. “To my mind, the greatest reward 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
56. “Part of us believes the new car is better because it lasts longer. But, in fact, that’s the worst thing about the new car. It will stay around to disappoint you, whereas a trip to Europe is over. It evaporates. It has the good sense to go away, and you are left with nothing but a wonderful memory.” – Daniel Gilbert
57. “Nobody warned me about this part. When I envisioned my trip, I imagined exciting adventures, exotic locales, a jet-set lifestyle. I never thought grief and doubt would climb into my backpack and come with me. I pictured standing at the top of the Sun Gate, looking down at Machu Picchu, without ever thinking about the steps it would take to get there. This is the curse of wanderlust, when the postcard image becomes a brutal reality.” – Maggie Downs
58. “And then there is the most dangerous risk of all — the risk of spending your life not doing what you want on the bet you can buy yourself the freedom to do it later.” – Randy Komisar
59. “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
60. “I can’t think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything.” – Bill Bryson.
6. Final thoughts
Backpacking is one of the most incredible experiences one can have. You’ll meet incredible people, you’ll see amazing places and you’ll return home a different yet better person.
I hope that you liked these backpacking quotes and you found inspiration in them. Tell me in the comments section below which one is your favorite!
For other awesome quotes, check out these posts:
- 65 Couple Travel Quotes
- 65 Short and Powerful Travel Quotes
- 75 Funny Beach Quotes
- 55 Awesome Waterfall Quotes
May the travel bug bite you!
Aurelia Teslaru is a professional travel blogger and the writer behind Daily Travel Pill. With a 4-year experience as a travel writer and photographer, Aurelia only shares travel guides about destinations that she visited.
She has been to more than 40 countries during the past 10 years and aims to explore 50 countries before turning 30 years old. Aurelia is a digital nomad who transformed her passion for travel into a lifestyle. Read more about her here.
To follow her adventures, check out her Instagram and Facebook pages!