Backpacking Quotes

“When you’re in The System, like after being arrested, you’re no longer a participant. You’re being processed. Instead of an easy to ignore, well-greased cog, you become a sharp edge that needs to be ground down.”
― Edward Williams, Framed & Hunted: A True Story of Occult Persecution

“I felt like a secret agent, relying on my wits and charm to keep me alive amidst an epidemic of violent death”
― Edward Williams, Framed & Hunted: A True Story of Occult Persecution

“The world isn't built with a ramp.”
― Walt Balenovich, Travels in a Blue Chair: Alaska to Zambia Ushuaia to Uluru

“Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing. I suppose some will wish to debate whether it is important to keep these primitive arts alive. I shall not debate it. Either you know it in your bones, or you are very, very old.”
― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

“Do you want to live, Sander?”
― Edward Williams, Framed & Hunted: A True Story of Occult Persecution

“...books possess an ounce-of-weight to minute-of-entertainment ratio that compares quite favorably to intoxicants.”
― Jon Krakauer, Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains

“You long to go ito nature because nature doesn't care about you. To be clear, it's not that nature sees you, accepts you for who you are, and loves you anyway: nature just doesn't give a shit about you.”
― Diana Helmuth, How to Suffer Outside: A Beginner's Guide to Hiking and Backpacking

“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, Braver Than You Think: Around the World on the Trip of My (Mother’s) Lifetime

“Take only memories; leave nothing but footprints”
― Chief Seattle, Duwamish Tribe

“Trail magic, the amazing things that happen when you’re out and about, when you open yourself to new experiences, when you pay attention.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“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, The Road To Purification: Hustlers, Hassles & Hash

“After seeing South America, my eyes were open to the suffering and injustices in the world. I wanted to keep exploring so I could do something to make the world better. I was on a quest to change the world; I for sure changed my own world.”
― Kathleen Parisien, Citizen of the World: A Guide to Self Discovery and Adventure

“I did not so much look like a woman who had spent the past three weeks backpacking in there wilderness as I did like a woman who had been the victim I have a violent and bizarre crime. Bruises that arranged in color from yellow to black lined my arms and legs, my back and rump, as if I've been beaten with sticks. My hips and shoulders we are covered with blisters and rashes, inflamed welts and dark scabs where my skin had broken open from being chafed by my pack. Beneath the bruises and wounds and dirt I could see new ridges of muscle, my flat taught in places that has recently been soft.”
― Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail

“I will say it again and until my deathbed: backpacking was hands down the best decision I have ever made. You will learn more about yourself than you could ever imagine and you will come back a more grounded person with clearer thoughts and new perspectives.”
― Kristi Chynoweth, Life Is Like a Camera: Capture the Good, Develop the Negative

“In the wilderness, as in life, to get to where you want to go, you first have to know where you are, and in life at least, who you are.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“I have found that success often comes out of many failures. In some of my failures, I have come face-to-face with the fact I just don’t know enough to do what I’m trying to do. There’s no shame in that. I still have worth and value, despite what I don’t know.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“Recently, she had begun allowing herself to imagine what it must feel like to live for the moment - to wake up and not have your day mapped out in front of you; to go where you pleased; to meet new people from all walks of life and to absorb sights most people only witness in TV documentaries.”
― John Marrs, The Vacation

“That night in our tent, Justin told me how, ten thousand years ago, human beings were migrant—we were like the birds. The average human would see only about a hundred people in her lifetime and would know each one profoundly, deeply bonded. Today, humans in cities will see a hundred beings in just minutes, naming them strangers, a dehumanizing designation.

The next morning, I woke to wet rocks glittering in the slanted light, the day’s warmth shining in bars through the sparse canopy of maples. Happy here, I began to fear our next destination, hectic Manhattan—a surreal flip to witnessing ten thousand people a day. In these deep thickets, we walked a path that was streamlined, simple and clear.”
― Aspen Matis

“There is sometimes a misconception that you have to be self-assured, oozing with confidence, a social butterfly, and comfortable with your own company to long-term solo travel. But that is simply not true”
― Amit Vaidya Forever Roaming the World, You, Yourself & the World

“Reis på tur med Backpacker - og opplev verden på unikt vis, skap fantastiske reiseminner, og knytt livslange bånd med jevnaldrende likesinnede!”
― Bali - øyhopping og strandliv - 28 dager

“The philosophy that guided my ultralight backpacking innovations—“take less, do more”—also guided me in just about every aspect of my life.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“When we know exactly what we need and how to provide it for ourselves, then we also come to recognize what is not essential.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“In all aspects of our lives, balance matters, and it shapes what our ultimate experience will be. But to find our own true and unique balance, we have to first assess our choices.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“Facing failure and learning to overcome it can be a powerful motivator, giving us a boost that transcends the problem currently facing us.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“Being kind and generous doesn’t always have to cost us a lot. It’s more a matter of attuning ourselves to those around us. But that takes practice, like everything else.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“By taking less, I’m able to do more, and the result benefits the entire community. What more could we want for a healthy and fulfilling life?”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“Grief and times of desolation will visit every one of us, and learning to see them as a gift rather than a curse can change our resistance.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“We must learn to consciously remind ourselves of our copious blessings even when the rest of our life doesn’t measure up in the way we want. There will always be aches and wishes beyond our reach, and yet we can still appreciate what we have and share our plenty.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“If we’re not constantly pushing the boundaries of what we know and how we’re interacting with the world around us, then life becomes repetitive and tedious.”
― Glen Van Peski, Take Less. Do More.: Surprising Life Lessons in Generosity, Gratitude, and Curiosity from an Ultralight Backpacker

“To hike quickly here would be like racing through an art gallery. -- Wilderness, The Gateway To The Soul, Scott Stillman”
― Scott Stillman, Wilderness, The Gateway To The Soul: Spiritual Enlightenment Through Wilderness