When I picked up The Art of Travel, I knew absolutely nothing about the book, so I just naturally assumed that the book was about how to travel. Turns out it's about the actual ART of Travel - as in, art depicting travel.

The book is about how art portrays travel vs how we actually experience it, and how art can make us notice things we wouldn't have normally. Like the beauty of airports or gas stations or railway stations.

“with what ease our seemingly entrenched lives might be altered were we simply to walk down a corridor and onto a craft that in a few hours would land us in a place of which we had no memories and where no one knew our name.”

Or how a place we would normally not even give a second glance can be made beautiful by an artist pointing out the special details:   

“It was for van Gogh the mark of every great painter to enable viewers to see certain aspects of the world more clearly.”

“Perhaps because unhappiness can stem from having only one perspective to play with.”

The book is an incredible philosophical analysis of travel through the lens of painters, artists, and poets. I highly recommend it!

“The sole cause of mans unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room”

— Pascal, Penses, 136