Recently updated on July 12th, 2022 at 02:30 pm
There’s nothing quite like setting the shackles free. Leaving everything behind to stretch out our arms in ecstasy and embrace our free will. Travel sets us free. It’s why we love it. And more than anything, travel poems speak to this feeling. So to honour World Poetry Day (21 March annually) and inspire your next adventure, we’ve compiled 5 travel poems that illustrate the freedom of travel.
“It is on the road that I experience what freedom truly is”
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Freedom, by Oliver Runner
Give me the long, straight road before me,
A clear, cold day with a nipping air,
Tall, bare trees to run on beside me,
A heart that is light and free from care.
Then let me go! – I care not whither
My feet may lead, for my spirit shall be
Free as the brook that flows to the river,
Free as the river that flows to the sea.
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For the Traveler, by John O’Donohue
Every time you leave home,
Another road takes you
Into a world you were never in.
New strangers on other paths await.
New places that have never seen you
Will startle a little at your entry.
Old places that know you well
Will pretend nothing
Changed since your last visit.
When you travel, you find yourself
Alone in a different way,
More attentive now
To the self you bring along,
Your more subtle eye watching
You abroad; and how what meets you
Touches that part of the heart
That lies low at home:
How you unexpectedly attune
To the timbre in some voice,
Opening in conversation
You want to take in
To where your longing
Has pressed hard enough
Inward, on some unsaid dark,
To create a crystal of insight
You could not have known
You needed
To illuminate
Your way.
When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.
A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take the time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.
May you travel in an awakened way,
Gathered wisely into your inner ground;
That you may not waste the invitations
Which wait along the way to transform you.
May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.
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Why do I travel? (Author Unknown)
It is on the road that my inner voice speaks the loudest and my heart beats the strongest.
It is on the road that I take extra pride in my wooly hair, full features and lineage.
It is on the road that I develop extra senses and the hairs on my arms stand up and say “Sana, don’t go there”, and I listen.
It’s when I safety pin my money to my underclothes and count it a million times before I go to sleep.
It is on the road that I am a poet, an ambassador, a dancer, medicine woman, an angel and even a genius.
It’s on the road that I am fearless and unstoppable and if necessary ball up my fist and fight back.
It is on the road that I talk to my deceased parents and they speak back.
It’s on the road that I reprimand myself, and set new goals, refuel, stop and begin again.
It is on the road that I experience what freedom truly is.
It is my travel that has transformed me making me a citizen of the world. When my humanness, compassion and affection are raised to a new level and I share unconditionally.
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Snippet from Song of the Open Road, by Walt Whitman
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading me wherever I choose,
Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road.
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The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Can you feel the wanderlust soaring? Which of these travel poems inspires you most in your in the comments below! Or maybe you have your own favourite travel poems? Tell us in the comments below!