Brochure Travel Quotes

The Word we study has to be the Word we pray. My personal experience of the relentless tenderness of God came not from exegetes, theologians, and spiritual writers, but from sitting still in the presence of the living Word and beseeching Him to help me understand with my head and heart His written Word. Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of *knowing* Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.

Ever, can't you just relax and enjoy the view? When was the last time you were in Paris anyway?" "Never. I've never been to Paris. And I hate to break it to you, Ava, but this—is not Paris. This is like some cranked up Disney version of Paris. Like, you've taken a pile of travel brochures and French postcards, and scenes from that adorable cartoon movie Ratatouille, mixed them all together and voila, created this.

There are countries out there where people speak English. But not like us - we have our own languages hidden in our carry-on luggage, in our cosmetics bags, only ever using English when we travel, and then only in foreign countries, to foreign people. It's hard to imagine, but English is the real language! Oftentimes their only language. They don't have anything to fall back on or to turn to in moments of doubt. How lost they must feel in the world, where all instructions, all the lurics of all the stupidest possible songs, all the menus, all the excruciating pamphlets and brochures - even the buttons in the lift! - are in their private language. They may be understood by anuone at any moment, whenever they open their mouths. They must have to write things down in special codes. Wherever they are, people have unlimited access to them - they are accessible to everyone and everything! I heard there are plans in the works to get them some little language of their own, one of those dead ones no one else is using anyway, just so that for once they can have something just for them.

Sheer scholarship alone cannot reveal to us the gospel of grace. We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of KNOWING Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.

I’m in love, aren’t I? She thought she knew the answer by how much she wanted to be there. Wouldn’t have traded being there for any other location in the world. Wouldn’t have traded it for all the exotic destinations flaunted in Pan Am travel brochures. Not Tahiti, not Monte Carlo, not Hong Kong. No, she wanted to be here, in this ramshackle market not a ten-minute drive from her humdrum house and life. Except it wasn’t a humdrum life anymore, was it? No, I’m at the most exciting place on Earth. The center of the world. The Roman Forum during the reign of Augustus Caesar.

It was hard to get lost in Missoula even if you wanted to. Wherever you were, all you had to do to get your bearings was look around and find the big letter M, embossed in white halfway up the steep shoulder of grass that reared on the south bank of the Clark Fork River. Though only a hill, it was called Mount Sentinel and if you had the legs and lungs and inclination to hike the trail that zigzagged up it, you could stand by the M and gaze out across the town at a travel-brochure shot of forest and mountain dusted from early fall with snow.

There is no "tropical island paradise" I know of which remotely matches up to the fantasy ideal that such a phrase is meant to conjure up, or even to what we find described in holiday brochures. It's natural to put this down to the discrepancy we are all used to finding between what advertisers promise and what the real world delivers. It doesn't surprise us much any more. So it can come as a shock to realise that the world we hear described by travellers of previous centuries (or even previous decades) and biologists of today really did exist. The state it's in now is only the result of what we've done to it, and the mildness of the disappointment we feel when we arrive somewhere and find that it's a bit tatty is only a measure of how far our own expectations have been degraded and how little we understand what we've lost. The people who do understand what we've lost are the ones who are rushing around in a frenzy trying to save the bits that are left.

She had kept, I knew, all the tickets, brochures and guides we had been given to take home, as if she would take them out later to read as one reads a novel.

The notion of children makes me ill. The thought of having one... when you see those guys in the supermarket, wheeling the trolley around while their brats whine and wheedle and some blundering sow questions every little thing they take off the shelves. I mean, just the fucking idea of it, the very word: family. Whenever I see it, on travel brochures, on house schedules... I feel sick.

The longing provoked by the brochure was an example , at once touching and pathetic, of how projects (and even whole lives) might be influenced by the simplest and most unexamined images of happiness; of how a lengthy and ruinously expensive journey might be set in motion by nothing more than the sigh of a photograph of a palm tree gently inclining in a tropical breeze. I resolved to travel to the island of Barbados.

Choosing a book is so gratifying, it’s worth dragging out the process, starting even before finishing the current one. As the final chapters approach, you can pile up the possibilities like a stack of travel brochures. You can lay out three books and let them linger overnight before making a final decision in the morning. You can Google the reviews; ask other people if they’ve read it, collect information. The choice may ultimately depend on the mood and the moment. ‘You have to read a book at the right time for you,’ Lessing also said, ‘and I am sure this cannot be insisted on too often, for it is the key to the enjoyment of literature.

Are you still working on that bucket list of yours?" Amelia nodded. "As I remember, you mentioned a few things for Ireland." He smiled with humor lacing his eyes as he said, "Like kissing the Blarney Stone at Blarney Castle." She laughed as she opened her brochure of things to do in southern Ireland. "You've got a good memory." Amelia pointed to a picture of a beautiful garden full of flowers. "I want to visit the Blarney Gardens, too." He pointed to another picture and said, "How about the Blarney dungeons? That looks awesome to explore." She looked up at him and smiled. "Yeah. I've also been interested in listening to a live Irish concert.

There was a time when my married friends envied me my singleness, or said they did. I was having fun, ran the line, and they were not. Recently, though, they've revised this view. They tell me I ought to travel, since I have the freedom for it. They give me brochures with palm trees on them. What they have in mind is a sunshine cruise, a shipboard romance, an adventure. I can think of nothing worse: stuck on an overheated boat with a lot of wrinkly women, all bent on adventure too. So I stuff the brochures in behind the toaster oven, so convenient for solo dinners, where one of these days they will no doubt burst into flame. I get enough adventure, right around here. It's wearing me out.

There are countries out there where people speak English. By not like us - we have our own languages hidden in our carry-on luggage, in our cosmetics bags, only ever using English when we travel, and then only in foreign countries, to foreign people. It's hard to imagine, but English is their real language. They don't have anything to fall back on or turn to in moments of doubt. How lost they must feel in the world, where all instructions, all the lyrics of the stupidest possible songs, all the menus, all the excruciating pamphlets and brochures - even the buttons in the lift! - are in their private language. They may be understood by anyone at any moment, whenever they open their mouths. ... Wherever they are, people have unlimited access to them - they are accessible to everyone and everything! (page 182/3)

The only traveler with real soul I've ever met was an office boy who worked in a company where I was at one time employed. This young lad collected brochures on different cities, countries and travel companies; he had maps, some torn out of newspapers, others begged from one place or another; he cut out pictures of landscapes, engravings of exotic costumes, paintings of boats and ships from various journals and magazines. He would visit travel agencies on behalf of some real or hypothetical company, possibly the actual one in which he worked, and ask for brochures on Italy or India, brochures giving details of sailings between Portugal and Australia. He was not only the greatest traveler I've ever known (because he was truest), he was also one of the happiest people I have had the good fortune to meet. I'm sorry not to know what has become of him, though, to be honest, I'm not really sorry, I only feel that I should be. I'm not really sorry because today, ten or more years on from that brief period in which i knew him, he must be a grown man, stolidly, reliably fulfilling his duties, married perhaps, someone's breadwinner - in other words, one of the living dead. By now he may even have traveled in his body, he who knew so well how to travel in his soul. A sudden memory assails me: he knew exactly which trains one had to catch to ho from Paris to Bucharest; which trains one took to cross England; and in his garbled pronunciation of the strange names hung the bright certainty of the greatness of his soul. Now he probably lives like a dead man, but perhaps one day, when he's old, he'll remember that to dream of Bordeaux is not only better, but truer, than actually to arrive in Bordeaux

One day a fellow countryman from Valencia, Jorge Esteban, arrived to stay with the sisters. He had a travel agency back home and was driving around West Africa collecting materials for a tourist brochure. Jorge was a cheerful, merry, energetic man, naturally convivial. He felt at home everywhere, at ease with everyone. He spent only one day with us. He paid no heed to the scorching sun; the heat only seemed to energize him. He unpacked a bag full of cameras, lenses, filters, rolls of film, and began walking around the street, chatting with people, joking, making various sorts of promises. That done, he placed his Canon on a tripod, took out a loud referee’s whistle, and blew it. I was looking out the window and couldn’t believe my eyes. Instantly, the street filled with people. In a matter of seconds they formed a large circle and began to dance. I don’t know where the children came from. They had empty cans, which they beat rhythmically. Everyone was keeping the rhythm, clapping their hands and stomping their feet. People woke up, the blood flowed again through their veins, they became animated. Their pleasure in this dance, their happiness in finding themselves alive again, was palpable. Something started to happen in this street, around them, within them. The walls of the houses moved, the shadows stirred. More and more people joined the ring of dancers, which grew, swelled, and accelerated. The crowd of onlookers was also dancing, the whole street, everyone. Colorful bou-bous, white djellabahs, blue turbans, all were swaying. There is no asphalt or pavement here, so billows of dust soon began to rise above the dancers, dark, thick, hot, choking, and these clouds, just like ones from a raging fire, drew more people still from the surrounding areas. Before long the entire neighborhood was shimmying, shaking, partying—right in the middle of the worst, most debilitating and unbearable noontime heat. Partying? No, this was something different, something bigger, something loftier and more important. You had only to look at the faces of the dancers. They were attentive, listening intently to the loud rhythm the children beat on their tin cans, concentrating, so that the sliding of their feet, the swaying of their hips, the turns of their arms, and the bobbing of their heads corresponded to it. And they looked determined, decisive, alive to the significance of this moment in which they were able to express themselves, participate, prove their presence. Idle and superfluous all day long, all at once they had become visible, needed, and important. They existed. They created.

We followed Captain Skinny inside, and as we stepped into the lobby the cool air hit me with a force that numbed my lips and made time slow down. But we all made it over to reception somehow without slipping into hypothermic shock. The man at the desk inclined his head at us with great gravity and said, “Good afternoon, sir. Do you have a reservation?” I nodded back and said we had, in fact, reserved a room—and Rita leaned in front of me and blurted out, “Not a room, it’s a suite? Because it’s supposed to be, I mean, and anyway when we got it—online? And Dexter said—my husband. I mean, Morgan.” “Very good, ma’am,” the clerk said. He turned to his computer, and I left Rita to go through all the little rituals of registration while I took Lily Anne and followed Cody and Astor over to a large rack holding pamphlets for all the many charming and glamorous attractions this Magic Isle held for even the most jaded traveler. Apparently, one could do almost anything in Key West—as long as one had a couple of major credit cards and an overwhelming urge to buy T-shirts. The kids stared at the dozens of brightly colored brochures. Cody would frown and point to one, and Astor would pull it from its slot. Then their two heads came together over the pictures as they studied the page, Astor whispering to her brother and Cody nodding and frowning back at her, and then their eyes would snap up and they’d go back to the rack to pick another one. By the time Rita had us registered and came to join us, Astor held at least fifteen brochures.

in the middle of this God-forsaken desert, the government built an oasis.  The designers included rolling hills, a small river, walking trails, two small lakes, and dozens of large one and two story buildings that seemed to be part of the environment.  And there was grass, lots of bright green grass right there in the middle of the desert.  It was synthetic but it looked real and made the place look like a picture on a travel brochure. 

We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of knowing Jesus Christ personally and directly. When the religious views of others interpose between us and the primary experience of Jesus as the Christ, we become unconvicted and unpersuasive travel agents handing out brochures to places we have never visited.

She wouldn’t have traded being there for any other location in the world. Wouldn’t have traded it for all the exotic destinations flaunted in Pan Am travel brochures. Not Tahiti, not Monte Carlo, not Hong Kong. No, she wanted to be here, in this ramshackle market not a ten-minute drive from her humdrum house and life. Except it wasn’t a humdrum life anymore, was it? No, I’m at the most exciting place on Earth. The center of the world. The Roman Forum during the reign of Augustus Caesar. “Let’s explore more,” John said after he deposited a head of broccoli into the cart.

What’s the first thing you do now before you visit a new restaurant for the first time or book a hotel room online? You probably ask a friend for a recommendation or you check out the reviews online. Now more than ever, the story your customers tell about you is a big part of your story. Word of mouth is accelerated and amplified. Trust is built digitally beyond the village. Reputations are built and lost in a moment. Opinions are no longer only shared one to one; they are broadcasted one to many, through digital channels. Those opinions live on as clues to your story. The cleanliness of your hotel bathrooms is no longer a secret. Guests’ unedited photos are displayed alongside a hotel brochure’s digital glossies. TripAdvisor ratings are proudly displayed by hotels and often say more about the standards guests can expect than do other, more established star ratings systems, such as the Forbes Travel Guide‘s ratings. Once-invisible brands and family-run hotels have had their businesses turned around by the stories their customers tell about them. “With 50 million reviews and counting, [TripAdvisor] is shaking the travel industry to its core.” —Nathan Labenz It turns out that people are more likely to trust the stories other people tell about you than to trust the well-lit Photoshopped images in your brochure. Reputation is how your idea and brand story are spread. A survey conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey found that six in ten cruise customers said “they were less likely to book a cruise that received only one star.” There is no marketing more powerful than what one person says to another to recommend your brand. “Don’t waste money on expensive razors.” “Nice hotel; shame about the customer service.” In a world where online reputation can increase a hotel’s occupancy and revenue, trust has become a marketing metric. “[R]eputation has a real-world value.” —Rachel Botsman When we were looking to book a quiet, off-the-beaten-track hotel in Bali, the first place we looked wasn’t with the travel agents or booking.com. I jumped online and found that one of the area’s best-rated hotels on tripadvisor.com wasn’t a five-star resort but a modest family-run, three-star hotel that was punching well above its weight. This little fifteen-room hotel had more than 400 very positive reviews and had won a TripAdvisor Travellers Choice award. The reviews from the previous guests sealed the deal. The little hotel in Ubud was perfect. The reviews didn’t lie, and of course the place was fully booked with a steady stream of guests who knew where to look before taking a chance on a hotel room. Just a few years before, this $50-a-night hotel would have been buried amongst a slew of well-marketed five-star resorts. Today, thanks to a currency of trust, even tiny brands can thrive by doing the right thing and giving their customers a great story to tell.

There are countries out there where people speak English. But not like us - we have our own languages hidden in our carry-on luggage, in our cosmetics bags, only ever using English when we travel, and then only in foreign countries, to foreign people. It's hard to imagine, but English is their real language. They don't have anything to fall back on or turn to in moments of doubt. How lost they must feel in the world, where all instructions, all the lyrics of the stupidest possible songs, all the menus, all the excruciating pamphlets and brochures - even the buttons in the lift! - are in their private language. They may be understood by anyone at any moment, whenever they open their mouths. ... Wherever they are, people have unlimited access to them - they are accessible to everyone and everything! (page 182/3)

then through the Indian Ocean, down around the Cape of Good Hope, and up to the Atlantic. The entirety of the world via water. So many of the places I went exist in my mind like a brochure when I try to recall them. Elephants in Tsavo East National Park, an elevator packed with people riding from Salvador’s upper to lower city. The rippling heat of Delhi and the bright turquoises, saffrons, and fuchsias of women’s saris. I learned about silk and sashimi, about wild animals and barren deserts. I also learned about intractable poverty, caste systems, indigenous tribes—things I might have learned about America if I’d been paying closer attention. But this is perhaps the most profound lesson of travel, that you don’t really know the place and culture you’ve come from until you’ve left it. Today, I think that even if I had someday left the States, without that voyage, I’d have trod the familiar: London, Paris, Amsterdam, Montreal. Instead, Semester at Sea gave me the courage to imagine a different kind of travel, and a blueprint for how to do it. To see the sights, certainly, but to understand that it was meeting people that really mattered. In this, I also count a legacy from my father, the salesman who could talk to anyone about anything.

Maybe Sloan would agree to a deal. I’d talk to someone about some of my issues if she would agree to go to grief counseling. It wasn’t me giving in to Josh like she wanted, but Sloan knew how much I hated therapists, and she’d always wanted me to see someone. I was debating how to pitch this to her when I glanced into the living room and saw it—a single purple carnation on my coffee table. I looked around the kitchen like I might suddenly find someone in my house. But Stuntman was calm, plopped under my chair. I went in to investigate and saw that the flower sat on top of a binder with the words “just say okay” written on the outside in Josh’s writing. He’d been here? My heart began to pound. I looked again around the living room like I might see him, but it was just the binder. I sat on the sofa, my hands on my knees, staring at the binder for what felt like ages before I drew the courage to pull the book into my lap. I tucked my hair behind my ear and licked my lips, took a breath, and opened it up. The front page read “SoCal Fertility Specialists.” My breath stilled in my lungs. What? He’d had a consultation with Dr. Mason Montgomery from SoCal Fertility. A certified subspecialist in reproductive endocrinology and infertility with the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology. He’d talked to them about in vitro and surrogacy, and he’d had fertility testing done. I put a shaky hand to my mouth, and tears began to blur my eyes. I pored over his test results. Josh was a breeding machine. Strong swimmers and an impressive sperm count. He’d circled this and put a winking smiley face next to it and I snorted. He’d outlined the clinic’s high success rates—higher than the national average—and he had gotten signed personal testimonials from previous patients, women like me who used a surrogate. Letter after letter of encouragement, addressed to me. The next page was a complete breakdown on the cost of in vitro and information on Josh’s health insurance and what it covered. His insurance was good. It covered the first round of IVF at 100 percent. He even had a small business plan. He proposed selling doghouses that he would build. The extra income would raise enough money for the second round of in vitro in about three months. The next section was filled with printouts from the Department of International Adoptions. Notes scrawled in Josh’s handwriting said Brazil just opened up. He broke down the process, timeline, and costs right down to travel expenses and court fees. I flipped past a sleeve full of brochures to a page on getting licensed for foster care. He’d already gone through the background check, and he enclosed a form for me, along with a series of available dates for foster care orientation classes and in-home inspections. Was this what he’d been doing? This must have taken him weeks. My chin quivered. Somehow, seeing it all down on paper, knowing we’d be in it together, it didn’t feel so hopeless. It felt like something that we could do. Something that might actually work. Something possible. The last page had an envelope taped to it. I pried it open with trembling hands, my throat getting tight. I know what the journey will look like, Kristen. I’m ready to take this on. I love you and I can’t wait to tell you the best part…Just say okay. I dropped the letter and put my face into my hands and sobbed like I’d never sobbed in my life. He’d done all this for me. Josh looked infertility dead in the eye, and his choice was still me. He never gave up. All this time, no matter how hard I rejected him or how difficult I made it, he never walked away from me. He just changed strategies. And I knew if this one didn’t work he’d try another. And another. And another. He’d never stop trying until I gave in. And Sloan—she knew. She knew this was here, waiting for me. That’s why she’d made me leave. They’d conspired to do this.

You can't negotiate peace treaties with travel brochures, just like we can't solve world hunger with cooking shows!

People say I've made a living travelling the world, but that's not quite right. I like to think instead that I've made a living 'writing' the world - in notebooks, on laptops, phones and postcards, the backs of lunch receipts, and the edges of maps and tourist brochures.

There's a lot of water everywhere. The roads near the sea front are under two feet of it. Do they mention this in the brochures? I see a package of Nordic tourists washed up in a hotel lobby. The hotel looks as though it has absorbed its own weight of water.