8 travel quotes to offer TEFL inspiration
Everyone needs a little nudge out the door sometimes. It could come in the form of a wanderlust-inducing postcard sent by a friend. It could come as you flick through the pages of a travel brochure – whip, there goes the stooping palms of Punta Cana, whip, the rocky beaches of the Riviera Nayarit. Or, it could come from a particularly uplifting travel quote, the likes of which we share below…
“Because in the end, you won’t remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain.” – Jack Kerouac.
Author and beatnik extraordinaire sets the ball a-rolling with this shortcut to the brutal truth. If you’re feeling stuck in the nine-to-five and like you can’t escape, the solution could be – to steal another phrase from the iconoclastic writer – “on the road”. Aka – do something crazy, you might just remember it!
“To travel is to live.” – Hans Christian Andersen
Simple. To the point. No messing around. It’s a straight message from Denmark’s maestro of the magical. And while Hans himself might have had journeys to faerie-inhabited woods and gingerbread towns in mind, we’re thinking more boundary-breaking jaunts to China’s wild cities or the glinting beaches of Thailand.
“Travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.” – Anon
Hmm…we’re not sure we’re in total agreement with Mr/Mrs/Ms Anon – they clearly haven’t come across TEFL courses. A few hundred dollars investment opening a lifetime career of teaching and exploration. Yep, that seems to fit the riddle. Still, we get the sentiment. And approve.
“Not all those who wander are lost” – J.R.R. Tolkien
Oft-quoted but with good reason. You certainly don’t have to be a hairy-footed Hobbit to make sense of it either. How about a fresh-faced TEFL graduate starting out on a new adventure? You might feel like you’re going into the unknown but you’re not without direction. You’ve got your 120-hour certificate. You’re not lost.
“Quit your job, buy a ticket, get a tan, fall in love, never return.” – Island Company
It might be printed on T-shirts and vests, but that doesn’t make it any less uplifting. Of course, we’re not so sure about the first imperative. We’re more fans of chasing a job that lets you do all the other steps. You know, like a TEFL placement, say, which opens up destinations where you can fall in love, top up the tan, and never return.
“People don’t take trips, trips take people.” – John Steinbeck
Author of The Grapes of Wrath puts his finger on the sort of experience we see time and time again with TEFL grads. Be in no doubt as to how amazingly life changing a career of teaching English abroad can be. There’s no guessing where it will take you, from the snow-mantled mountains of the Alps to the traffic-choked megalopolises of Asia to the glacier fields of Argentina.
“To awaken quite alone in a strange town is one of the pleasantest sensations in the world” – Freya Stark
It’s true: There’s something unnerving, memorable, amazing, and exhilarating about being a stranger in a strange land. One of the great things about a TEFL qualification is that you probably won’t remain a stranger for long – there’s no telling where you’ll adopt as your next home.
“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Lao Tzu
Now that’s something we can agree with Mr. Tzu. So long, of course, that you agree that single step could be nailing a 120-hour TEFL course and applying for jobs. Then that 1,000 miles could be hop to Taipei or a long-hauler to Hong Kong…if you catch our drift.
Got any awesome travel quotes you’d like to add to this inspiring list? Be sure to drop them in the comments below. Or, have these uplifting lines pushed you to think about a TEFL course? You can hit our course page for extra info.