“Not all who wander are lost” J.R.R. Tolkien – but perhaps they’re suffering from fernweh? Or have a bout of wanderlust? Or they were born a nemophilist?

Have you ever traveled to a new destination and not known how to describe what you’re feeling? Well, there are loads of different travel synonyms in different languages that’ll help you describe what you’re feeling perfectly. 

Take a look at this list filled with creative travel words, wanderlust synonyms, and travel lover synonyms. Expand your travel vocabulary! 

#1 Fernweh

Meaning: An urge to travel is even stronger than wanderlust.

Origin: German

#2 Numinous

numinous, one of our favorite words about travel

Meaning: Feeling both fearful and awed by what is before you.

Origin: Latin

#3 Strikhedonia

Meaning: The joy of being able to say “to hell with it”.

Origin: Greek

#4 Peregrinate

Meaning: To travel or wander around from place to place.

Origin: Latin

#5 Eudaimonia

Meaning: The contented happiness you feel when you travel.

Origin: Greek

#6 Sonder

Meaning: The realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.

Origin: Unknown

#7 Trouvaille

A word definition from the French, trouvaille

Meaning: Something lovely discovered by chance.

Origin: French

#8 Onism

Meaning: The awareness of how little of the world you’ll experience.

Origin: Danish

#9 Dérive

Meaning: A spontaneous journey where the traveler lets the spirit of the landscape and architecture move them. 

Origin: French

#10 Serendipity

Meaning: Finding something interesting or valuable by chance. 

Origin: English

#11 Livsnjutare

Meaning: One who loves life deeply and lives it to the extreme.

Origin: Swedish

#12 Solivagant

Meaning: Wandering alone. A solitary adventurer who travels or wanders the globe.

Origin: Latin

#13 Ecophobia

Ecophobia, a word about travel meaning a fear of one's home

Meaning: A fear or dislike of one’s home.

Origin: English

#14 Schwellenangst

Meaning: Fear of crossing a threshold to begin a new chapter.

Origin: German

#15 Eleutheromania

Meaning: The intense desire for freedom.

Origin: Greek

#16 Vagary

Meaning: A whimsical or roaming journey.

Origin: Latin

#17 Saudade

Meaning:  The emotional state of nostalgia and longing for someone or something distant. Saudade was once described as “the love that remains” after someone is gone.

Origin: Portuguese

#18 Hygge

Meaning: The warm feeling you get while enjoying the company of great friends and all life has to offer.

Origin: Danish

Psst! We have some hearty Hygge ideas to make the winter time cozier for you here.

#19Nemophilist 

A word for tree-lovers, nemophilist

Meaning: Someone who is fond of the forest.

Origin: English 

#20 Yoko meshi

Meaning: The word is not an easy translation but it describes the stress of speaking a foreign language.

Origin: Japanese

#21 Coddiwomple

Meaning: To travel purposefully towards an unknown destination

Origin: English

#22 Sehnsucht

Meaning: A wistful longing and yearning in the heart for travels that have been and travels to come.

Origin: German

#23 Yūgen 

Meaning: A profound and mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe.

Origin: Japanese

#24 Sturmfrei

The definition of a word from German about travel, Sturmfrei

Meaning: The freedom of being alone and having the ability to do whatever you want.

Origin: German

#25 Nefelibata

Meaning: One who lives in the cloud of their own imagination. Someone who is generally unconventional. 

Origin: Portuguese

#26 Commuovere

Meaning: To move to tears. 

Origin: Italian 

Check out these best views in the world that’ll move you to tears!

#27 Flâuner 

Meaning:  A person of leisure, deliberately aimless, simply wandering the streets.

Origin: French

#28 Musafir

Meaning: Traveler

Origin: Urdu

#29 Querencia

Meaning: The place where you are your most authentic self, from where strength is drawn, where you feel at home.

Origin: Spanish

#30 Thalassophile

Meaning: A lover of the ocean.

Origin: Greek

As a thalassophile myself, I’d recommend traveling along the sea on Greece’s Rhodes Island.

#31 Komorebi

Words about travel - komorebi from Japanese

Meaning: The sunlight that filters through the leaves of trees.

Origin: Japanese

#32 Acatalepsy

Meaning: The idea that it is impossible to truly comprehend everything. 

Origin: Greek

#33 Wayfarer

Meaning: Someone who loves to travel, especially on foot. 

Origin: English

#34 Selcouth 

Meaning: Something that’s odd and unusual to a person. 

Origin: Old English

#35 Novaturient

Meaning: A desire to seek powerful change in one’s life; the feeling that pushes you to travel.

Origin: Latin

#36 Rückkehrunruhe 

Meaning: The feeling of returning home after an immersive trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness—to the extent you have to keep reminding yourself that it happened at all.

Origin: German

#37 Exulansis 

Meaning:  is what you feel when you stop trying to explain or talk about an experience because the surrounding people cannot relate to it. 

Origin: English

#38 Ukiyo

Meaning: Living in the moment, detached from the bothers of life.

Origin: Japanese

#39 Wanderlust

Meaning: A strong desire to travel.

Origin: German 

#40 Vúlat

Meaning:  A union or reunion after being apart for a long time with one’s beloved.

Origin: Turkish


We hope you’ve found some new beautiful and inspiring words about travel! If you’d like to learn more, check out these inspirational words in other languages!

Or send one of these beautiful words on a personalized travel postcard via the MyPostcard app. We print and send your postcards for you!

Author

Hiya, I’m Maud. I’m an English girl who's moved to Berlin - because who wouldn’t fall in love with a country which has words like ‘Kummerspeck’ hidden around every corner... I love traveling and finding out the quirks of each country - and what better way to remember them than on a postcard?

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