Aaron Lauritsen: Travel Quotes from the Open Road
Aaron Lauritsen is a Canadian author and former soldier whose one book, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip, came out of a real journey. After a divorce in 2013 he sold almost everything and drove some 30,000 miles across North America with his dog. Almost every quote attributed to him online comes from that single road-trip memoir, and his plain-spoken lines about open roads, small towns and the drive toward who you want to be have spread far beyond it. The genuinely sourced quotes are gathered here, each kept tied to the book.
Search for Aaron Lauritsen travel quotes and you find the same handful of road-tested lines repeated across hundreds of travel pages, almost always pulled from a single book. This page gathers those quotes, keeps each one tied to that book, and is honest about what can and cannot be verified about the man who wrote them. First, a short look at who he is, because the lines land differently once you know they came from an actual hundred-day drive across a continent.
Who Aaron Lauritsen Is: The Author of 100 Days Drive
Aaron Lauritsen is a Canadian author, and unlike the long-dead classic travel writers, he is a modern independent voice rather than a public literary figure. A former professional soldier turned small business owner, he is best known for one book, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip, and it is the source of nearly every quote attributed to him online.
The book itself is the story. In the autumn of 2013, at a crossroads after a divorce, Lauritsen sold his business and most of what he owned, put his dog in his pickup truck, and drove for one hundred days, roughly 30,000 miles, through thirty eight US states and seven Canadian provinces, often on back roads with no map. He now lives in the foothills west of Calgary. That one book has done the rest, sending his lines about open roads, small towns and the drive toward who you want to be out into the wider world of shared travel quotes.
Why Lauritsen Is Worth Quoting on Travel: 100 Days Drive and the Open Road
100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip is exactly what the title promises, a memoir built from that hundred-day drive across the continent. It reads as part travelogue, part notebook of reflections, the kind of lines you scribble at a gas station or a roadside diner when the drive has shaken something loose. The road-trip setting is what makes the quotes feel earned rather than abstract.
Read Lauritsen as a traveller and the appeal is the open road itself. He writes about movement, small towns at the edge of the map, and the slow work of becoming yourself across the miles. The lines are plain-spoken and quotable by design, which is why they travel so well on their own. The sourced quotes below all come from this one book, so you can see exactly where each one lives.
The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating.
— Aaron Lauritsen 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip (2016) The Lauritsen line every road-tripper recognises. The open road is not just a route, it is the feeling of being unscripted and free.
The Book to Start With: 100 Days Drive
There is really only one title to recommend with Lauritsen, the book that every quote on this page comes from.
1. 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip
Best for: Anyone who wants the road-trip book behind the quotes: Lauritsen's hundred-day drive across North America in his own words.
Lauritsen’s road-trip memoir, the source of nearly every quote on this page. Part travelogue and part roadside notebook, it gathers the plain-spoken reflections on open roads, small towns and self-discovery that have spread far beyond it. If the lines here landed, this is where they live.
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Sourced Aaron Lauritsen Quotes from 100 Days Drive
Notes on sourcing: every line below is attributed to 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip, Lauritsen’s one widely circulated book. Because his quotes spread mostly through social media and quote aggregators, lines occasionally appear under his name with no book attached. We have kept only quotes traceable to the book.
It's in those quiet little towns, at the edge of the world, that you will find the salt of the earth people who make you feel right at home.
— Aaron Lauritsen 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip (2016) The best part of any long drive: the small places off the map where strangers treat you like you belong.
Travel is costly yes, but it pays dividends too.
— Aaron Lauritsen 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip (2016) The case for going, in one line. What travel costs you in money it returns in everything that lasts.
It's the 'everyday' experiences we encounter along the journey to who we wanna be that will define who we are when we get there.
— Aaron Lauritsen 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip (2016) The journey is not the highlight reel. It is the ordinary days on the road that quietly shape who you become.
Explore, Experience, Then Push Beyond.
— Aaron Lauritsen 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip (2016) A three-word travel ethic. See the place, live it, then go further than you planned to.
There is strange comfort in knowing that no matter what happens today, the Sun will rise again tomorrow.
— Aaron Lauritsen 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip (2016) The reassurance you reach for at the end of a hard day on the road. Tomorrow is a new stretch of highway.
I don't believe in luck, but rather destiny. And destiny comes when you chase opportunity, only then will you make your own path in life.
— Aaron Lauritsen 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip (2016) Why you take the trip at all. The road does not appear by luck, you make it by choosing to go.
Building bridges is the best defence against ignorance.
— Aaron Lauritsen 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip (2016) The oldest argument for travel, told plainly. You cannot fear what you have driven through and met face to face.
Starter path: pick the one line that matched the drive you keep meaning to take, write it somewhere you will see it before you leave, and let it nudge you toward actually putting the miles down.
A Word on Sourcing a Contemporary Author
There is a catch worth naming with a contemporary author like Lauritsen. His quotes spread almost entirely through social media, Goodreads and quote-collection sites, not through a long publishing record, so it is easy to find his lines floating free of any source at all.
Everything on this page is tied back to the same book, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip, which is the only widely available primary source for his words. If you come across a line attributed to Aaron Lauritsen with no book named, treat it with the same caution you would give any unsourced quote. The lines gathered here are the ones that can be traced home.
Frequently Asked Questions About Aaron Lauritsen
What book are Aaron Lauritsen's travel quotes from?
All of his widely shared quotes come from a single book, 100 Days Drive: The Great North American Road Trip, his account of a long road trip across the continent.
What is Aaron Lauritsen's most quoted line about the road?
The freedom of the open road is seductive, serendipitous and absolutely liberating, from 100 Days Drive.
Is Aaron Lauritsen a travel writer?
He is a contemporary independent author whose best known work is the road-trip book 100 Days Drive. His reputation as a travel voice rests largely on the road-tested lines from that book.
What did Lauritsen say about travel being worth the cost?
Travel is costly yes, but it pays dividends too, from 100 Days Drive.
Are Aaron Lauritsen quotes reliably sourced?
The quotes on this page are all attributed to the same documented book, 100 Days Drive. Lines circulating without that book attribution should be treated with caution.
Why Aaron Lauritsen Belongs on a Travel Quotes Page
Aaron Lauritsen earns his place on a travel quotes page for one simple reason: he wrote the open road the way a road-tripper actually lives it, in small towns, long drives and the slow miles toward who you want to become. 100 Days Drive is the book to start with, and it is the source every quote here comes from. Take his road-tested lines, leave the unsourced ones where they belong, and you have a modern companion for the next long drive. For more wisdom in this voice, browse our full library of travel quotes.
More Quote Collections Worth Your Time
- 100 Best Travel Quotes: the full library, organised by theme.
- Solo Travel Quotes: courage and independence for the open road, the natural next read after Lauritsen.
- All Author Bios: every writer whose travel lines we have sourced and checked.