Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great

Paul Theroux, wanderer of continents and chronicler of the human condition, once proclaimed with humility and clarity: “Mark Twain was a great traveler and he wrote three or four great travel books. I wouldn't say that I'm a travel novelist but rather a novelist who travels—and who uses travel as a background for finding stories of places.” These words reveal not only the nature of his craft but also a truth that transcends literature: that travel is not merely movement through lands, but a pilgrimage of the imagination, a means of unearthing stories that already lie hidden in the stones, rivers, and souls of distant places.

The origin of this reflection lies in Theroux’s own life as one of the great modern voices of travel writing. From The Great Railway Bazaar to his explorations of Africa, Asia, and the Americas, he followed in the footsteps of earlier writers like Mark Twain, who himself journeyed widely and transformed his travels into timeless works such as The Innocents Abroad and Roughing It. Yet Theroux distinguishes himself here. He does not claim to be merely a recorder of voyages. Instead, he is a novelist—one who travels not to list what he sees, but to listen, to observe, to transform encounters into deeper truths about humanity itself.

This is the wisdom of his statement: that travel is not the story, but the stage upon which the story unfolds. A true novelist does not seek only scenery; he seeks the hidden drama of places and people. Travel gives him the background, the texture, the colors—but it is the human heart that provides the plot. Where others see a train ride or a bustling market, the novelist sees characters, desires, struggles, and dreams waiting to be told.

History offers us shining examples. Consider Leo Tolstoy, who traveled through Europe in his youth and absorbed the political and cultural ideas that later shaped his novels. Or Ernest Hemingway, who wandered Spain, Paris, and Cuba, and whose fiction was steeped in the landscapes of his journeys. Yet, like Theroux, they were not travel writers alone. They were novelists who carried the world into their work, transforming travel into insight, and place into story. Their journeys were not ends in themselves but pathways to universal truth.

Theroux’s words also echo with a deeper reminder: the value of travel is not in distance, but in depth. One need not always cross oceans to discover meaning. Even in familiar surroundings, the attentive observer can find stories of tragedy, comedy, and endurance. To “use travel as a background” is to understand that every journey, whether to the far reaches of the earth or the next town over, contains within it the seeds of revelation—if only one knows how to see.

The lesson is this: do not confuse travel with escape, or movement with meaning. If you wish to truly know a place, do not pass through it as a tourist; dwell, listen, learn. Speak to its people, eat its food, walk its streets at dawn and dusk. Seek the story within the landscape, and the humanity within the stranger. For travel without story is only wandering, but travel with story is wisdom.

Practically, this means approaching your own journeys—whether near or far—with the eyes of a storyteller. Carry a journal, take note not only of sights but of voices and feelings. Ask yourself what each place teaches about the human condition, about struggle, joy, or resilience. And in your daily life, remember that you are always both traveler and narrator—moving through places, gathering stories, and weaving them into the fabric of your own journey.

Thus, Paul Theroux’s words stand as a testament to the traveler’s art: “Not a travel novelist, but a novelist who travels.” In them lies a call for us all—not merely to move across the earth, but to let travel become the canvas upon which our stories are painted. For the world is vast, and every place, every journey, every soul we encounter carries within it a story waiting to be told, a truth waiting to be discovered. And it is in discovering these truths that we, too, become richer in spirit, wiser in heart, and closer to understanding the great human story that binds us all.