40 Years Old – 40 Birthday Travel Quotes & Lessons

It’s My 40th Birthday – 40 Years Old Today!

That’s right. My life begins today. No, not really. I’ve been doing my very damn best to enjoy every bit of life that has been thrown at me, and I think I’m doing a pretty good job! Turning 40 Years Old is really an arbitrary number in the scheme of things, but it’s significant to me because there have been many times in my life where 50:50 calls have gone my way, and I’m still here to tell the tale (see more what I mean with my Samuel Johnson interview)!

So to celebrate being 40 years old and becoming an old crusty bugger, here are 40 silly travel quotes and lessons of mine that I’ve said, heard from others, or experienced over the years for your cheap entertainment! I’ll be having a few beers tonight!

Enjoy!

1. “I hope that my god makes your bus crash and you’re the only one who dies”. Said by a hustler in Tangier, Morocco to yours truly when I didn’t pay for some useless advice I didn’t need, want, or ask for!
2. You can wear wear your underwear four times without washing – frontwards, backwards, inside-out frontwards, inside-out backwards.
3. “What time is it? It’s beer o’clock! It’s always 5 pm in the world somewhere!”
4. “I’ve drunk so much beer on my travels, I’m changing my name by deed poll to Sir Osis of Liver.”
5. Some backpackers spend most of their time overseas in internet cafes!
6. “Sleep? What’s that? I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”
7. “Wow, you’re from America! Where’s that? (good irony checker!)”
8. The English have a sense of humour that’s drier than a Pommy’s bath mat.
9. (to Dutch travellers) “So do you guys use Dutch ovens often?” (note, a ‘Dutch oven’ is Australian slang for letting flatulence go underneath a bed sheet, and then covering the head of whoever is in bed with you with the sheet!)
10. “Just be careful, the train was robbed last night. Make sure you lock up everything!”. Said to me on the Victoria Falls to Bulawayo Train in Southern Africa.
11. “Just drop me off here – past the Hijacking Hotspot sign..” – near Pretoria, South Africa
12. I only travel so that I don’t run out of dinner party conversations.
13. I didn’t want a career, I just wanted a salary that makes me travel.
14. “No, I don’t wrestle crocodiles for fun.”
15. At a Cafe Con Piernas (Coffee With Legs) place in Santiago Chile. Most people in Chile are short, which meant at 185 cm, I stand out like dog’s testicles. One of the ladies there ask me in Spanish “are you in proportion?”. I replied, “no I’m not ;P”
16. “Here in Fiji, we have friendly cannibals and vegetarian sharks!”
17. “Hello Big Man! What can I sell you for your shirt?” Victoria Falls Market, Zimbabwe.
18. HELP! I need to escape the fluorescent prison!
19. That Snakes On A Plane movie is one where the title is also the entire plot!
20. Did you know that traveller’s diarrhoea is hereditary? It runs in your jeans..
21. “Today for you I have special Australian price”. From carpet seller in the Grand Bizarre in Istanbul, Turkey
22. If you look like your passport photo, you definitely need travel insurance.
23. After eating with Italian relatives for a week – “I’ve put on so much weight, that I’m checking myself in as excess baggage”
24. After a long train delay on the Moroccan railway system – “I’m so hungry I could eat the arse out of a low flying duck.”
25. On a minibus taxi in Africa – “Normal speed? That’s 150 kilometres per hour!”
26. After eating a massive steak in Argentina – “That steak is going to take me at list a month of hibernation to sleep off, and possibly two months to digest it”
27. “I don’t think beer is a performance enhancing drug”
28. “It doesn’t matter what language we speak, but farts are truly universal!“
29. On a tour of Soweto – “Hi, you can call me Eddie Murphy!”
30. “Putos! (Whores)”. The Boca Juniors fans in the stands when their team wasn’t doing so well.
31. Senor, es muy pequeno! (Sir it’s very small). Waiter in a steakhouse in Buenos Aires on why I had chosen a small steak of only 500 grams.
32. “What does an Italian man have if he has one arm shorter than the other? A speech impediment!”
33. I’ve been to Kazakhstan, and I can confirm that unlike what Borat says, wine is not fermented from horse urine!
34. The only thing you need to know to win The Amazing Race is that you just need to memorise ‘Very Fast’ in every language so you can communicate with every taxi driver in the world.
35. “Wow, so you left Australia so you can go overseas and get drunk with other Australians!”
36. From a vendor at a spice market in Durban, South Africa. “This is my hottest chilli powder. I called it Mother In Law’s Chilli Powder, because that’s who you’re supposed to give it to!”
37. From a stall selling fresh nuts and apricots in Turkey – “Come here for your natural viagra, it’s cheap and good for you!”
38. “I’m here working on my Scottish tan”. Speaking to someone in Aberdeen, Scotland on a cold and miserable day.
39. How did that guy beat Darwin’s theory of Evolution? and finally..
40. It’s okay! Work is overrated! You won’t wish you spent more time at work when you’re on your deathbed!

There you go. Feel free to add your own travel lesson or quote below for a bit of fun!

Also, if you feel like depositing millions of dollars into my account like the thousands of spam emails I receive each month as a birthday present, feel free to do so!

I only turn 40 Years Old once!