64 Unusual Travel Words with Beautiful Meanings

Unusual Travel Words

Some travel experience just couldn’t be described by simple words.

Traveling does that to a person – it ensnares us in its beauty, makes us feel a myriad of emotions we’ve never yet felt, and leaves us speechless and yearning for more.

Sometimes there’s such a feeling you wish you have an exact word for it—maybe it has? Check out these 64 Unusual Travel Words with Beautiful Meanings You Probably Didn’t Hear Before.

Gadabout

(n.) A person who travels often or to many different places, especially for pleasure

Acatalepsy

(n.) The impossibility to truly comprehend anything

Fernweh

(n.) Far sickness. An urge to travel even stronger than wanderlust. It also means the feeling homesick for a place you’ve never been. “Fernweh” is a German word for “far sickness,” the opposite of homesickness. It comes from fern (meaning “far”) and weh (defined as “pain,” “misery” or “woe”). Fernweh, then, is “far sickness” or a “longing for far-off places,” especially those you’ve not yet visited.

Dérive

(n.) A spur-of-the-moment journey where the traveller lets the spirit of the landscape and architecture move them.

Nemophilist

(n.) A person who is fond of forests or forest scenery

Resfeber

(n.) The snarled feelings of fear and excitement before you begin a journey

Exulansis

(n.) The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it

Morii

(n.) The desire to capture a fleeting moment

Schwellenangst

(n.) Fear of crossing a threshold to embark on something new.

Sehnsucht

(n.) A wistful longing and yearning in the heart for travels that have been and travels to come.

Serendipity

(n.) The natural ability to make desirable discoveries by accident.

Eleutheromania

(n.) An intense and irresistible desire for freedom.

Photophile

(n.) A person who loves photography

Wayfarer

(n.) A person who travels on foot. This is from the Middle English word weyfarere which is equivalent to way +‎ farer (‘to journey)

Livsnjutare

(n.) Someone who loves life deeply and lives it to the extreme.

Hodophile

(n.) One who loves to travel. ETYMOLOGY: From Ancient Greek ὁδός (hodós) which means travel.

Yūgen

(n.) An awareness of the universe that triggers emotional responses too deep and mysterious for words.

Sonder

(n.) The realization every person is living their own vivid, complex life.

Rückkehrunruhe

(n.) The feeling of returning home after a trip only to find it fading rapidly from your awareness. This is a word that ex-pats and travellers will understand. Sometimes our experiences abroad are so real, colourful, and intense that it can be painful to realize how quickly they diminish once we’re back home.

Onism

(n.) Awareness of how little of the world you’ll experience.

Flâneur

(n.) A person of leisure who strolls aimlessly, observing life and society

Peripatetic

(n.) A person who travels from place to place

Novaturient

(adj.) A powerful desire to change and alter your life.

Dépaysement

(n.) The good or bad feeling that comes from being in a foreign country

Selcouth

(adj.) Strange and uncommon, the way you see things when you travel.

Heimweh

(n.) A longing for home. As contrasted with Fernweh, this is a German word for homesickness.

Eudaimonia

(n.) The contented happy stated we feel when we travel.

Sprachgefühl

(n.) A person who has the feel for a language. This literally translates as ‘language feeling’ from compound nouns combining Sprache (language) and Gefühl (feeling). Basically, this does not only refer to a person who has a good understanding of foreign languages but also to a person who has a perception of what is linguistically appropriate.

Coddiwomple

(v.) To travel purposefully towards a vague destination.

Kopfkino

(n.) The act of playing out an entire scenario in your mind. The hard translation is “head cinema” and as the definition goes, these are for those times where you start daydreaming or imagining scenarios about how a situation will unknot.

Flâneur

(n.) Someone who strolls aimlessly but enjoyable, observing life and the surroundings.

Vemödalen

(n.) The frustration of photographing something amazing when thousands of identical photos already exist

Vorfreude

(n.) The joyful, intense anticipation that comes from imagining future pleasures. ETYMOLOGY: Combination of German words vor (pre) and Freude (happiness)

Peregrinate

(v.) Travel or wander around from place to place.

Ecophobia

(n.) Fear or dislike of one’s home. This word is based from Ancient Greek in which ‘eco’ is derived from oîkos or “house”, and then of course ‘phobia’ from phóbos or “fear”.

Cockaigne

(n.) An imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease. This term is derived from the Middle French phrase pais de cocaigne, which literally means “the land of plenty.”

Querencia

(n.) The place where you are your most authentic self, from where strength is drawn, where you feel at home.

Absquatulate

(v.) To flee or leave abruptly without saying goodbye. Ghosting? No.

Sturmfrei

(adj.) The freedom of being alone, the ability to do what you want. A German word that translates literally to “storm-free” — but the real meaning has nothing to do with the weather. As slang, it means having the house or place to one’s self; but if we put a romantic twist to it then it’s about having the freedom or of having some alone time.

Smultronställe

(n.) A special place discovered for solace and relaxation. This Swedish word literally translates to “place of wild strawberries” and it’s a place where you feel most at home that’s away from any stress or sadness.

Nefelibata

(n.) “Cloud-Walker.” One who lives in the clouds of their own imagination or who does not obey the conventions of society, literature, or art. An unconventional person.

Vagary

(n.) A wandering or roaming journey.

Komorebi

(n.) The sunlight that filters through the trees.

Mångata

(n.) The reflection of the moon on the water. ETYMOLOGY: Combination of Swedish words måne (moon) and‎ gata (street, road).

Trouvaille

(n.) Something lovely found by chance.

Natsukashii

(adj.) A happy recollection of an event or memory in the past

Numinous

(adj.) The powerful, personal feeling of being overwhelmed and inspired by what you see before you.

Strikhedonia

(n.) The joy of being able to say “the hell with it.”

Shinrin-yoku

(n.) Forest bath; a visit to the forest to take in its atmosphere

Hygge

(n.) The clannish feeling of relaxing with friends while having a meal or drinks.

Ukiyo

(n.) “The floating world” — living in the moment, detached from the bothers of life

Waldeinsamkeit

(n.) The feeling of being alone in the woods. ETYMOLOGY: Combination of Wald (forest) and Einsamkeit (loneliness)

Hiraeth

(n.) A homesickness for a place which you can’t return to or never was. This is a Welsh concept of longing for home — but more than just missing something, it implies the meaning of having a bittersweet memory of missing a time, era or person.

Commuovere

(v.) To stir, to touch, to move to tears

Forelsket

(adj.) The euphoria you experience when you are first falling in love.

Yoko meshi

(n.) The stress caused by speaking a foreign language

Yu yi

(n.) The desire to feel things just as intensely as you did when you were younger — before expectations, before memory, before words.

Thalassophile

(adj.) a person who loves the sea. From the Greek words θάλασσα / thalasso- (sea) and -phile.

Solivagant

(v.) Wandering alone.

Dès vu

(n.) The awareness that this will become a memory. ETYMOLOGY: From the French word dès vu, “seen as soon as” or “seen from this point forward”

Ballagàrraidh

(n.) The awareness that you are not at home in the wilderness. ETYMOLOGY: From Gaelic balla gàrraidh, “garden wall”

Yûgen

(n.) A profound, mysterious sense of the beauty of the universe that triggers a deep emotional response

Wabi-sabi

(n.) The discovery of beauty within the imperfections of life

Meraki

(v.) Putting a part of yourself into what you’re doing.

We hope you enjoyed these words. Which one is your favourite? Comment down below.