Perhaps it’s my natural pessimism, but it seems that an awfully large part of travel these days is to see things while you still can.

More from Bill Bryson

• Perhaps it's my natural pessimism, but it seems that an awfully large part of travel these days is to see things while you still can. In A Sunburned Country
• In travelling we visit names as well as places.
• I suppose the only real reason for traveling is to learn that all people are the same.
• Nothing excited me more than opening up the atlas and seeing places and seas, imagining what they looked like and what kind of life the people had.
• The Mojave is a big desert and a frightening one. It’s as though nature tested a man for endurance and constancy to prove whether he was good enough to get to California.
• The Mojave is a big desert and a frightening one. It's as though nature tested a man for endurance and constancy to prove whether he was good enough to get to California. Travels With Charley: in Search of America, pt. 3 (1962).