Trying to pick the perfect caption or quote for your next travel gram? Serious Instagrammers shouldn’t underrate the power a caption can play in the success of your photograph.
If you’re trying to target a specific audience and grown your following, there are a number of techniques you can use (without buying traffic). The app Focalmark, for example, uses a mix of research and a ranking algorithm to suggest the best hashtags for your photographs.
You can target viewers based on everything from the equipment you used to capture the image. Are you an iPhone photographer shooting #landscape_captures, or a #nikonphotography devotee featuring images you took #wheninIceland?
Travelers can connect with other bloggers, publications, and companies in the industry by tagging their photos with popular hashtags, including Travel + Leisure’s own #TLPicks.
Emojis are another useful tool to use – with moderation — in your Instagram captions. They may be used to save space (the camera emoji concisely assigns photo credit) or create a clever pun (rather than writing “I’m nuts about this destination,” employ a single chestnut emoji).
And of course, there are hundreds of meaningful, inspirational travel quotes. Using a well-loved quote like Susan Sontag’s “I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list” can help you connect with your desired audience.
From A to Z, these are the puns, quotes, and hashtags that you should be incorporating into your social feed.
The Scientific Reason You Love to Travel
There may now be a scientific explanation for that desire.
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Taking a romantic trip for your anniversary? We love these quotes about, well, love.
Anniversary Captions
“In all the world, there is no heart for me like yours. In all the world, there is no love for you like mine.” — Maya Angelou
“I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart). I am never without it.” — By E.E. Cummings
“Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile.” – Elizabeth Browning
You don’t need to be on safari to capture the local wildlife (though a trip through Africa should be on any animal-lover’s bucket list).
Animal Captions
“If having a soul means being able to feel love and loyalty and gratitude, then animals are better off than a lot of humans.” –James Herriot
“Lots of people talk to animals. Not very many listen, though.” – Benjamin Hoff
“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Artsy Captions
“Of all possible subjects, travel is the most difficult for an artist, as it is the easiest for a journalist.” – W.H. Auden
“Travel does what good novelists also do to the life of everyday, placing it like a picture in a frame or a gem in its setting, so that the intrinsic qualities are made more clear. Travel does this with the very stuff that everyday life is made of, giving to it the sharp contour and meaning of art.” – Freya Stark
“What is art anyway?” – Georgia O’Keeffe
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We’re all in favor of a life-changing solo trip. But traveling with a best friend or a family member can be just as impactful. From best friends to brothers (not to mention clever brunch puns and beach quotes) these are the “B” Instagram captions to keep in mind.
Best Friend Captions
“A journey is best measured in friends, rather than miles.” – Tim Cahill
“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world, and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.” – Jim Morrison
Beach Captions
“On the beach, you can live in bliss.” – Dennis Wilson
“Don’t grow up too quickly, les you forget how much you love the beach.” – Michelle Held
“In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the earth.” – Rachel Carson
Brother Captions
“Brothers don’t let each other wander in the dark alone.” – Jolene Perry
“We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes, but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Help your brother’s boat across, and your own will reach the shore.” – Hindu proverb
Brunch Captions
“But first, brunch.” – Anonymous
“Brunch without champagne is just a sad breakfast.” – Anonymous
“Hakuna Mimosa. It means, ‘it’s brunchtime.’” – Anonymous
Break-up Captions
“Like our wines, our love could neither mature nor travel.” – Graham Greene
“It is sheer good fortune to miss somebody long before they leave you.” – Toni Morrison
“The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected.” – Nicholas Sparks
Boat Captions
“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea...” – Antoine de Saint Exupéry
“A ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.” – John A. Shedd
“To reach a port we must set sail. Sail, not tie at anchor. Sail, not drift.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
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Any cat pun (Caturday, claw-some, or mewment, for example) can bring humor to what we can only imagine is already a hysterical cat photo.
Cat Captions
“That’s the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: make them follow you.” – Ray Bradbury
“I have lived with several Zen masters — all of them cats.” – Eckhart Tolle
“Time spent with cats is never wasted.” – Sigmund Freud
Instagram Tips Captions Romantic Couple Sunset Vacation
Getty Images/Image Source
Couple Captions
“I have found out that there ain’t no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them.” – Mark Twain
“Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.” – Ernest Hemingway
“Any day spent with you is my favorite day. So, today is my ne favorite day.” – A. A. Milne
Bring a bit of festive spirit to your holiday photographs with these famous quotes about Christmastime.
Christmas Captions
“At Christmas, all roads lead home.” – Marjorie Holmes
“Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.” – Norman Vincent Peale
“Christmas is a season for kindling the fire for hospitality in the hall, the genial flame of charity in the heart.” – Washington Irving
Change Captions
“Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.” – Seneca
“Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart. But that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change you.” – Anthony Bourdain
“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard
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Dance Captions
“Bizarre travel plans are dancing lessons from God.” – Kurt Vonnegut
“Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.” – Martha Graham
Dessert Captions
“A party without cake is just a meeting.” – Julia Child
“May you eat an unfamiliar dessert in a strange land at least once every three years…” – Rob Brezsny
“Life is uncertain. East dessert first.” – Ernestine Ulmer
Instagram Tips Captions Food Avocado Toast
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Eating and exploring are both intrinsically tied to traveling. These are the quotes to add to your favorite food and adventure travel photos.
Eating Captions
“To eat well in England you should have breakfast three times a day.” – W. Somerset Maugham
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” – Virginia Woolf
“Dinner is not what you do in the evening before something else. Dinner is the evening.” – Art Buchwald
Related: 17 Clever Instagram Quotes and Captions for Your Thanksgiving Feed
Explorer Captions
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” – Robert Frost.
“We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm, and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.” – Jawaharial Nehru
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Family Captions
“Families are the compass that guides us. They are the inspiration to reach great heights, and our comfort when we occasionally falter.” – Brad Henry
“There’s nothing that makes you more insane than family. Or more happy. Or more exasperated. Or more…secure.” – Jim Butcher
“A person needs at intervals to separate from family and companions and go to new places. One must go without familiars in order to be open to influences, to change.” – Katharine Butler Hathaway
Funny Captions About Travel
“Kilometers are shorter than miles. Save gas — take your next trip in kilometers.” – George Carlin
“Too often travel, instead of broadening the mind, merely lengthens the conversations.” – Elizabeth Drew
“Living on Earth is expensive, but it does include a free trip around the sun every year.” – Anonymous
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Heading to the links, or celebrating your degree with a post-grad getaway? Check out these popular quotes about golf and graduation.
Golf Captions
“As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.” – Ben Hogan
“Of all hazards, fear is the worst.” – Sam Snead
Graduation Captions
“The tassel was worth the hassle.” – Anonymous
“I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way.” – George Fairman
“The greatest adventure is what lies ahead.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Instagram Tips Captions Superior Lake Hike Sierra Nevada Hiking California
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Happy Captions
“Remember this: that very little is needed to make a happy life.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else.” – Lawrence Block
“Remember that happiness is a way of travel — not a destination.” – Roy M. Goodman
Hiking Captions
“Hiking is a bit like life: The journey only requires you to put one foot in front of the other…again and again and again. And if you allow yourself the opportunity to be present throughout the entirety of the trek, you will witness beauty every step of the way, not just at the summit” – Anonymous
“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” – John Muir
“We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey.” – John Hope Franklin
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Island Captions
“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent.” – John Donne
“If you go anywhere, even paradise, you will miss your home.” – Malala Yousafzai
“You have to remember how the islands move. If you forget that, you’re lost.” – Mau Piailug
Instagram Tips Captions Jumping Woman
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Jumping Photo Captions
“You can’t always wait for the perfect time. Sometimes you must dare to jump.” – Anonymous
“You have got to jump off the cliff and build your wings on the way down.” – Ray Bradbury
Fourth of July Quotes
“Liberty is the breath of life to nations.” – George Bernard Shaw
“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.” – William Faulkner
“Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better.” – Albert Camus
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You can get very granular with your Instagram captions (think: quotes about your kayaking trip or sipping mint juleps at the Kentucky Derby).
Kayaking Captions
“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.” – A.A. Milne
“The Sun shines not on us but in us. The Rivers flow not past, But through us.” – John Muir
“Wherever there is a channel for water, there is a road for the canoe.” – Henry David Thoreau
“As one goes through life, one learns that if you don’t paddle your own canoe, you don’t move.” – Katherine Hepburn
Kentucky Derby Captions
“Until you go to the Kentucky Derby with your own eyes, behold the Derby, you ain’t never been nowhere and you ain’t never seen nothing.” – Irvin S. Cobb
“Money, horse racing, and women: three things the boys just can’t figure out.” – Will Rogers
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Photographs with your loved-ones on vacation, of laughter, and of experiences that seem only possible with the influence of luck: these quotes can help you describe less tangible moments.
Laughing Captions
“I would say laughter is the best medicine. But it’s more than that. It’s an entire regime of antibiotics and steroids.” – Stephen Colbert
“Laughter is an instant vacation.” – Milton Berle
“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.” – E.E. Cummings
Lakes are like Earth’s eye — or perhaps Earth’s heart, depending on who you ask. Either way, these thoughtful quotes are ideal captions for snapshots from your annual lake vacation.
Lake Captions
“Perhaps the truth depends on a walk around the lake.” – Wallace Stevens
“A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is Earth’s eye.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Make your heart like a lake with a calm, still surface and great depths of kindness.” – Lao Tzu
Love Captions
“Travel is like love, mostly because it’s a heightened state of awareness, in which we are mindful, receptive, undimmed by familiarity and ready to be transformed. That is why the best trips, like the best love affairs, never really end.” – Pico Iyer
“Home is where the heart is, and my heart is wherever I am at the moment.” – Lily Leung
“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson
Luck Captions (H3)
“Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.’ – Dalai Lama
“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.” – Cormac McCarthy
“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes, you are ready.” – Ernest Hemingway
Lyric Captions
“I’m sitting in the railway station. Got a ticket to my destination.” – Simon & Garfunkel
“Walking fast, faces pass and I’m home bound” – Vanessa Carlton
“Goin’ places that I’ve never been, seein’ things that I may never see again.” – Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson
Instagram Tips Captions Mountain Range Landscape Nature Switzerland
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Museum Captions
“If you think museums are boring, then you’re doing it wrong.” – Anonymous
“A museum is a place where one should lose one’s head.” – Renzo Piano
“Give me a museum and I’ll fill it.” – Pablo Picasso
Mountain Captions
“Men go abroad to wonder at the heights of mountains, at the huge waves of the sea, at the long courses of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering.” – St. Augustine
“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” – Muhammad Ali
“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” – Andy Rooney
Motivational Captions
“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” – Steve Jobs
“Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” – Mark Twain
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New Year’s Captions
“And now we welcome the new year, full of things that have never been.” – Ranier Maria Rilke
“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365-page book. Write a good one.” – Brad Paisley
Night Out Captions
Keep things simple. Add the owl emoji with an emoji of the night sky to caption your photos with “night owl.”
“Here’s to the nights we felt alive.” – Eve 6
“No one looks back on their life and remembers the nights they had plenty of sleep.” – Anonymous
Related: Instagram Caption Ideas for Spring
Nature Captions
“Our Nature lies in movement; complete calm is death.” – Blaise Pascal
“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” – Gary Snyder
“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery — air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, ‘This is what it is to be happy.’” – Sylvia Plath
Blue sea and sky, Providenciales, Turks and Caicos Islands, Caribbean Instagram Tips Captions
Getty Images/Image Source
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Ocean Captions
“One doesn’t discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” – Andre Gide
“The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” – Kate Chopin
“We know only too well that what we are doing is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. But if the drop were not there, the ocean would be missing something.” – Mother Teresa
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Party Captions
With the party-popper emoji and a clock or watch, you can quickly caption your photos as “party time.”
“I’m not in a party. I am a party. Everywhere I go is a party.” – Kid President
“Keep calm and party on.” – Anonymous
Stalking cheetah watched with safari vehicle background - Masai Mara, Kenya Instagram Tips Captions
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Quest Captions
“You never know how a good quest is going to end.” – Elizbeth Gilbert
“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls.” – Anaïs Nin
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During your travels, you’re encounter beautiful days that beg for long runs along the beach or around the city — just as you’ll inevitably end up washed up in your hotel room during a rainstorm.
Rainy Day Captions
“When life throws you a rainy day, play in the puddles.” – Anonymous
“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” – Dolly Parton
“You pray for rain, you gotta deal with the mud, too. That’s a part of it.” – Denzel Washington
Running Captions
“Run when you can, walk if you have to, crawl if you must; just never give up.” – Dean Karnazes
“Running is alone time that lets my brain unspool the tangles that build up over days.” – Rob Haneisen
“Your body will argue that there is no justifiable reason to continue. Your only recourse is to call on your spirit, which fortunately functions independently of logic.” – Tim Noakes
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Couldn’t resist that travel selfie? Use one of these hashtags and phrases as the caption.
Selfie Captions
Popular hashtags include #selfienation, #selfiesunday, and, quite simply, #selfie. Consider a self-aware caption such as:
“But first, let me take a selfie,” or “I’m sending my selfie to NASA, because I’m a star.”
Sister Quotes
“A sister can be seen as someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves — a special kind of double.” – Toni Morrison
“Don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.” – Maya Angelou
“A sister is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.” – Marion Garretty
Summer Quotes
“Summer is a state of mind.” – Anonymous
“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” – Henry James
“Summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. For those few months, you're not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don't have the rest of the year. You can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. Summer just opens the door and lets you out.” – Deb Caletti
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Looking for reasons to drop everything and travel now? These wise words from travelers past and present will help you hit the road (and caption the photographs you take along the way).
Travel Captions
“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“Once you have traveled, the voyage never ends. The mind can never break off from the journey.” – Pat Conroy
“I don’t know where I am going, but I’m on my way.” – Carl Sagan
Teacher Captions
“Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of educations; in the elder, a part of experience.” – Francis Baco
“Just to travel is rather boring, but to travel with a purpose is educational and exciting.” – Sargent Shriver
“Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” – Malcolm X
Time Caption
“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” – Michael Altshuler
“For the born traveller, travelling is a besetting vice. Like other vices, it is imperious, demanding its victim’s time, money, energy and the sacrifice of comfort.” – Aldous Huxley
“Time you enjoy wasting was not wasted.” – John Lennon
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Snorkelers and divers can bring deep insights to underwater photographs with powerful quotations from authors and explorers.
Underwater Captions
“Reality whistles a different tune underwater.” – Tom Robbins
“Perhaps I am the turtle, able to live simply anywhere, even underwater for short periods, with my home on my back.” – Kurt Vonnegut
“From birth, man carries the weight of gravity on his shoulders. He is bolted to Earth. But man has only to sink beneath the surface and he is free.” – Jacques Yves Cousteau
Unique Instagram Captions
“Who wants to be normal when you can be unique?” – Helena Bonham Carter
“In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different.” – Coco Chanel
“Individuality is freedom lived.” – John Dos Passos
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Vacation Captions
“No man needs a vacation so much as the man who just had one.” – Elbert Hubbard
“When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. Then take half the clothes and twice the money.” – Susan Heller
“Like Salvador Dali’s paintings of watches melting in the sand, time wanders at its own curious pace whenever you’re on vacation in a foreign country.” – Laurie Nadel
“A vacation is having nothing to do and all day to do it.” – Robert Orben
Valentine’s Day Captions
Keep Valentine's Day from getting too mushy with casual, humorous emoji puns. “Bee mine?” is even cuter when you swap out text with the bee emoji, while "We’d make a great pear,” works best with twin pear emojis.
“Love does not consist in gazing at each other but in looking outward together in the same direction.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
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Traveling to a winter wonderland, like Finnish Lapland, for a destination wedding, or for a spectacular waterfall hike? Keep these quotes in mind.
Waterfall Captions
“There is a hidden message in every waterfall. It says, if you are flexible, falling will not hurt you!” – Mehmet Murat lldan
“Just let go — and fall like a little waterfall.” – Bob Ross
“As long as I live, I’ll hear waterfalls and birds and winds sing.” – John Muir
Wedding Captions
“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” – Mignon McLaughlin
“Will you give me yourself? Will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?” – Walt Whitman
Winter Captions
“Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius.” – Pietro Aretino
“It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.” – John Burroughs
“Winter is coming.” – Ned Stark, Game of Thrones
For many people, traveling and fitness intersect in a powerful way. Tag your #fitfam photos with one of these great quotes.
Working Out Captions
“Fit is not a destination, it’s a way of life.” – Anonymous
“The purpose of training is to tighten up the slack, toughen the body, and polish the spirit.” – Morihei Ueshiba
“The only bad workout is the one that didn’t happen.” – Anonymous
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Add a few X’s and O’s to show off your love affair abroad — or your love affair with travel.
XOXO Captions
“Traveling is like flirting with life. It’s like saying, ‘I would stay and love you, but I have to go; this is my station.” – Lisa St. Aubin de Teran
Add the French flag emoji with the winking face emoji blowing a kiss to bring your generic XOXO to a French kiss pun worthy of your trip to Paris.
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Travelers who use extraordinary backdrops to photograph their most impressive yoga moves should try one of these quotes. That, and wise words about traveling away from youth.
Youth Captions
“All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel: one knows that the first joy can never be recovered, and the wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.” – Paul Fussell
“Youth has no age.” – Pablo Picasso
“Age considers; youth ventures.” – Rabindranath Tagore
Yoga Captions
“Yoga is the perfect opportunity to be curious about who you are.” – Jason Crandell
“You cannot do yoga. Yoga is your natural state. What you can do are yoga exercises, which may reveal to you where you are resisting your natural state.” – Sharon Gannon
“Yoga is the journey of the self, through the self, to the self.” – The Bhagavad Gita
Tourist practicing zipline, Gruta da Pratinha, Chapada Diamantina National Park, Bahia, Brazil Instagram Tips Captions
Getty Images
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Have your travels taken you to see cute baby animals at the zoo, or to a completely wild zipline? Try adding one of these to your Instagram caption.
Zoo Captions
“The only creature on earth whose natural habitat is a zoo is the zookeeper.” – Robert Brault
“Life is a zoo in a jungle.” – Peter De Vries
“The city is not a concrete jungle. It is a human zoo.” – Desmond Morris
Ziplining Captions
“Grip it and zip it.” – Anonymous
“Limits are for those who need them.” — Anonymous
“The purpose of life is to live it, to taste it, to experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
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