Word of the Day

: January 23, 2025

wanderlust

noun WAHN-der-lust

What It Means

Wanderlust refers to a strong desire to travel.

// During their final semester at college, the two friends were both filled with an insatiable wanderlust and began planning a journey to Patagonia together.

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wanderlust in Context

"In a few weeks, Ortega explained in a quiet moment, the Red Desert herd would begin its annual pilgrimage toward summer range. ... Some were homebodies, wandering only a few dozen miles. Others, as Hall Sawyer had shown, would trek 150 miles. And one legendary doe, Deer 255, ditched her herdmates and pressed on—up to the Gros Ventre Range, along the shores of Jackson Lake, and across the Snake River, all the way to Idaho. Was this mere wanderlust or part of a broader survival strategy?" — Ben Goldfarb, Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of Our Planet, 2023

Did You Know?

"For my part," writes Robert Louis Stevenson in Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes, "I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move..." Sounds like a case of wanderlust if we ever heard one. Those with wanderlust don't necessarily need to go anywhere in particular; they just don't care to stay in one spot. The etymology of wanderlust is a very simple one that you can probably figure out yourself. Wanderlust is a lust for wandering. The word comes from German, in which wandern means "to wander, hike, or stray" and Lust means "pleasure" or "desire."