Come with me to Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park. Imagine an area just a bit smaller than Swaziland or the same size as Northern Ireland. Imagine vast plains, limitless horizons and an abundance of wildlife unlike anywhere else in the world.

We've collected 30 inspirational travel quotes, accompanied by travel pictures from around the world.

Warning: this is going to make your feet itchy!

When thinking about Sri Lanka, you would be forgiven for visualising a small island off the south-eastern tip of India, which is famous for its tea and has a cricket team, but not much else.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Sri Lanka is an island in the Indian Ocean approximately the size of Ireland, hanging on by a thread to the south-eastern coast of India. It has a culture going back 3 000 years, and boasts the highest diversity of animals and plants in Asia.

Ethiopia is an ancient land of vast landscapes and intriguing destinations. From the sunken rock-hewn churches at Lalibela that date to the 12th century and the dusty mountains of the Hadar region where the 3.2-million-year-old skeleton of Lucy, the Australopithecus afarensis, was found, to the bustling streets of the capital, Addis Ababa, home of the African Union, you’ll be seduced by its history, sights and charming people.

Mornings in the bush start with coffee, rusks and hope that the day will bring one of those unforgettable experiences that make good dinner table talk back home. It’s an excellent menu, but nothing could prepare us for the sight of rank upon rank of lime-legged fever trees.

You could go to Greece and catch the rays on a gorgeous chalk-walled beach on one of the country’s 6 000 islands (only 227 are inhabited). No one would blame you. Many would be envious.

You could do that. Or you could pack a pair of walking shoes and head for the Peloponnese, that peninsula on the westernmost side of the country that is connected to the rest of Greece by the Isthmus of Corinth.