One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself.

Hazlitt’s line comes from his Romantic-era essay on travel, written when he was a prominent London critic and essayist. In “On Going a Journey,” he reflects on the pleasures of setting out on foot or by coach, and argues that travel is most restorative when it frees the mind from social performance and obligation. The essay belongs to Hazlitt’s broader project of defending intense, private experience—reading, thinking, and feeling—against the distractions of fashionable society. His preference for solitary travel is presented not as misanthropy but as a way to preserve attention, mood, and the unbroken train of thought that a journey can provoke.

The remark contrasts the universal delight of travel with Hazlitt’s insistence on solitude as the condition that makes travel truly “pleasant.” For him, a journey is not chiefly about shared entertainment or conversation, but about mental freedom: the ability to observe, remember, anticipate, and drift among impressions without having to accommodate another person’s pace, tastes, or talk. The sentence also captures a Romantic ideal of authenticity—experience felt directly rather than mediated through company. It suggests that companionship can turn travel into a social duty, whereas being alone allows the traveler to recover a sense of self and to meet the world on unforced terms.