“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving”: did Laozi say it?
A loose paraphrase of chapter 27
Partly: “A good traveler has no fixed plans” reworks the first line of chapter 27 of the Dao De Jing, 善行无辙迹, which says only that a good traveler leaves no tracks.
A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving.
What the Dao De Jing says
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善行无辙迹，
A good traveler leaves no tracks,
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善言无瑕谪，
a good speaker lacks flaws and rebuke,
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善数不用筹策，
a good counter needs no calculator.
What the Chinese says
善行无辙迹: “good at walking, no ruts or footprints”. 辙 is the rut a cart wheel cuts, 迹 a footprint. Our translation: “A good traveler leaves no tracks.” James Legge (1891) has “The skilful traveller leaves no traces of his wheels or footsteps.”
What changed
The Chinese is about what the traveler leaves behind: no trace. The circulating line is about what the traveler has in mind: no plans, no wish to arrive. Neither plans nor arriving is in the text. The line is a series: the good speaker leaves no flaw to blame, the good counter needs no counting rods. The point is skill so complete that it shows no effort and leaves no mark.
Where the wording comes from
The sentence opens chapter 27 in Stephen Mitchell's Tao Te Ching (1988). Wikiquote lists it under chapter 27 as “interpreted by Stephen Mitchell”, and Stefan Stenudd, who keeps a list of sayings wrongly credited to Laozi, traces it to the same page. Mitchell rewrote the rest of the series in the same free way, so the circulating line is his, built on Laozi's image.