Wanderlust is a strong desire for or impulse to wander or travel

Travel

Travel is the movement of people or objects between relatively distant geographical locations. 'Travel' can also include relatively short stays between successive movements.-Etymology:...

 and explore

Exploration

Exploration is the act of searching or traveling around a terrain for the purpose of discovery of resources or information. Exploration occurs in all non-sessile animal species, including humans...

 the world.

Etymology

The loanword

Loanword

A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...

 from German language

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 became an English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 term in 1902 as a reflection of what was then seen as a characteristically German predilection for wandering that may be traced back to German Romanticism

German Romanticism

For the general context, see Romanticism.In the philosophy, art, and culture of German-speaking countries, German Romanticism was the dominant movement of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. German Romanticism developed relatively late compared to its English counterpart, coinciding in its...

 and the German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 system of apprenticeship

Apprenticeship

Apprenticeship is a system of training a new generation of practitioners of a skill. Apprentices or protégés build their careers from apprenticeships...

.

A contemporary German equivalent for the English word wanderlust, in the sense of "crave for travel", is Fernweh (literally meaning "an ache for distant places"). Since the term is a noun, its initial

Initial

In a written or published work, an initial is a letter at the beginning of a work, a chapter, or a paragraph that is larger than the rest of the text. The word is derived from the Latin initialis, which means standing at the beginning...

 letter is always capitalized

Capitalization

Capitalization is writing a word with its first letter as a majuscule and the remaining letters in minuscules . This of course only applies to those writing systems which have a case distinction...

 in German language ("Wanderlust"), but is written in lower case in English language ("wanderlust").

The term originates from the German words wandern (to hike) and Lust (desire). The term wandern, frequently misused as a false friend

False friend

False friends are pairs of words or phrases in two languages or dialects that look or sound similar, but differ in meaning....

, does in fact not mean "to wander", but "to hike." Placing the two words together, translated: "to enjoy hiking", although it is commonly described as an enjoyment of strolling

Strolling

Strolling is walking along or through at a leisurely pace. Strolling is a pastime and activity enjoyed world wide as a leisure activity. The object of strolling is to walk at a slightly slower pace in an attempt to absorb the surroundings.-Etymology:...

, roaming about or wandering.