safe travels or travel?

[Tedwonny]

I read a post which says "safe travels" to a guy who's travelling away. It was just ONE journey, so I was wondering why it is travels instead of travel.

Also, apart from safe travel(s), have a safe trip, bon voyage. Anything else we can say on this occasion? thanks a lot

 

[Raymott]

I read a post which says "safe travels" to a guy who's travelling away. It was just ONE journey, so I was wondering why it is travels instead of travel.

Also, apart from safe travel(s), have a safe trip, bon voyage. Anything else we can say on this occasion? thanks a lot

Hi Tedwonny,
You need to give the whole sentence. There is no way to say whether "safe travel" or "safe travels" is more appropriate without knowing the context.
You can say a lot of things when people are going on a journey. "I'm going to miss you", "Don't forget the sombrero", "Keep your money well hidden". What do you want to say?

 

[emsr2d2]

I think, on this occasion, that "Safe travel(s)" can be taken as the whole sentence. When I drive away from my dad's house, he always says "Safe trip" or "Safe journey" as I leave. The "Have a ..." at the beginning is implied.

Personally, if someone were just going on one journey (train, bus, plane) I would probably use "Safe trip" or "Safe journey" as my dad does. If a friend were going away for six months, travelling around the world and would be making several individual journeys, I might well say "Safe travels!" It might not be grammatical, but I'd use it.

 

[konungursvia]

Also, we inherited from French the paradoxical tradition of using a plural form to make a noun abstract: my apologies; my condolences; your studies; happy trails; cheers... Safe travels is a more general wish than "I hope this particular trip is safe (but I don't care about the rest)."