Why Do You Travel? Finding Your Reasoning and Intention for Travel

What if the single question that transforms your travel is the simplest one: why do you travel? We’re marking 100,000 downloads and three years of Solo Travel Adventures by digging into intention and how it can reshape everything from destination to day-by-day choices.

We explore eight clear reasons people hit the road—connection with family and friends, rest from work, special events like festivals or marathons, cultural immersion, ethical volunteering, media-fueled inspiration, bucket list dreams, and even work travel. For each, we break down how to plan with focus so your itinerary actually serves your purpose. You’ll hear practical examples like choosing lodging close to loved ones, avoiding tourist traps when your anchor is a festival, vetting volunteer opportunities to prevent exploitation, and using Workaway-style experiences to learn skills like permaculture while keeping costs low. We also share how to turn business trips into meaningful micro-journeys by stacking small, intentional moments around a packed schedule.

This chapter of the show leans into a more focused approach to solo travel, with clear steps to define your why and filter every decision through it. If your goal is rest, plan fewer hotel changes and longer stays. If your goal is culture, prioritize neighborhood markets, local guides, and public transit. If your goal is wonder, choose timing and pace that make space for awe instead of burnout. By aligning purpose and plan, you trade FOMO for fulfillment and return home changed—in the ways you actually hoped for.

We’re also inviting you to a free virtual travel summit on November 15 from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. EST with 20 speakers sharing experience-driven insights you can use right away. Come for clarity, leave with a plan that fits you. If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review—what’s the purpose of your next trip?

Virtual Travel Summit Sign Up:

https://thetravelcoachnetwork.mykajabi.com/travel-coach-virtual-summit-2025

Chapters

• 0:00 Milestone And Season Four
• 1:35 Community Shoutouts And Contact
• 2:20 Niching The Show’s Focus
• 2:47 The Core Question: Why Travel
• 3:11 Seeing Family And Friends
• 4:09 Rest And Escape From Work
• 5:00 Travel For Special Events
• 6:58 Cultural Experiences Beyond The Bubble
• 7:39 Volunteering And Ethical Travel
• 9:39 Inspiration, Bucket Lists, And Timing
• 11:22 Work Travel And Setting Intentions
• 12:20 Plan To Your Why, Not Tourist Traps
• 14:20 Build Itineraries Around Your Intention
• 15:34 Virtual Travel Summit Invitation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello, sister travelers. Welcome to Solo Travel Adventures. I'm Cheryl Esche, your host, and I have some really exciting news to share with you. I just reached 100,000 downloads for this podcast. And I am so grateful to all of my listeners. I would not have reached that goal without you. And I am just thank you, thank you, thank you to all my regular listeners and even new listeners. I have been doing this for three years. It's also hit on my three-year anniversary of this podcast. Even more exciting. And I am thrilled that we have reached this milestone, and there is more to come, ladies. I'm just curious, I wonder if there's anybody out there who is maybe an original, an OG listener from back in the day, like three years ago or almost three years ago. When did you find me? I would love to hear from you. And if you are one of those originals, I am even more indebted to you. Thank you for sticking around. I love it. And you can maybe drop me an email or a message me on my solo travel adventures 50 on Instagram if you want to message me. Or my email is hello at CherylBeckesh.com. Would love to hear if I have anybody that's been around here for three years. And so that means we are embarking on the fourth season of this podcast. So I am thrilled to say there's been some. If you've noticed, we've kind I've kind of started to niche down a little bit and kind of everything that is offered here though is for everyone. And you know, I'm just kind of getting a little more hyper-focused in, you know, what I'm offering you as listeners. Um so keep listening, and I hope that everything that I'm providing these resources, encouragement is edifying to you. But you will notice, and even in the coming year, this new season, you know, there might be some more just sort of more focus, granular, granular focus on what I'm doing and providing here for you. So welcome again if you're new. Thank you if you've been here a while. I have an amazing question to ask all of you today, and maybe you've never thought about it, but why do you travel? I know why I travel, and there are many different reasons throughout different seasons of my life that I have for traveling, and there is no wrong or right answer to this question, and you may even find yourself in also different reasons for traveling. Again, different seasons of your life uh create different reasonings for travel and maybe learning that travel is sort of this nice little vehicle depending on what your goal is. So, again, why do you travel? Now, I looked at the reasons I travel, and I think one of the main reasons we all find ourselves traveling potentially is because my family is so spread out. I do tend to travel. One of the reasons I travel is to see family and friends. And again, being in the US, we're very spread out. Uh, my family's very spread out, my friends are very spread out, and so sometimes I will intentionally do a trip to visit family and friends. So that would be a reason for traveling, and it's a good reason. Maybe you're thinking right now, especially the holidays are coming up, maybe that's why you are traveling during Christmas or any other holiday where you know being with family and friends is important. So that is an excellent reason to travel, and I think we've all probably done that. Um, we also may find that we just number two, we just need to get away from the stress of work. And in America, we call it vacation, other countries call it holiday. You could also look at this as your reason for travel, like why do you travel, is to kind of escape the the hustle and bustle, escape the stress maybe of work and just to sort of get away and relax. That would be an okay reason, right? I've been there, I've done it, I'm sure many of us have, and that's a valid reason to to utilize travel. You know, why do you want to travel? Well, I just need to get away from work and I'm gonna use my vacation time and do something relaxing, maybe, right? Um, number three reason why you may actually uh have to travel is that you have a special event that you are wanting to attend. And this could be anything from maybe a sporting event, such as I know in 2026, uh my children and I are planning to hopefully, if we can get some tickets, uh, be open to traveling for the World Cup, which will be in North America. There might be other reasons you will travel, such as weddings and showers. Maybe you have a concert, you have a band that you just love, and so you're gonna travel to go see that band because they're not coming to your city. I've known people to travel for marathons. Maybe you're one of those that wants to do a marathon in every state or every country or every continent at least, maybe. So uh I know people that do that. Um, and that's a remarkable way to utilize travel. Maybe you're traveling for another special event, such as festivals. You have there's a great festival you want to go to, and of course you'll have to travel to get there. Conferences, you know, you want to go to a conference whether it's for personal reasons or for work. Often we have to travel for those. And then finally, I would say another special event is maybe your birthday. Maybe you're like me, and I do like to get somewhere for my birthday month somewhere. It doesn't have to be on my birthday, but within my birthday month, I like to have a trip planned. So um it's a way I like to celebrate myself. And sometimes I'm alone, or sometimes I might be with the people. So that could be another reason that you find, you know, you have to travel. Um, number four, maybe you're wanting to just get a cultural experience and kind of get outside of your bubble. I find this is definitely true uh for Americans. We tend to, you know, because we're such a large country, um, there's many Americans that have not left the country because there's still plenty to see within our country. We're very spread out, but they're missing out on experiencing other cultures and having those other cultural experiences, getting out of their little bubble, right? Their comfort zone, right, and seeing the world. So maybe that's the reason you have decided to take that huge trip because you want to experience a different culture than your own. Number five, maybe you want to give back to the world, to the community. And so volunteerism is pretty huge, or you're going somewhere to just make a positive impact. For example, maybe after a huge natural disaster, you decide to travel and offer your assistance, your help. Um, I heard that happen a lot with um, you know, when things happened in Haiti. Uh I knew people that went there to help uh Hawaii when they had these, you know, recent fires. You know, so people are willing to do that. They want to give back to uh the community or just help lend a hand. There's other ways you can also volunteer abroad and maybe you like animals. Just be aware if you do decide to do a volunteer um trip to kind of help in a in an animal sanctuary, just to make sure that that place is ethical and how they do treat the animals and just make sure it's uh not exploiting the animals because there are places like that that they will try to get tourists to come and volunteer, but they're really just uh a moneymaker. And the same goes for, for example, orphanages abroad, and make sure they're a true orphanage and they're not a staged orphanage. So I know that there are times when a place will actually, you know, kind of recruit kids that aren't really in orphanages and kind of stage what it might look like and you know, pull on the heartstrings of uh people that are wanting to maybe volunteer. So just be aware. I love the idea of um volunteering and giving back. I still have on my uh bucket list is to actually do uh a workaway. There's a uh an app called workaway where you can volunteer in different scenarios, and the one that I'm interested in is to kind of find a community that is doing uh permaculture so that I could learn a little bit more about that and have the opportunity to travel to a different country while having my accommodations taken care of and maybe some of my food. But um, that's a great way and great reason to travel, by the way. So if that's you, just uh know to do some research first. Uh, number six, maybe you're inspired by Instagram posts that you see, maybe a movie that you saw or a book that you read that was set in a certain country or setting, and maybe that has inspired you to go to a certain location, and that's okay. I'm not not judging you on that one, and I have probably a few of those of my own uh that I have put on my you know my list, and uh so it's okay, it's good to find that inspiration and be drawn to maybe a certain place. Number seven, you might have just general bucket list places that you want to go. I talked in the last episode, episode 160, uh specifically on how to maybe create an a bucket list and how to approach that as you look into setting up or planning your future travels. So another episode in which I talk a little bit about that as well is episode 155. So if either one of those you might want to refer back to on kind of the how to you know approach a bucket list, and that's okay too. If you have a bucket list, and maybe that's why you're traveling, is you have this really burning desire of a certain place on your list, and so you just decide, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna do it. Time is now. Um time is you know, we never know what time we have left. So um never put off tomorrow what you might be able to do today. So I encourage that, and those are could be all those are all valid reasons. Um, and my final one is you know, maybe you just have to travel for work, which is kind of where I'm gonna be in the next year. I'm gonna be doing quite a bit travel for my work. So I'm looking forward to it, and I know there's gonna be additional opportunities for me in that in that realm. So these are all wonderful reasons to travel, but I would encourage you before you plan your next trip, do ask yourself why do you travel? And what is the purpose or intention of this trip that you're trying to plan? It's important that we have an understanding of our why so that it makes the actual uh experience um just more meaningful, in my opinion, when we have sort of that focal point and we're not just uh going about our day or our trip without an idea of what your intentions are for that trip. And so it's important to understand the why first and then look at the planning based on that why. Let me give you an example. Say that you are going, your reason for travel, why you're traveling or why you've picked a certain place is for a festival. And so that's a special event that you are going to, possibly another country, to experience this festival. Well, if that is your why and that is your intention, uh you can dig deeper into like, well, what do you want to experience while you're there? And when you do that, it does make your planning a little easier. So you're not being tempted or pulled in a direction that doesn't kind of fit in that scenario. Um, for example, maybe your festival is held in a a pretty big city, a prominent city, um, and you get kind of pulled in with the whole tourist trap idea. Whereas your experience with the festival and your inspiration for that trip was based off the festival, not the tourist traps. Yeah, if you can see them, great. But things around based around maybe that festival is what you want to focus on. Thinking about, well, at the festival, I want to, you know, connect with other people. I want to, you know, explore whatever the festival might be about and you know, kind of go from there as far as how you plan your trip versus being pulled and enticed by maybe something else that's around there that is not within that realm. I hope you I hope you understand that. So I just I want you to get the best out of your travels, meaning getting the most uh experience and just that inspiration, maybe, or whatever it is that you are intentionally focusing on for that travel. Is it just to release and relax? Like I said, maybe you're just going on a vacation and you want to escape work. So, did you accomplish that? You know, how will you accomplish that? So having that in mind, having your why, knowing why you're traveling, maybe even specifically to that place, will help you create an itinerary wrapped around that whole idea and feeling that you want to experience. Well, sister travelers, I'm hoping this has inspired you to kind of ask yourself those questions, dig a little deeper into your why every time you go on a trip. All right, so it's not just because that you have a reason and you understand that before you go. And if you wanted to hear more about from some travel experts and other travel coaches besides myself, I will be part of a virtual travel summit that is happening on November 15th, and it begins at 11 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, and I believe it goes till about 3 p.m. And it's free, and you can sign up. There's gonna be 20 speakers during that time frame, and I will be one of them, but there will be plenty of others offering their advice, their uh their depth of experience to you as listeners and people that are interested in travel, and it is free. So I'm gonna give you a link in the show notes for you to sign up, and it's still time, there's still plenty of time for you to sign up for this travel summit. So I hope you get signed up, I hope you hear my session or anybody else's that you get inspired to understand your why for travel, but just to understand travel in general and what it can do to benefit and expand your life. All right, get out there and have that adventure.