There are many reasons why people have traveled beyond their own societies. Some travelers may have simply want to satisfy curiosity about the world in general. Until recently, however, trade, business, diplomacy, political administration, military campaigns, exile, fleeing persecution, migration, pilgrimage, missionary efforts, and the pursuit of economic opportunities were more common educational incentives for foreign travel that was mere curiosity. In the 20th century with the development of increasingly more rapid, reliable and inexpensive long-distance transport, mass tourism emerged as an important global advocate for foreign travel.
The records of foreign travel was found shortly after the invention of writing, travel accounts and not fragmented, both in Mesopotamia and Egypt in antiquity. After the formation of large states, imperial in the classical world, travel accounts emerged as an important literary genre in many countries, and had especially strong appeal to the rulers who want useful information about their kingdoms. The Greek historian Herodotus reported on his travels in Egypt and Anatolia to investigate the history of the Persian wars. The Chinese envoy Zhang Qian describes much of Central Asia west to Bactria (modern Afghanistan), based on trips made in the first century BC during the search for allies in the Han DynastyHellenistic and Roman geographers such as Ptolemy, Strabo and Pliny the Elder's relied on their own journeys through much of the Mediterranean world, as well as reports from other travelers to make most of the compendia of geographical knowledge.
During the Postclassic period (about 500 to 1500 AD), trade and pilgrimage emerged as a substantial incentive to travel to foreign lands. Muslim merchants sought trade opportunities throughout much of the eastern hemisphere. It describes the land, peoples, and the commercial products of the Indian Ocean basin in East Africa to Indonesia, and provides the first written evidence of the societies in Western Saharan Africa. While established retailers in search of trade and profit, devout Muslims went on a pilgrimage to Mecca to perform hajj and visit their holy places of Islam. Since the Prophet Muhammad original pilgrimage to Mecca, millions of Muslims have followed suit, and thousands of hajj accounts have related their experiences. One of the most famous Muslim traveler, Ibn Battuta, began his journey to the pilgrimage, but then went to visit Central Asia, India, China, Africa and parts of southern Europe, before finally returning home to Morocco . East Asian travelers were not as important as the Muslims in the Postclassic, but they also followed many of the roads and waterways of the eastern hemisphere. Chinese merchants frequently visited Southeast Asia and India, sometimes even venturing East Africa, East Asia and made pilgrimages to Buddhist devotees away. Between 5 and 9 centuries CE, hundreds or even thousands of Chinese Buddhists traveled to India to study with Buddhist teachers, collect sacred texts, and visit the holy places. Collected written accounts of experiences of many pilgrims, as Faxian, Xuanzang and Yijing. Although not as numerous as the Chinese pilgrims, the Buddhists of Japan, Korea and other countries also ventured abroad in the interest of spiritual enlightenment.
Medieval Europeans did not hit the roads in such large numbers as their counterparts in Asian Muslim east during the first part of the Postclassic, but gradually increasing crowd of Christian pilgrims who flowed to Jerusalem, Rome, Santiago de Compostela (in northern Spain), and elsewhere. From the 12th century, however, merchants, pilgrims and missionaries in medieval Europe traveled and left numerous travel accounts, that Marco Polo's description of his travels and stay in China is best known. As he became familiar with the world's largest eastern hemisphere and profitable business opportunities offered by the peoples of Europe worked to find new routes and more direct to the markets of Asia and Africa. Their efforts led not only to all parts of the eastern hemisphere, but eventually the Americas and Oceania as well.
If Muslims and the Chinese dominated travel and travel writing in the Postclassic, European explorers, conquerors, traders and missionaries were the focus during the Modern Age (around 1500 to 1800 AD). No way travel and Chinese Muslims come to an end in early modern times. But the European people ventured all the distant corners of the globe, and European printing presses churned out thousands of travel narratives describing the people abroad and to a readership with an apparently insatiable appetite for news about the world at large. The volume of travel literature was so great that many publishers, including Giambattista Ramusio, Richard Hakluyt, Theodore de Bry, and Samuel Purchas, met numerous travel accounts and made available to large collections published.
During the 19th century, European travelers headed to the interior regions of Africa and the Americas, the creation of a new round of travel literature as they did. Meanwhile, European colonial administrators dedicated numerous works to the companies of their colonial subjects, especially in the lands of Asia and Africa. A mid-century, attention was also flowing in the other direction. Painfully aware of the military and technological capabilities of European societies and Euro-Americans, Asians, in particular, travelers visiting Europe and the United States in hopes of discovering useful principles for the reorganization of their societies. Among the most prominent of these travelers made extensive use of their observations and experiences abroad in his own writings were the reformer Yukichi Fukuzawa Japanese and Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen.
With the development of low-cost media and reliable mass transit, the 20th century witnessed the explosions in both the frequency of long distance travel and the volume of travel literature. While a lot of travel was undertaken for business, administration, diplomacy, pilgrimage and missionary work, as in times past, more and more effective modes of mass transportation made possible new forms of travel to flourish. The most characteristic of them was the mass tourism, which emerged as an important form of consumption of people living in affluent societies in the world. Tourism allows consumers to leave home to see the sights of Rome, take a Caribbean cruise, walk the Great Wall of China, visit some wineries in Bordeaux, or go on safari in Kenya.
A peculiar variant of the travel account was created to meet the needs of tourists, the guide offers tips on food, accommodation, shopping, local customs, and all the monuments that the visitor should not miss. Tourism has a huge economic impact worldwide, but other new forms of travel have also had considerable influence in contemporary times. Recent times have seen unprecedented waves of migration, for example, and many migrants have tried to record their experiences and express their feelings about life in foreign lands.
Recent times have also seen an unprecedented development of ethnic consciousness, and many intellectuals and writers in the diaspora who have visited the homes of their parents to see how much of the values of their ancestors and cultural traditions that are inherited. Particularly notable among his accounts are the memories of Malcolm X and Maya Angelou describing his visits to Africa.
