Exploration has been always exalted by a character, through exploits of someone in whom it is incarnated. From Vasco de Gama to Cook, from Bougainville to René Caillié, from Heinrich Barth to Roald Amundsen. The story of great discoveries is the triumph of the biographies.
The motivation about an era, a state of public opinion, a religious, economic, political or military factor underlying the journey explains it, and makes it an element of a continuous chain. All of these elements are then reflected in the background of the discovery. The adventurer, with his personality, sometimes takes back all his triumphs, for him, and then the exploration is only satisfaction of his desires, fulfillment of his will, affirmation of his character.
Personal motivations run thus throughout the History, sometimes by constituting a part of the frame itself, sometimes by providing the most beautiful embroidery. They pierce from the earliest stories, with, first and foremost, a taste for adventure.
Adventure by itself is a powerful exploration factor.
It possesses, first, and entirely, "the wandering travelers" described by Prévost in his "General History of Travels", which goes back to the first conquistadors of the Spanish America.
"Wandering travelers, as I like to name them, do not attach themselves to follow a road and sometimes allow themselves to be guided only by curiosity, sometimes by the hazard of events; they often visit unknown lands and seas".