The idea that people didn't travel much during the Middle Ages has generally been refuted in the last years. While most roads were dangerous and in bad repair, people of all sorts walked them. People in positions of power travelled pretty often to cultivate personal relations with superiors, peers and subjects. Workers travelled to do seasonal labours - the main agricultural activity being complementary to the harvest of chestnuts in Autumn in the mountains, or olives in selected areas of southern Europe. It has been proven that large landowners, including monasteries, moved the workforce according to the need, sometimes even between places days of travel away. Then there were full time travellers: peddlars, messengers, inspectors for the wealthy, storytellers, merchants. Finally pilgrims: everyone, at some point of life, undertook a pilgrimage, some to a nearby shrine, sone even to Rome or Jerusalem. The frequence depended on distance, health and wealth.

Whenever people from small settlements (large cities just counted tens of thousands of people) travelled, the experience was life changing. Travelling was a highly social activity: people banded together to avoid being robbed and slept in hospitalii/ xenodochia in large common rooms. During this time they talked, told stories, sang songs, exchanged views.

There are lots of reports of travels, but most of them were written by clerics (being the only literate people at the time). As lay culture developed in the low Middle Ages, we have more and more records written by knights or merchants. It is rare, though, to find stories - these were always exchanged by word, and written records tend to focus on the details of the trip: which roads to take, where to sleep, what to shop, and so on.