Are you planning your summer holiday? The first Saturday in January is called Sunshine Saturday because typically more holidays are booked on that day than on any other in the year. Today, planning a trip might involve consulting AI rather than reading a travel guide or visiting a travel agent. And the trip itself is more likely to involve an airplane than a stagecoach. But it's not just the practicalities of travel that have altered over the years. Reasons for travelling have changed, so have the meanings assigned to it. Was it ever a good vehicle for self discovery?

In Radio 4's roundtable ideas discussion programme Shahidha Bari is joined by:

award-winning travel journalist Mary Novakovich

TV globe trotter Bettany Hughes whose most recent series is Lost Worlds: The Nabataeans historian Alun Withey literary historian Lucy Powell philosopher Julian Baggini, author of books including How the World Eats

Producer: Luke Mulhall