In the dynamic tourism industry, understanding the reasons behind travel behaviour has become increasingly crucial. While there are various methods and perspectives to address the question "Why do we travel?" there remains a gap in research focusing on the development of travel motivation studies. This study aims to fill this gap by employing bibliometric indicators, such as citations, to analyze the field structure of travel motivation research from 1998 to 2022. The research also utilizes the VOSviewer and CiteSpace software to map significant trends in the travel motivation domain. By examining 1277 publications from the Scopus database the study successfully revealed essential trends concerning publications, authors, affiliations, nations, and authors' keywords within the field. Serving as a historical record of travel motivation publications, this study offers a comprehensive bibliometric analysis that highlights the key research trends in this area. The findings of this study can be highly beneficial for potential authors in the field of travel motivation. Authors can gain valuable insights into the existing literature and better understand the direction in which travel motivation research is heading.