The article presents the analysis of children's passion for travel based on the materials from the Trans-Urals of the middle of the XIX - early XX centuries. The author shows that lack of schools, which led to the students’ regular long-distance trips, as well as reading adventure literature, aroused students’ keen interest in travel, broadened their mind and liberated their consciousness. On the other hand, it is pointed out that one-sided emancipation provoked deviant offenses.