People love to travel and explore; at least a lot of them do. We see it today with all of the people going on trips to exotic locations and new attempts at space travel. There's something fascinating about the land beyond the horizon and taking risks. I think that's as big a factor as any in answer to why we left Africa.

Love this stuff. Thanks, Judi.

If I can attempt to answer, without really answering ...
1) homo sapiens never truly did leave Africa (as in there was always a population that remained behind)
2) Without knowing the exact trigger (if in fact there was one) it seems very likely that our species expanded their range for largely the same reasons that others do. Some combination of scarcity of resources, combined with newly discovered (or newly discovered ways to exploit) resources over the horizon. But the short answer is, populations that are having their needs met tend to stay with the familiar -- and populations that are under stress try new behaviors and territory in an effort to adapt.

(and then there is the fondness for theories that suggest some kind of 'cognitive' evolutionary leap -- that led to radically different behavior and abilities -- which are, again, pretty interesting but also pretty speculative at this point.)

Find experts saying they didn’t leave just to explore, rather for a given reason..most likely climate change.

Look at it now.

That could be the reason for the migration.

We may try to overcomplicate the issue. It is probably that simple, the same reason people move today.

Looking at my own family history since the early 1700s, they moved in sequence; Scotland, Ireland, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Alabama and Florida. Always looking for greener pastures. Forgetting the overseas distance, they moved thousands of miles in a relatively short period of time. Of course I realize our miles are shorter than people who traveled on foot, but the principle is the same.

I think that people tend to forget that Homo Sapiens, even 50,000 years ago would have been very much like us with just less experiences to draw on. They would have wanted easier working conditions, more food, better weather, less crowding, and prettier partners.

Ireland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama.

What's really interesting is that groups of families tended to move together even if they were not (yet) connected by marriage. The Crows, the Garys, and the Newmans moved from New Jersey to Pennsylvania to Virginia to South Carolina to Alabama. Some members of the families married in South Carolina, but my direct ancestors did not marry until they reached Alabama.

Same for the German families that moved to South Carolina early along, then to Tennessee then to Alabama - they moved as a group until they all settled in that one spot in Alabama between 1819 and 1825 where they settled and stayed.

It seems while people want to see new territory, they also want to take along people they were familiar with.

Others prefer to stay in the same place. To me, that covers it. The ones who left were the first kind. Those who stayed, were the second.