The objective is to investigate the drivers of travel demand beyond the need to travel to destination; travellers may engage a trip for the sake of it, at least to some extent: travel includes a share of 'primary utility'. The paper focuses on two types of data and analysis: the primary utility of travel questions passed in the last French national travel survey, and eight dimensions of a trip proposed from a sociological analysis. The paper mixes these approaches and correlate survey answers to the sociological analysis, to define three principal factors. Finally, implications for survey design are proposed.