I am running a campaign for 2 total noobies and they currently have 1 NPC companion on loan. He's with them for 1 month. Travel for this arch is 10 days at gallop pacing (fast) and would be 10 days at gallop pacing back, unless they figure out a better way to do it. So there is a time crunch hanging over them but it's not a big deal

I made the mistake of making the continent map a bit too spacious but maybe that can work for us instead. There's gonna be a lot of "how do we get to point B in x time??"

So I don't want to overdo time incentives but I think having one in the back of the mind to keep things moving is needed.

I have a lot of visuals for them and they are definitely the types to explore everything

They want to go to a ruin looking location I just slapped onto the map for flavoring and now it's going to be an entire arch lmaoooooo

There is a plot, they have chosen to ignore every plot drop I've presented. So it's going to need a lot of tie-ins and connecting webs to make things make sense after they left the intended NPC companions to fend for themselves

I gave them like. 5 NPC companion choices, 2 different druids, an artificer and paladin duo and a ranger and they went for the big dumb loveable half-orc druid named Gruff. Of course they did

ANYWAY

HOW TO MAKE TRAVEL FUN? send help

p.s. They are a Celestial Warlock Tiefling of Levistus and a High half-elf homebrewed Rogue that's like if Alchemist and Swashbuckler had a child

and they are level 3 lol

tie the plot into the location they're going to; perhaps have bandits or treasure hunters working for whoever the plot relates to, have them recover something they can hand it as either a reward or make them the target

Making them the target based on an item they collect could definitely work into the plot

That's a really good option