We travel for pretty much the same reasons. We always have three 'goals' in mind when visiting a new place. Try the food, get involved in a local experience and this last one works from time to time: give back to the community. This is done either through monetary value (most of the time) or time value (volunteering), which we would like to do more of.
We haven't been away from home for more than 3 months (that was one trip to Southern Africa), so we would like to test our limits - see how long we can go until we truly start missing home.