I have a newish rpg called Metal, Magic and Lore and an additional book for the game called the Game Master's Travel Guide. The book has rules on travel, the travel guide more-so I believe (haven't yet delved into either much). From the little I have read, these rules cleave more to the "realistic" side of things. The idea of the journey being an involved part as much as what happens when you get to the destination piqued my interest. Are there any other games where travel rules are prominent? The only other one that comes to mind (aside from D&D) would be The One Ring.
As an aside, MML is a game that surprises me how it flew under the radar. A poster here stu2000 did a brief, but awesome post about it some time back. Not too much info about the game out there.
I had my players, at the very end of the first session in a new setting, take off for the wild hinterlands on a pepper caravan. Cue three months of travel, dealing with bandit attacks and seeing the sights.
It was an interesting challenge, keeping the game fun and interesting, and MOVING, as much of the trip was spent on a barge. If I wasn't so hung up on the sheer size of the setting I had made I probably would have let them skip most of it. As it was, the entire campaign more or less wound up being the journey, and a quite memorable one at that.
I love the travel and exploration part of RPGs.
Venturing from one city to another. Seeing new sights and people.
I really love the 'travel' part of RPG play, but not all my players share that same love. So I think a GM has to be careful to know his audience, as it were.
Most RPGs, except the ultralights, have rules for travel -- survival, trip time, weather, encounters. I think it's far less a matter of rules and far more whether your group's into such things.
My group is, and I am: we love logistics, doing the pacing, coping with weather, seeing all the strange small things that can come up on the way, dealing with small-time issues in the villages they pass.