I generally take my time reading through a dwarf's general traits and ones that I enjoy the most are in the personality traits. With later updates, do you think it could be possible for us to send travelers to friendly civilizations (undercover travelers to non-friendly?) for varied lengths to let certain dwarves (specifically the scholars, musicians, and craft dwarves- possibly even "artists" like painters if they get added)? I was also thinking that a civilization, depending on factors like population size and race, would have different values of law, friendship, power, eloquence, commerce, artwork, and so on which would either inspire or disgust the dwarves you send which would hopefully effect the work they create throughout their journey and after. It could be possible to appoint an expedition leader, when appointed, would desire a certain amount food/trade goods/guards/spies and so on to serve the purpose of the travel. So the process might be not as complicated as I might have made it sound (in my mind at least):
1. Appoint a one time expedition leader
2. Pick a travel location (doesn't have to be a settlement) and the purpose of travel (scouting*/culture/spying/political/resource gathering)
3. The expedition leader (possibly based on relevant skills like leader, organization, and so on) requests a minimum amount of items/wagons/beasts of burden for what he expects would be a successful mission
4. The fort sees them off and wish them a safe return
5. Wait
6. wait
7. wait
8. The travelers have returned!
9. Get to see their travel log, what new items they returned with (and what they still have from the send off), gain in skills, and what losses they experienced (if any)
* I feel like scouting would be the most important one out of all the options because it would allow you to learn more about the location you want to send people to (and possibly the travel path) without a heavy resource commitment.
I'm honestly not sure if it has been suggested already or not since I'm rather green to dwarf fortress, but I just got really excited at the possibility and couldn't help myself. Thanks for reading!