Homing Wizards

I am reading bits about worldbuilding and the book asked about travel. How easy is it, and how is magic involved?

So in my head there's a recruiter for a merchant firm putting together a caravan to escort a wizard to a strange city, because

wizards are like homing pigeons

(hey! am not a bird brain!)

they can reliably return to their own home

(there are several spells for that)

but send them somewhere entirely new and you're lucky to remain on the same plane

(not true, interplanar travel is for the most highly experienced... well, if you dont count banishing...)

SO! If you want a reliable trade route, you need to grow your own wizard, and send him there.

(With an apprentice, for contingencies)

And while you're there, recruit someone from that end. Work them in pairs and you've got yourself a business. However, when they go and screw up a partnership...

(wife left me! for a bard! have a little sympathy)

Someone needs to return the wizard. And recruit a new one. Who will remember who their boss is and not go gallivanting off.

(really, I could get paid more and work on the immortality arcana...)

A life of adventure in the wilds sounds like fun until you actually have to try it, right? So, take an adventure party through the wilds, across the badlands, and up into the mystical city that probably needs spells just to exist up there. And bring the wizard with you. They're your best chance of getting back in one piece.

In fact, getting you all back exactly where you started is what they do, in response to any significant amount of stress, so the problem becomes keeping them calm enough you can travel more than a day away...