While the vast majority of connections along the Silk Road were made through countless anonymous journeys, several historical travelers have become famous for the scope of their discoveries and their impact on Silk Road cultures.

As China participated in Silk Road trade during the 7th century with the expansion of the Tang dynasty from its seat in Chang'an (present-day Xi'an), the journeys of one traveler helped to alter the religious beliefs of the Tang leadership. A Buddhist monk, Xuanzang left Chang'an around 629 C.E. in search of greater understanding of Buddhist religious texts that had been brought to China from Tibet and India centuries earlier. Xuanzang's quest took him to the Buddhist center of Dunhuang in western China, across the Takla Makan Desert to the great Central Asian cities of Bukhara and Samarkand, and then through present-day Pakistan to the source of Buddhism in India. In India he studied the most difficult Buddhist texts, which he translated into Chinese and brought back to Chang'an around 645.