Why was Hernando de Soto traveling to Florida, North Carolina and other places? What was he looking for?

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1. The Fountain of Youth?? oh, wait, that was someone else check it out on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hernando_de_Soto_(explorer)
2. I do think it was the Fountain of Youth but he was mainly thinking it was in Florida
3. El Dorado, a city of gold. He travelled all the way to Illinois, and they way the tourism people tell it, he found it north of present day Harrisburg. There is a small town called El Dorado, north of Harrisburg today. There is a report of a portion of his expedition that reached an inland sea, which may have been Lake Michigan. The accounts do describe a marshy area similar to some early American accounts of the headwaters of the Kankakee river. The group passed through there before they reached the inland sea. This link on Desoto is from the state of Florida, but it's good on most of the states they travelled through.
4. The fountain of eternal youth