English like all the other languages consist of numerous tenses. When you are talking to someone directly or relating a past incident to a third person, tenses change continuously. It may not be as natural in the start, but good tenses are important for good language. The simple past is perhaps the most basic form of past tense in the language. It is often used to describe events that are past.
The grammar is easy to use and is one of the first things that people learn when they shift to speaking English for the first time. Hence the past simple will include words lie did you travel/went/visited or did you travel/ traveled/ visited.