Those are great photos; the quality is just fine. I think if you resize your pics to FullHD (i.e. 1920 x whatever) you should be happy with both quality and size. I use Bulk Resize straight from the browser (Chrome / NO uploads):
https://bulkresizephotos.com/de?quality=0.9&resize_type=absolute&resize_value=1920

If I may make a suggestion for your headline: "travel is its own reward" may be a better translation for this adage.

Cheers from Saarbruecken - Caro