I'm not talking travel.
I could see halflings being big travelers.
I'm talking being an adventurer. Going into a dusty tomb full of deathtraps, monsters, and violent humaniods. I just can't seea normal minded halfling doing that constantly without being dragged or forced to. Same with a race like kobolds who are known for their extreme cowardice.
To me, adventurer is already a weird life choice. So a culture against parts of it seems to be weird if placed at the forefront.
But that is what they are. Excuses.
Humans, elves, gnomes, dwarves, and even orcs don't have to fight their own culture to make sense of them going into the Caves of Doom voluntarily.
It's all lies about Kobolds being cowards and is down mainly to complete and utter inconsistencies with ALL the editions. Kobolds make no sense being evil-they worship ALL Dragons, not just evil ones, it's just that evil ones that'll use them for their own nefarious schemes, which involve them being evil or doing evil things, per se the dragon leader's orders. But neutral Lizard Folk also do this if serving a Dragon of evil nature-they probably have to! Kobolds AREN'T cowardly, they just correctly assume many bigger races will try and harm and enslave them, so they would rather run and hide to survive, rather than stand up to the bullies. For heaven's sake Kobolds are only tiny and can die from a single blow. As actually can the even wimpier Hobbits-and they don't even have the escape route of an underground lifestyle.
Hobbits make no sense to me at all. They worked in "LOTR" but for ultra-specific reasons only and these reasons (for me) completely invalidate them as any kind of playable race or confrontational one. Reason (1) Frodo and pals were NOT alone and made most of the treacherous and highly dangerous journey with Human, Dwarven and Elvish allies, Reason (2) The book was specifically written for the Hobbit to come out on top as that was what the author wanted and above all Reason (3)-there were NO Gnomes AT ALL in any of the Tolkien books!
But their size, their looks and lifestyle are utterly filled by Humans in outreaching villages and Gnomes living in their woodland homes in the boles of trees and celebrating their lifestyle of good food, friends and curiosity, but with an important magical addition to their lives which helps keep them safe from dangerous bigger beings and warring cultures. Added to this, virtually every model I've ever seen of a Hobbit (Halfling) looks utterly like a Gnome. So Hobbits don't really exist outside Tolkien, bless 'em. Above all, one tap and they're dead and they come across as virtually the only D&D 'creation' that is really too Dodo-like for its own good. In other words, way too ill-equipped to survive in such a dangerous world. In the heart of bigger cities, maybe, but in D&D, their most common surroundings seem to be at the edge of fields where they throw noisy parties virtually every day and night. AND in a world where Dragons, Manticores, Perytons and Giant Bloodhawks ply the skies, in a land where Bulettes, Ankhegs, Purple Worms, Earth Elementals and such erupt from the earth honing in on special noise, where the edges of outlying villages are stalked by Lycanthropes, Orcs, Ogres, Trolls, Ettins, Hill Giants, Spriggans, Gnolls, Bugbears, Hobgoblins, Boggards, Giant Insects, and so on, their villages would be utterly cleared of the little tits in minutes, as they, unlike virtually everything else in the world, have no strategy, ability or heads-up to fight back. Hell, they'd likely invite these things TO the feast!