One of my characters in the spirit deck lets me place tokens on locations that are in the staging area, are they removed once I reach their travel limit or do they just sit on there until I actually travel to the location, which would then instantly remove it?

Any time a location has progress tokens equal to its required progress you explore it and remove it from play (unless the location or game text specifies otherwise). That character is amazing at clearing locations in the staging area, and with a bigger card pool this is a valid strategy for dealing with locations in general.

So you must trigger the ''wehn this location is explored'' forced effects even when you put enough progress token on it when it is in the staging area (so be careful!!).

Awesome glad I was doing it half right, definitely didn't remember to do the 'when explored' effects! So much to learn:D Thanks for the clear answers.

Semantics and wording are very important in this game, and the more you play, the more you learn ''tricks'' that can help you!

Aye, I've gotten pretty good at 'lawyering' the wording in IA.. and the guy I play this game with is an actual lawyer so that should help!

Awesome glad I was doing it half right, definitely didn't remember to do the 'when explored' effects! So much to learn:D Thanks for the clear answers.