Okay, Here's what happened. I had the presence of mind to back up my unpopulated world before populating it then after populating and exporting I installed and played for a while to test.
My sims were able to travel just fine except that when they returned they were deposited on the lighthouse island (where I put a little beach house and pier just so I could teleport there to have a place safe from the prying eyes of paparazzi) with no way to get home. I had to teleport them back to the mainland.
So I decided to go back to my unpopulated back up and put in a bridge from the lighthouse island to the mainland. (so much for privacy)
Again I backed up before populating and installing but this time suddenly my sims can't travel at all anymore. The option to "Travel" doesn't even show up on the phone menu. Or the computer for that matter.
So I uninstall and then export and install my unpopulated back up. (That has the bridge in it. Just no population) And I still can't travel. So the option for traveling disappearing apparently has everything to do with the addition of the bridge and nothing to do with the population.
To recap, Could travel before bridge. But not after.
So I took out the bridge and painted back the sim non-routable just like it was before but still not able to travel.
I'm thinking the fact that it deposited my sims on the island when they could travel is somehow significant because that's not the usual place for sims to respawn when returning from vacation.
I think if I can understand better how the game decides that stuff I'll have a better idea on how to fix my world.
Does anyone know how that works? Is there a way to define Departure and Arrival points?
EDIT: ooops, I just realized I posted this in the wrong board. Could some one move this to the CAW board please? Sorry.