While the Bennetts are a powerful bloodline of witches in The Vampire Diaries universe, here’s why they are not Travelers. Magic and spellcraft work in complex and mysterious ways in The Vampire Diaries, especially when it comes to the mingling of bloodlines and harnessing power through ancestral channels. The complex legacy of Vampire Diaries' witches also carries on over to The Originals, in which the witches of New Orleans are shown to harbor markedly different motivations in comparison to the Bennetts or the Siphoners in Mystic Falls.
In order to understand why the Bennetts, especially Bonnie, are not Travelers, it is key to trace back their ancestry and establish the difference between witches and Travelers. The Bennetts originally hailed from Salem, Massachusetts, relocating to Mystic Falls in 1692 after the witch trials. The Bennetts’ magical legacy is more matriarchal in nature, and they have been linked to the Salvatore and Petrova families since the 1st century B.C. Qetsiyah is the oldest known Bennett ancestor, who was known as the most gifted member of the Traveler bloodline, making the Bennetts a direct descendant.
While Travelers were gifted witches too, they were an ancient, nomadic subculture who used magic to achieve a great many things, much to the chagrin of other witches. While there was relative peace between the two communities despite their differences, a schism was created when Qetsiyah and Silas created the spell for immortality, which went against the natural order of things. While some witches were of the opinion that immortality was an abnormality that should never be harnessed by any member of the magical community, others opined that pure, raw power could be used to achieve extraordinary feats that could pierce the fabric of space and time.
As witches belonging to the former camp were fearful of the power wielded by Qetsiyah, a powerful group known as the Spirits placed a curse on Quetsiyah’s entire coven, preventing them to gather as a tribe. As some witches are able to harness the true extent of their powers by coming together as a coven, this act prevented the Travelers from accessing traditional sources of magic, including the elements. As Qetsiyah was directly responsible for creating immortality in the first place, it is possible that the witches placed a curse on her direct bloodline, which led to the Bennetts preserving only their ancestral powers as witches and not Travelers.
Apart from this, it is also possible that the Bennetts chose to do away with the way of the Travelers, as magic is an everyday practice that is preserved via the upholding of generational rituals. While the curse on Qetsiyah’s coven and bloodline prevented the Travelers from rising up, they still found ways to create new forms of magic, such as the creation of the Passengers to work their way around the curse. As the Bennetts practiced a more traditional form of magic, with Bonnie harnessing powerful witch abilities, it is possible that the offshoots of the family line were spared, rendering them as powerful witches, and not Travelers, in The Vampire Diaries universe.