What did Columbus hope to find when he sailed from Spain?

Columbus was looking for a faster trade route to "The Far East" for all the valuable goods that were being imported from there. It is a myth to say he was trying to "prove the earth was round"...navigators and other educated people had known that for a long time. He was a little off in his understanding of the distances involved, though...had the Americas not been there to get in the way, he and his crew would surely have died of thirst or starvation long before arriving at his intended destination! In fact, we sometimes call the islands of the Caribbean "the West Indies" because he thought he HAD made it to "the Indies"!