Basically what I'm getting at, is that you need to ask yours players if they are interested in playing an exploration based campaign

This has already been done. The campaign is a Go. I'm just afraid that despite almost two decades of GMing, it might be too much for me to handle. I'm trying to think of exciting things that aren't just combat and +1 swords and dungeons.

For background, this is actually Part Three of a series of campaigns we've had in our alternate history version of the New World. The first involved discovering it as Vikings and such, the second involved being the first to navigate the Tierra del Fuego hundreds of years later, and now I want to re-tell the Lewis and Clark journey, only with some different setting-specific variables. I'm kinda ready for it. There will be inter-party intrigue, dealing with tribes, dealing with secret government interests, action and adventure and yay!

My concern is how to make the discovery of animals and plans exciting. Naturalism and mapping were two major aspects of the L&C adventure, so I'd like to incorporate them somehow, and find a way to get the players interested in this aspect of the story.