In recent years, Nature-Based Tourism (NBT) has witnessed significant growth with a sharp increase in tourist flows to peripheral destinations (Fredman & Margaryan, 2021;Waleghwa & Ioannides, 2024). The majority of these tourists rely on private motorised modes to access peripheral Nature-Based (NB) destinations, despite the availability of alternative sustainable modes of transportation (Waleghwa & Ioannides, 2024). This behaviour exacerbates carbon emissions and threatens the sustainable tourism futures of peripheral nature-based destinations whose tourism portfolio essentially relies on the enjoyment of nature (Juschten & Hössinger, 2021; Waleghwa & Ioannides, 2024; Woods,2010). Despite extensive research on leisure mobility, the existing research largely overlooks the underlying reasons behind tourists' actual inter-destination mobility choices and how they justify these decisions, especially when they opt against environmentally sustainable alternatives. Our study seeks to address this gap. We employ a dual theoretical approach; consumer value biangulation and attribution theory, to explore the reasoning behind tourists’ inter-destination mobility choices. The consumer value biangulation perspective provides insight into what tourists value in their transport mode choices (compositional approach) and how these values emerge from the connection between travel mode attributes and their universal values (dynamic approach). Attribution theory complements this by examining how tourists justify these choices. Using a soft laddering technique based on the means-end-chains approach, we conducted 22 in-depth interviews with mountain biking tourists visiting Åre, Sweden. We employed means-end-chains analysis to explore the tourists reasoning behind their inter-destination mobility choices whereas a thematic analysis was performed to understand their justifications associated with such choices. By uncovering value-driven reasoning and attribution patterns, we seek to offer useful behavioural insights for designing more targetted interventions aimed at encouraging sustainable mobility behaviours among this specific tourist segment, ultimately contributing to the sustainable tourism futures of peripheral nature-based destinations.