More like
[ol]
[li]Find more convenient route to Asia, fabled source of spices, silk, and other good stuff that cost a fortune in Europe but was in very high demand[/li][li]Somehow get hold of a shipload of good stuff and take it back to Europe[/li][li]Profit!!![/li][/ol]
Bear in mind that traders had been making fat profits for centuries on shipping produce from South and East Asia to Europe both overland (via the Silk Road) and by shipping across the Indian Ocean and then up the Red Sea or through Mesopotamia - even though this entailed lots of middlemen, expensive handling, and paying customs duty to the Ottomans. If it had been possible to just sail west across the atlantic, buy stuff at source, and ship it back to Europe, the profit margins would have been truly eye-popping.
May I add to your list?
Even more like:
[ol]
[li]Con a wealthy European ruler into thinking it was in their best interest to finance his enterprise.[/li][li]Keep them conned long enough that they don’t throw his ass in prison.[/li][li]Find more convenient route to Asia, fabled source of spices, silk, and other good stuff that cost a fortune in Europe but was in very high demand[/li][li]Somehow get hold of a shipload of good stuff and take it back to Europe[/li][li]Profit!!![/li][li]Join the ranks of the rich and famous and set his family up for generations to come.[/li][/ol]
They were. Only one of Magellan’s five ships made it all the way back to Europe (with only 18 survivors out of 270 who had left Spain; Magellan himself was one of the casualties). The cargo of cloves obtained in the Moluccas enabled the expedition to turn a profit even considering the loss of four ships.
He was an educated man, and carried on much correspondence with the best geographers of his day (including Martin Behaim, of Cologne). In addition, he made voyages all around Europe, and went to Iceland (ca 1477). I am convinced that he learned of the old Norse colonies in Greenland, and probably thought Greenland was an extension of Asia. So he had good reason to plan his trip to the Indies.
I recall that he confidently expected to sight land , about 800 (spanish) miles west of the Azores. Unfortunately, it was not asia.
Where he went wrong: his mismanagement and mistreatment of the indians on Hispaniola was criminal, and besmirched his name. However, his last voyag was amazing-he ventured into the Western Carribean, and landed on the Darien peninsula. Had he been more ambitious, he would have discoverd the Pacific. All in all, an amazing man. He had his flaws, but he was nowhere as rapaciousas Pizarro, or Cortez.
You can read Columbus’ letters and journals here is one basically this is an excerpt from his first quick report home at the end of his 1st Voyage you will note references to the “Great Khan” and “Cathay” he clearly thinks he is somewhere near Asia.
I think general two things should be mentioned that have not yet been stated in this thread as it has meandered- you would need to go a long way to actually overstate how important Catholicism was to Columbus in his actions, it was definitely a prime motivator even when he is out discoverin’ and explorin’ it colors everything.
Secondly Columbus saw the Indians in a more complex way than rubbing his hands together and saying “Oh boy Slaves”. On his initial voyage He clearly respected their seamanship (which is an important compliment form one who knew) their generosity and spirit. He was not above seizing them by force - just it was complex thinking.
There was the Silver train, although that was just passing through. 
Isthmus, not peninsula. It’s connected at both ends. 
It would have been pretty difficult to have been more ambitious than Columbus, who insisted on having the title of Admiral of the Ocean Sea bestowed on him and who wanted to rule the territories he discovered as his personal fiefdom. (Once the Spanish crown figured out how big it actually was they soon pulled the reins in.) As I said in post 9, it was avarice rather than lack of ambition that led to Columbus’s failure to discover the Pacific.
I don’t see “Faro” in Christopher Columbus - Wikipedia, which is edited several times daily.
How about Faroe Islands - Wikipedia (edited less often), “roughly equidistant between Iceland, Scotland, and Norway.”
Reference to Iceland and the Faroe Islands was in the Galway citation in wiki. The only way I knew about it was after stumbling across the monument in Galway. And by the way that was a literal stumble.
Righto. Just to reinforce the point, allow me to cannibalize an old post of mine:
So if it was indeed possible to just sail 3000 miles west, buy spices etc. and then sail back, after a few trips Columbus would have made enough money to build a Scrooge McDuck-style treasure room in his palace and employ the crowned heads of Europe to clean his diamond-studded chamberpots. Unfortunately, there was a dirty great continent and an even bigger ocean that he had failed to account for.
Pretty much, although I don’t think he would have done so quite directly Don’t forget also buying himself a Pope, that was also in fashion in those days…
…all my readings give me a sense that in some aspects CC held on to a still-medieval mindset, what with all his demands for ennoblement of his name and actual, rather than merely honorary, feudal lordship over the lands discovered (I have this feeling that Isabel and Fernando intended to give him a reality check about THAT bit right from the start); quite likely he may have thought that as the most wealthy and powerful “noble lord”, he would become someone of whom even crowned heads would have to be mindful AND someone who could literally lord it over other self-made commoners.
This was based on very sound precedent however. The Reconquista had been carried out in that very way. It tended to be a blend of private and government enterprise, with the nobility, new and old, gaining very substantial rights to the lands they helped conquer. One of the reasons the North African advances languished was due to the fact that there was a lot less material wealth to be gained by individual military entrepeneurs in NA than there had been in Andalusia.
Colombus simply had the misfortune to be dealing with Ferdinand and Isabella, two relentless centralizers at that very moment trying ( with some success ) to reclaim old crown lands from the nobility. As an outside contractor ( essentially ) F & I were not inclined to grant him the vast latitude that had been traditionally been meted out to the Spanish nobility. At that they prevented interested private investors like the duke of Medinaceli from participating, to prevent the kind of legal claims that might ensue.
As it was Colombus did get some pretty big concessions, most famously a right to 10% of all merchandise he discovered and a hereditary admiralship.