I have still not been able to reach a working solution to this problem
when there is a <travel1> tag in between other <travel1> tags that
have location in them. I want this <travel1> tag to be counted in
sequence witht them. As suggested by you, I did use

<xsl:number from="/" count="travel1[not(location)
or location/time=$time and location/place=$place] format="1"/> and
<xsl:number from="/" count="travel1[not(.//location)
or .//location/time=$time and .//location/place=$place] format="1"/>

The change is in the XPath. Still, I cannot count these tags in
sequence. The <travel1> tag without the cndition gets counted as '1"
and not in sequence with the other tags.

Can you please tell me where I am going wrong here. What is wrong
/differnce int he XPATH when I say location or .//location? Does
.//location count from the parent element?

you have only changed one of your xsl:number