Sychar is thought to be about eight miles from Samaria. The modern translations tend to translate this verse in a very matter of fact way, as though there is a mere geographical necessity.
An example of this type of translation is the ESV, the English Standard Version, which says, ‘and he had to go through Samaria.’ The ESV is very largely taken from the defunct RSV, Revised Standard Version, carried out in the late 1940s and into the 1950s. Actually it is a very fine rendering into English though it is done by Americans, but the translators of the RSV were mainly theological liberals, who did not expect much from the Bible, or from the apostle John in John’s Gospel. They were not people with a passion for the Bible. They may have been great linguists, lexicologists, but they were not people with a passion for Scripture. They did not follow its arguments and love it and seek above all to honour it. They translate as academics, and so they frequently miss the argument, and go off track. It is not a brilliant translation even if it is beautifully rendered into English. When you are looking at the ESV, you are really looking at the old RSV, and you are better off, even if you find it old fashioned, with the King James Version, and here is a case in point.