How do I turn of "auto-echo" in bash when I 'cd'?

The shell auto-echoes because CDPATH is defined as an environment variable. If you UNSET CDPATH the default cd behavior will appear again.

The above answer suggesting to unset CDPATH is probably the best. However, if you want CDPATH to remain active while cd-ing you can also use in your scripts something like:

cd /path/to/wherever > /dev/null

Another option is to more permanently override the builtin cd with a bash function. I've found something like this effective when placed in your ~/.profile (or similar) file:

function cd() {
    if [ -z "$*" ]; then 
        destination=~
    else
        destination=$*
    fi
    builtin cd "${destination}" >/dev/null && ls
}

• This preserves the use of cd without arguments to return to your home directory.
• The >/dev/null is responsible for swallowing the folder name being echoed. (That echoing of the folder name is what breaks scripts that use FOO=$(cd $SOMEVAR && pwd) to save a full path to a variable.)
• And finally; as written this function performs an automatic ls after changing directories. (Remove the && ls to stop that.)