Fast Travel (Skyrim)

Fast Travel is a method of travel in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It is a way of quickly "teleporting" to any previously discovered location. The travel takes place almost instantaneously in real world time through a Loading Screen, but in game time will still pass by as if the character had "walked" there. This allows the player to save time when progressing through quests or to reach specific locations.

It should be noted that when using Fast Travel, the time advanced may be longer than the time it would have taken to "run" the character from point A to point B. This is more likely when using Fast Travel to move to places close to the starting point.

Fast Travel can be done via World Map or Carriages stationed near the main gate of many cities. Fast Traveling via World Map is free, but can only be done after the player has discovered a location. Fast Traveling via Carriage is limited to major cities, regardless if the player has visited them yet, with a fee relative to distance and the size of the destination city. (for example it costs more to travel from Whiterun to Dawnstar than from Windhelm to Solitude even though the distance between Windhelm and Solitude is greater)

Conditions
The player cannot Fast Travel while in any of the following conditions:
 * While taking Health damage ( Poison )
 * While being pursued by Guards
 * While being pursued by enemies
 * While being too close to enemies
 * While falling
 * While jumping
 * While indoors
 * While overburdened (carrying too much weight) on foot

While overburdened
The player can Fast Travel while overburdened given one of the following conditions is met:
 * While on horseback
 * While on effect of Fortify Carry Weight Potion. The effect of the potion must be strong enough. There is no limit on Fast Travel distance while on Fortify Carry Weight effect. However, the effect of the potion immediately wears off after the arrival causing the player to be overburdened again.

Time between destinations
Approximate time to travel between major cities/holds, in Game Hours.

Trivia

 * The amount of armor a player is wearing affects how much time passes during Fast Travel.
 * Fast Traveling while on foot/horseback takes the same speed. The only difference will be how the player arrives: on foot next to the horse, or on horseback.
 * Any positive or negative effects the player had will still progress during Fast Travel.
 * It is recommended to do more walking in the first parts of the game. Not only will the player encounter enemies that help level up, more locations on the map, that can be Fast Traveled to later on, can be found.

Bugs
Fast Travel (Skyrim)
 * Fast Traveling with Followers to Northern cities like Windhelm or the College of Winterhold can potentially trigger a sliding effect on arrival. Normally, this effect is not critical; however, it is possible to sometimes slide for a very long distance off of a cliff, potentially ending the player&apos;s life.
 * If the player clicks "fast travel" on any location and immediately presses the back button, the player will not fast travel, the game will become unpaused, the player will be unable to open the character menu, the player will be able to open the pause menu, but the player will only be allowed to save their game, not load it. The "quit game" option is available however, allowing the player to perform a more time consuming reload of the game by saving and exiting the game. Reloading the game WILL fix this, however it is very annoying.
 * When you have arrived at a location to which you have just fast travelled, random creatures can spawn in front of the Dragonborn. For example, a non-hostile bandit marauder might spawn every time the player fast-travels, who they can talk to, but who will become hostile if attacked by the player. Some that spawn will be hostile, occasionally bandits or draugr, and, if the Dragonborn is unlucky, both.
 * After you have waited in a location for a long time (2 or 3 weeks), or played multiple other characters before returning to play as the affected character, fast traveling to a location might spawn enemies that you have made to be thralls (or raised as zombies) in the past; upon arriving to the location. They will attack each other, unless they are in the same faction. (Only bandits, or only spiders)
 * Fast traveling to certain locations will cause the game to freeze upon loading. This glitch is possibly due to the game being unable to render the location you fast traveled to correctly. It also may have to do with the auto-save function while the area has loaded. Disabling auto-save before fast traveling is a possible remedy.
 * Solution: Manually shut down the PS3 as any attempt to open the PS3 menu will result in the loading circles on every option and they will never load.