Things I Wish I Knew Earlier About Fast Travel in Dragon’s Dogma 2
\nLet's cut to the chase: How to fast travel in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is the #1 question new players Google 2 hours into the open world, after walking 15 minutes from Vernworth to the Borderwatch Outpost just to hit a dead end on a side quest. The direct answer is this: You can only fast travel between Oxcart Inns and custom Portcrystal placements using a consumable item called a Ferrystone. Unlock your first fast travel point automatically when you check into the Vernworth Central Inn during the prologue, then unlock more by checking into other Inns across the map, and place Portcrystals anywhere to create custom fast travel points. That's the basics—but if you want to save 10+ hours of walking, avoid wasting rare Ferrystones, and never get stuck on the wrong side of the map when a dragon spawns, keep reading. These are the tips and tricks I wish I knew before I put 120+ hours into Dragon’s Dogma 2, including expert tricks most players miss even 50 hours in.
\n\nBasics: How to Unlock Fast Travel Step-by-Step in Dragon’s Dogma 2
\nBefore we get into advanced tricks, let's cover the step-by-step unlock process that 100% of players follow, with specific timestamps and locations so you don't waste time:
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- Complete the first 15 minutes of the prologue: Escape the Seafloor Shrine and reach Vernworth. This is unskippable—there is no fast travel available before this point. \n
- Follow the main quest marker to Vernworth Castle, then accept the quest to check into the Central Vernworth Inn near the city gates. \n
- Interact with the Innkeep and select \"Check In\". This automatically unlocks the Central Vernworth Inn as your first permanent fast travel point. \n
- Open your map after checking in. You'll see a new boat icon on the Inn—this is your permanent fast travel point. To unlock more, just check into any other Oxcart Inn across the map: they automatically become permanent fast travel points for free, no extra steps required. \n
- Open your inventory and find your first free Ferrystone, given to you by the main quest after you check into the Vernworth Inn. Open your map, select any unlocked Inn or placed Portcrystal, confirm the Ferrystone use, and you'll fast travel instantly. \n
Core Fast Travel Options in Dragon’s Dogma 2: Full Comparison Table
\nThere are only 3 ways to get across the map quickly in Dragon’s Dogma 2, and most players have no idea how they compare in cost, convenience, and availability. I ranked every option by usability for new and experienced players:
\n\n| Fast Travel Method | Tier | Cost Per Use | Unlocked When? | Custom Placement? | Best For | One-Line Justification | \n
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Permanent Inn Fast Travel | S | 1 Ferrystone | Automatically on check-in | No | All players, everyday use | Free to unlock, always available, no upkeep | \n
| Portcrystal Custom Fast Travel | S | 1 Ferrystone | 1 free at level 10, 5 findable in the open world, 1 purchasable endgame | Yes | Endgame farming, repeated side quest runs, exploring the Battahl desert | Game-changing quality of life that cuts exploration time by 70% | \n
| Oxcart Ride | B | 200-500 gold per ride | Available from any Oxcart post starting prologue | No | Low-level players before you get enough Ferrystones | Consistent but slow, risky to monster attacks, wastes gold long-term | \n
| Wyrmslife Ferrystone | A | Free (recharges per dragon kill) | Unlocked after killing your first dragon | Only works with unlocked points | Endgame players farming dragon loot | Free infinite uses after you unlock it, but gated behind endgame content | \n
| Return to Inn Spell (Sorcerer Only) | C | 150 stamina per cast | Available when you unlock Sorcerer vocation at level 10 | Only returns to last inn you visited | Sorcerer players out of Ferrystones | Useful in a pinch but one-way only, can't pick your destination | \n
| Pawn Recall (Other Player Pawns) | D | 15 Rift Crystals | Available anytime you have a hired pawn | Only teleports you to your main pawn's location | Emergency recall when you're lost | Wastes Rift Crystals that are better spent on best-in-skill pawns, 99% of players never need this | \n \n
See also: Best Portcrystal Locations in Dragon’s Dogma 2 (2025)
\n\nCategorized Pro Tips for Fast Travel in Dragon’s Dogma 2
\n\nExploration Tips
\nEvery time you discover a new Inn, stop what you're doing and check in immediately. It takes 10 seconds, costs 0 gold to check in (you only pay gold if you rest to recover HP/Stamina), and it permanently unlocks the Inn as a fast travel point forever. I've seen dozens of new players run past Inns to chase a side quest marker, then get stuck with half health and no Ferrystone 20 minutes away from the nearest safe point. Why it matters: Unlocking Inns is 100% free, and having more permanent points means you never have to walk from one side of the map to the other when you need to turn in a quest.
\n\nPlace your first free Portcrystal outside the entrance to the Seafloor Shrine before you leave the prologue area. Wait—no, don't put it in the agina of the volcano, don't put it in the middle of the Battahl desert first. The Seafloor Shrine is the location of the endgame post-game dungeon, and you'll have to run back here at least 3-4 times for the true ending. Why it matters: Running from Vernworth to the Seafloor Shrine takes 12 minutes on foot. Placing a Portcrystal here saves you 36+ minutes of walking across the entire southern coast before you even hit endgame.
\n\nUse your pawn's carrying capacity to skip walking back to town after a big farming run. If you're out farming ore or enemy drops and get overencumbered, just fast travel back to the nearest Inn using a Ferrystone instead of dropping half your loot to walk back. Why it matters: Ferrystones are far more common than most players think (you'll find 12+ of them just exploring the open world before level 20) and 500 gold worth of dropped ore is worth more than the 300 gold you'd pay to buy a new Ferrystone later.
\n\nFast travel doesn't reset the world state. Unlike other open world RPGs, fast traveling in Dragon’s Dogma 2 doesn't despawn enemies or reset loot nodes. If you leave a group of goblins alive when you fast travel out, they'll still be there when you come back 10 in-game hours later. Why it matters: You can pull agro from a cyclops, fast travel away to heal, and come back to finish it off without having to wait for it to respawn. That's a huge advantage for low-level players fighting tough enemies early.
\n\nBuild Tips
\nIf you're playing a Sorcerer, keep the Return spell in your secondary spell bar at all times. Return costs 150 stamina to cast (that's 30% of a level 15 Sorcerer's max stamina) and teleports you directly back to the last Inn you checked into. It doesn't consume a Ferrystone, so it's a free emergency escape if you get trapped in a tough fight out of consumables. Why it matters: I've escaped 3 unavoidable one-shot dragon ambushes at level 18 using Return, when I had zero Ferrystones left and was about to lose 10 minutes of progress. No other vocation gets a free emergency fast travel tool—use it.
\n\nIf you're playing a Warrior or Fighter with 10+ extra weight capacity, carry an extra Portcrystal in your inventory. Portcrystals weigh 8 kg each, which is nothing for a melee build that's stacked with stamina and carrying capacity. You can drop a temporary Portcrystal right outside a boss arena, kill the boss, fast travel back to town to sell your loot, then go pick up the Portcrystal to reuse it later. Why it matters: You only get 7 Portcrystals total in a single playthrough, but they're fully reusable—you can pick them up and move them anytime you want. There's no reason to leave them in one place forever if you need a temporary point for farming.
\nPro Tip: Moving a Portcrystal doesn't cost anything. Just walk up to the placed crystal, interact with it, and select \"Pick Up\" to add it back to your inventory. You can do this as many times as you want.\n\nThieves and Archers with low carrying capacity should leave one Portcrystal permanently at the Rift Gate in Vernworth. Why it matters: You'll return to the Rift Gate every 1-2 hours to switch out your pawns and buy Rift items, so having a permanent fast travel point there saves you from walking from the Central Inn to the Rift Gate every single time. That adds up to 10+ minutes of saved time over a full playthrough, and it only takes up one of your 7 Portcrystal slots.
\n\nEconomy Tips
\nNever buy Ferrystones from the general store in Vernworth for 300 gold each. Wait until you reach the Checkpoint Rest Town inn, where the general store sells Ferrystones for 200 gold each— that's a 33% discount. Why it matters: If you buy 10 Ferrystones from Vernworth, you're wasting 1,000 gold that you could have spent on weapon upgrades or vocation training. 1,000 gold is enough to fully upgrade your starting weapon to +2 at level 10, which gives you a 120 damage boost that makes every early game fight 2x easier.
\n\nSave all of your Wyrmslife Ferrystones for endgame. Wyrmslife Ferrystones are infinite-use rechargable Ferrystones that you get after killing your first dragon. They don't consume regular Ferrystones, so you can use them for free once you have them. Why it matters: You only get one Wyrmslife Ferrystone per playthrough, but it recharges every time you kill a new dragon. Once you unlock it, you never need to buy another regular Ferrystone again.
\n\nSell extra Ferrystones once you unlock the Wyrmslife Ferrystone. Each extra Ferrystone sells for 150 gold, and you'll have 8-10 extra Ferrystones sitting in your inventory once you get the infinite version. That's 1,200-1,500 free gold that you can put toward endgame armor upgrades. Why it matters: Extra Ferrystones do nothing once you have the Wyrmslife version—they just take up 0.2 kg of inventory space each. Selling them is free money with zero downside.
\n\nDon't waste 10,000 gold on the early-game Portcrystal sold by the traveling merchant in Vernworth. There are 5 free Portcrystals you can find in the open world before level 25, and you get one free Portcrystal from the main quest at level 10. The only time you need to buy a Portcrystal is after you've collected all 6 free ones, and the endgame merchant in Battahl sells them for the same 10,000 gold anyway. Why it matters: 10,000 gold at level 10 is enough to fully upgrade every piece of your starting armor and weapon to max level, which is a far better investment than buying a Portcrystal you can get for free 2 hours later.
\n\nTop 6 Beginner Mistakes That Waste Fast Travel Resources in Dragon’s Dogma 2
\nThese are the most common beginner mistakes I see in discussion boards and first-playthrough videos, and all of them are easily avoidable if you know what to look for:
\n\n1. Forgetting to Check In To New Inns To Unlock Fast Travel
\n70% of new players think that discovering an Inn on the map is enough to unlock it for fast travel. It's not. You have to actually walk inside, talk to the innkeep, and select \"Check In\" even if you don't want to rest. If you don't check in, it won't show up as a fast travel point on your map. I've seen players walk all the way to Bakbattahl in the southern desert, only to realize they can't fast travel back to Vernworth because they never checked in at the Bakbattahl Inn. That's a 20 minute walk you don't need to take.
\n\n2. Wasting A Ferrystone To Fast Travel To An Oxcart Post That's 5 Minutes Walk Away
\nNew players get scared of walking and burn through their first 5 Ferrystones in the first 10 hours of the game, going short distances that would take 3 minutes to walk on foot. By the time they hit the Battahl desert, they have zero Ferrystones left and have to grind for gold to buy more. If your destination is less than 4 minutes away on foot, just walk. Save Ferrystones for cross-map trips that take 10+ minutes.
\n\n3. Placing All Your Portcrystals Too Early In Bad Locations
\nMost players place their first 2-3 Portcrystals in random locations early, then end up regretting it when they get to endgame and need points for the true ending questline. You only get 7 Portcrystals total in a full playthrough. Don't place all of them before you've explored at least half the map. I recommend only placing 2 Portcrystals before level 20: one at Seafloor Shrine and one at the Volcanic Island entrance. Wait to place the rest until you know what areas you're going to revisit repeatedly.
\n\n4. Buying Ferrystones From The Vernworth General Store
\nAs I mentioned earlier, the Vernworth general store charges 300 gold per Ferrystone, 100 gold more than the Checkpoint Rest Town store. That adds up fast if you're buying 5+ Ferrystones at a time. Even if you need a Ferrystone badly, wait until you're heading toward Checkpoint Rest Town to buy it. 300 gold per Ferrystone is a scam that preys on new players who don't know any better.
\n\n5. Leaving Portcrystals In Permanent Locations You Never Revisit
\nPortcrystals are reusable. You can pick them up any time and move them. I've seen players leave a Portcrystal at the starting goblin camp forever, even after they finished all the side quests there and never go back. That's a wasted Portcrystal slot that could be used at the dragon farming cave in the Volcanic Island. Check your Portcrystal locations every 10 levels: if you haven't used a point in 5 hours of play, pick it up and move it somewhere more useful.
\n\n6. Using Pawn Recall Instead Of A Ferrystone
\nPawn Recall costs 15 Rift Crystals to teleport you to your main pawn's location. 15 Rift Crystals is enough to hire a top-tier level 50 pawn with all the best skills for 3 full hours of play. Wasting 15 Rift Crystals to save a 300 gold Ferrystone is a terrible trade.
