How to teleport and fast travel in FFXIV

The world of Final Fantasy 14 is large and grows with each expansion. When you first start the game, you’ll have to travel on foot until you finally figure out how to get a mount like a chocobo. Thankfully as you run across Eorzea, you’ll encounter large and small crystals called Aetherytes. You can use these blue gems to teleport across the world.

In this FFXIV guide, we’ll explain how to fast travel. We’ll teach you about the different ways you can teleport in the game using Aetherytes. This guide will also detail the difference between teleporting across the world and between areas in cities.

How to fast travel in FFXIV

If you want to fast travel in FFXIV, you’ll have to find an area’s Aetheryte first. You’ll have to do a lot of walking around until you encounter new Aetherytes, but you’ll be able to see them on your map.

Whenever you run into a new Aetheryte, select it and interact with it. You will automatically begin attuning to it.

Once attuned, you can select an Aetheryte from your map screen and teleport to it. You’ll pay a distance-based fee, which changes based on on how far you travel away from your current location.

Image: Square Enix via Polygon

After you confirm your destination, you will pay the fee and cast a Teleport spell. After a short cast time, you’ll flash over to your selected destination. Teleport does not have a cool down time like Return, so as long as you have money, you can teleport to Aetherytes freely.

You can set any large Aetheryte as your “home point,” which teleports you there for free when you use the Return command. At any time when you’re not in combat, you can use Return to automatically teleport back to the large Aetheryte at your home base. In a dungeon, Return will bring you back to starting location of the quest.

Return has a 15-minute cooldown time, so keep that in mind when using it.

If you die in the world (not in dungeons or instanced content), you’ll revive back at your home point, so keep that in mind, too.

Fast travel in cities using Aethernet

To fast travel via a city’s Aethernet, you must first attune to at least two Aetherytes in the area. Interact with any of the Aetherytes (shards or the main one) to teleport to another one for free. If you’ve attuned to all of the Aethernet Shards, you can also teleport to the entrances of the cities, allowing you to quickly leave to the outside zones.

Image: Square Enix

How to fast travel for cheaper

Teleporting can get expensive fast, with some of the later areas costing over 1,000 gil per go. You can set up to three locations as a “favored destination,” which reduce the cost to teleport to them by half.

If you set up a one-time password with your Square Enix account, you’ll also be allowed to register a “security token free destination,” which as the name states, lets you teleport there for free. Interact with your Aetheryte of choice to set it as one of these favored points.

You can also use the company action “Reduced Rates” to discount the teleport cost even further, if you’re in a Free Company. You can also buy Aetheryte Tickets, which allow you to teleport for free, in exchange for Allied Seals at your Grand Company’s base from the Hunt Billmaster.

That said, as you progress through the main scenario quest, you should consider setting that areas you have to travel to frequently as your home point or as a favored destination to save some gil.

Once you’ve travel across most of Eorzea on foot — or via a chocobo or another mount — you’ll eventually connect to more Aetherytes. At the beginning of the game, you’ll do a lot of slow traversing over the same environments, but over time, you’ll be zipping across the map. After you unlock how to fly, traveling becomes even faster.