How to fast travel in Red Dead Online

Almost a month after the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, Red Dead Online is now available in beta form. That’s the good news. The bad news? The release is staggered – but you can find out more about that in our Red Dead Online release date explainer. Once you do get online, you’ll quickly realise that certain features aren’t present, trains included. So, how do you fast travel in the vast world of Red Dead Online?

Despite it not being explained in the tutorial to the online game mode, there are two ways to fast travel in Red Dead Online. Here’s how.

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Stagecoach

While trains aren’t present in Red Dead Online, you can still use stagecoaches to quickly travel around the huge map. The prices are a little cheaper than in Red Dead Redemption 2, making it a little easier to meet up with your Posse if they’re on the other side of the map. To use a stagecoach, head to the nearest icon that looks like a signpost and interact with the broken down wheel with a skull on it. 

You’ll be taken to a menu full of places to fast travel to, with only one exception – your camp. We’ll explain why below.

Main menu

Another way to fast travel in Red Dead Online is, surprisingly, to use the main menu. This is quite a difference from the true-to-life fast travel options present in Red Dead Redemption 2, which force you to take a train or stagecoach to fast-travel around the huge open world.

It’s not as simple as the main game though. You can access the main menu, head to Online and select one of the free-roam options to fast travel across the map, from the snowy mountaintops of Ambarino to the swamps and bayous of Lemoyne – but there are a few conditions.

The first is that you can’t select a specific location within a region, only the region itself, and secondly, fast travelling will remove you from your current game lobby. We’re not sure if the latter is a glitch (the game is in beta form at the moment, of course) so we’ll keep our eye on it over the coming days for any changes.

From camp

While Red Dead Online steps away from using the likes of trains for fast travel online, you can still fast travel to and from your camp. But, with many elements of Red Dead Online, you have to be a certain rank to unlock it. That rank? 65, so you’ll have to make do without it for quite some time and appreciate the intricacy of the open world that Rockstar has created.

Once you do hit Rank 65, simply head back to your camp and approach good ol’ Cripps.

From the Wilderness Outfitters menu, select Camp, and then select Equipment.

From here, you’ll be able to unlock a fast travel station at your camp, allowing you to instantly travel to a variety of locations – both towns and other points of interest – in the online world. It’s worth bearing in mind that like with the main game, this is one-way, and you’ll have to factor in the journey back to camp when contemplating travelling long distances.

Oh, and you won’t be able to fast travel to your camp from a stagecoach until you unlock the fast travel point, so don’t assume you’ll get a stagecoach home from your long travels. 

It’s a much better way to get around the map when opposed to the main menu system, but you’ve got to work for it first.